Good-bye Cleft Lip!

Emma Grace had surgery yesterday on her lip. It went very well and we are home resting and recovering. We got to the hospital at 6:00 am and they had her back in surgery at about 7:45. The ENT put tubes in her ears first, which took about 10 minutes. He came out to talk to us and said that her ears were a mess. They were full of fluid and she had a chronic infection in both ears. He said that she had every right to be a cranky girl, but the funny thing is, she is NOT cranky at all! That makes me a little sad because she has lived with chronic pain for so long that she doesn't know any different. To her, that was normal. He said this is a problem that will not go away, so we need to stay on top of these ears! He put short term tubes in to get her through her surgeries (until the palate is repaired.) Once the palate is repaired, the fluid problem should get better and then we can decide whether or not to do long term tubes or another set of short term tubes. Short term fall out in about 8 months and the long term stay in for 1-2 years. However, when the long term falls out you have a greater risk of perforating the ear drum. YIKES.... hopefully the short term will do the trick.

Dr. Chariker was her plastic surgeon and we are so pleased with the work he did on her. It took him about an hour and a half. He lined up her lips perfectly and did not leave too much fatty tissue. He also straightened her nose (it went off the right) and made her left nostril (it was flat) match her right nostril. We are so impressed with the detail he took in lining up her face. I really believe that when this heals, you won't be able to tell she had a cleft lip. He said we will re-evaluate in one year to see if she needs a "clean-up" surgery. I guess he wants the wound to fully heal and her face to grow into it a little bit. We decided to push her palate surgery back until the end of March. We just can't handle that recovery process when we are both working full time. In March I am off for a week for spring break. Overall, Emma has handled the surgery well. She cried a lot (by a lot, I mean non-stop) in the hospital and I thought our chances for going home would be slim. But, I knew that she just hated the hospital and wanted to get out of there. We pleaded our case to the nurse and they let us go home! She slept 10 hours through the night and woke up happy. She had a bottle and ate breakfast- and I am sure she would NOT have been that comfortable in the hospital. I am ready for this wound to heal up- I am super paranoid that the stitches are going to come loose or something is going to happen. Every time she bumps her face I want to cry. The stress in thinking we are going to mess up this surgery is too much for me! She has to sleep with splints on her arm so she doesn't pick her face or suck her thumb. That has been the hardest part. We are supposed to keep them on during the day but I just can't do it. I let her play and crawl around and I just watch her. Our next biggest issue is Timmy the bulldozer. I am so afraid he is going to get hold of that lip and not let go. Here are some before and after pictures.

Surprisingly happy before surgery! She hates hospitals and doctors.

Before they took her back

Right when we got her after surgery. I am so thankful she has a mommy and a daddy to comfort her.

Here is the after picture. You can see that the top lip is lined up perfectly. This isn't the best picture of her nose, but you can see the stitches he put in her left side so that her nostril has the same dimple as the other one. I am excited to see what this will look like when it heals!

We really doubted ourselves about waiting on the surgery when we went to China to pick up Emma Grace. We saw a lot of repaired lips and they all looked pretty good. I thought maybe we were just being selfish. But, after seeing what an amazing job the doctor did and having this type of care we feel so good about our decision! The recovery hasn't been horrible, but it hasn't been fun either. To think of her going through that alone is so sad. I am thankful that we stuck with our gut instinct and waited... and I am thankful that the good people at PHF listened to us and respected our decision!