A Big Week

This is a big week for our family. Lillie is scheduled to have her cleft palate surgically repaired on Wednesday. It is the second of probably six surgeries she will have to correct her cleft lip and palate, which is categorized as unilateral (one side) and complete (front to back of the roof of mouth). We have been looking forward to this date as much as you can look forward to something like this.

Luckily, the same plastic surgeon that repaired her cleft lip last August will be doing this procedure, so we have confidence in his skill and expertise. We are still preparing for his less than perky bed-side manner. The man is great at what he does but, warm and fuzzy he’s not. This week he will delicately close the soft palate in order to allow the roof of her mouth to perform its normal functions: preventing food and liquids from going up into the nose; allowing comfortable, natural nose breathing; and encouraging correct tongue habits for speaking, breathing and swallowing.

Of course, we are looking forward to all of this for her and hope it will encourage her development, but it’s also just plain scary to know your baby girl has to have surgery in a few days. Even when you do know the doctor, what he’s going to do and the hospital – down to the best snacks at the gift shop (dark chocolate covered almonds) – the butterflies still take up temporary residence in your stomach.

To make ourselves feel a little better, we make lists (mom) and plan to leave the house extra early to get there on time even with the worst traffic (dad) and call in reinforcements (grandmas). And there we’ll be Wednesday morning, nervously waiting for 2-3 hours, playing Words with Friends on our iPads, eating half way decent cafeteria food and making stupid jokes to keep each other smiling. All while Lillie is the focus of an A-team of medical professionals.

And, if we’re lucky, that is when the hard part really starts – a night or two in the hospital and weeks of recovery when she’ll look a little like a vampire (drooly baby + healing mouth) and will not understand why her arms are restricted with so called “no-no’s” to prevent her from putting her hands (or anything else) in her mouth.

Needless to say, happy thoughts and prayers are welcome. We’ll try to update this post as we go through the week to let everyone know how our fierce princess and not-so-fierce parents are handling things.