Crew Update

[Photo: view of the cleft immediately prior to surgery (you might have to make the photo larger to get a clear view).]

[Photo: me and Crew pre-surgery (with some serious red-eye!)]

[Photo: Crew playing in his crib at the hospital the day after surgery.]

Thank you everyone for your prayers and love and support! Crew is doing great!! The first couple of days were a little rough. He was kept an extra day in the hospital because he couldn't breathe the first night (most likely due to the swelling). He came home wanting just to be cuddled with his pacifier (I couldn't believe he'd want that in his mouth after what they did to him, but apparently he did) and blanket. After a few days of around-the-clock cuddling and pain-killer administration, he is doing great. You can still see stitches but everything is healing nicely. He's mostly his normal, happy self.

Eight weeks post-surgery he'll have a swallowing study done (where they x-ray him while he swallows barium to make sure it goes into his stomach and not his lungs) and his surgeon will also make sure there are no holes left in the cleft. If all goes well, we'll be able to start teaching him to eat! If there are holes, they will be fixed in an out-patient based surgery. After that, the doctors won't need to see him until he's about 2 1/2 and then they'll start evaluating his speech. Sometimes after a cleft palate reconstruction the palate (soft part in the back of your mouth) doesn't move quite as flexibly as it should allowing for proper speech. If he has problems, we'll do speech therapy and sometimes it requires surgery to fix. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there.