Sweet baby girl!

Lauren was born with a cleft in her soft palate. She has no facial deformity or any problem with her hard palate but had a small opening to her nasal cavity. She had a cleft palate repair surgery and tubes put in her ears on Tuesday, January 27th at Loma Linda hospital. This is pre surgery at 5:45 am in the morning. What a cutie pie!

This is prepping for surgery. Everybody kept commenting on what a cutie she was. She looks adorable even in a hospital gown.

When they took Lauren off to surgery I cried. The anesthesiologist carried her off and she didn't even cry or fuss. Her surgery lasted less than 2 hours during which we ate crappy hospital food, listened to an MP3 player and cried and cried and cried. We had a pager which alerted us when surgery started, when it was over, when the plastic surgeon was coming down to talk to us and when we could go up to recovery and be with her. When we got the last page we practically ran up to recovery. Poor baby looked so sad, and lost and confused and in pain when we saw her it was hard not to cry, some more. Her little mouth was all stretched opened and cracked on the sides and her color was bad and of course she was hooked to a million things and I couldn't hold her at first which was really hard. But she was a trooper even then. Eventually they got her a room. I stayed with her Tuesday night. She was fussy which was expected but she could have been worse. She was fine as long as I was up walking around with her and taking her for walks. Good for her but hard for mom as it hit midnight, 1 am, 2 am, etc, etc, etc. We got about 2 1/2 hours of sleep sitting up in a crappy hospital chair. Finally Josh came down in the morning and I got to use the bathroom and stretch. She was doing well when they checked her in the morning and her palate was still intact. They discharged her around 10am which we were all extremely grateful for. We took her home, I got a shower and she got a bath. We both got comfy clothes on and took a nice relaxing nap at home.

This is her at home with her no no's on (arm restraints). Still looking very grumpy but she looks so healthy compared to after surgery. Now hopefully we can get her to take a bottle again, her mouth is still sore and she doesn't want it at the moment. Maybe tonight we can all get some sleep and keep the recovery rolling and smooth. We sure do love our sweet baby girl and are glad her surgery is done and over with!