Today is my daughter's birthday! Three years ago today we were blessed with a very special gift from God.
As I look back, maybe the challenges we faced in my pregnancy with S were to get me ready for what I am facing today. For those of you who don't know, we found out when I was pregnant that S was going to be born with some type of cleft lip/palate. They noticed some "off" markings on some of my blood work. So the doctor sent me to Magee Women's Hospital to have some extensive ultrasounds. After several long ultrasounds, part 3D, they told us that she would have some type of cleft.
What a blessing to know this issue in advance. We were able to research and prepare (somewhat) before she was even born.
S's cleft lip was unilateral incomplete...which meant that the cleft was only on one side and it did not extend up to the nose. Another blessing!
She had her cleft repaired on April 1, 2009, when she was only 4 months old. Looking back, I didn't handle that situation near as well as I handled P's. (Maybe because she was so small.) I remember I didn't eat all day, I was a nervous wreck! Seeing her in the recovery room was really rough. We couldn't believe how much she looked like her brother! She looked so different. Her surgeon, Dr. Jiang, was AWESOME! Yet...another blessing! (We have been so blessed with wonderful doctors!)
She had to wear "no-no's" (like casts) on her arms for two weeks, so she couldn't bend her arm to touch her mouth. We had to clean and change dressings and bandages and massage her lip. I was nursing so I had to pump and give S a bottle. Those two weeks were tough. I wanted to hug Dr. Jiang when he said we could return to life as normal.
In our follow up appointments, Dr. Jiang was very pleased with her progress. We were too! We were amazed at the transformation!
We did notice some speech delays over time, however. We first noticed that she wasn't saying momma or dadda or even babbling. We expressed our concerns to our pediatrician and they suggested a program called Early Intervention. In a short amount of time, we had a speech therapist coming to our home and working with Sadie. Miss Chrissy worked on getting S to talk more...and eventually we saw progress! It was slow going for awhile, but S does everything in her own time frame.
This past Friday, we said goodbye to S's speech therapist, Miss Chrissy. When S turned 3, we had to transition from Early Intervention to the Intermediate Unit. She will be meeting her new speech therapist next week. S may see this new experience as a challenge, because they will be working more on articulation, which she really needs at this stage.
S is definitely our ornery child. Everyone says you can see it on her face. I always say it's a good thing she's so cute...
What did S want for her birthday? A hot dog. She thinks that's funny. If you ask her what she wants for Christmas, she says the same thing. So guess what? We had hot dogs for dinner. And CAKE! (as our night time snack...P's first piece of cake after diagnosis!)
Looking forward to what the next year brings...
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