James 2.0

Introducing......the new James. After twelve very long days, James got the retainers out of his nose, and we were finally able to see the full effect of his surgery. His lip looks amazing. I was shocked by how quickly it healed. These pictures were taken almost a week ago, and he has healed even more since then. Dr. Matthews said that things will continue to change over the next year, so we won't know exactly how everything will turn out until then. Whatever the end result, we are more than pleased. Dr. Matthews is truly an amazing doctor. Everything we heard was true, and I'm so glad we found him. He may be a little quirky, but he really loves the kids and you can just tell that is why he does what he does. He still intimidates the heck out of me, and I've learned to not really ask questions for fear of getting either 1) much more confused than I already was, 2) a lecture about the many problems with my diet, 3) a stare of utter disgust for my pure stupidity, or a combination of all three. So rather than feel like we understood exactly what to expect during and after the surgery, Jim and I just had to put all our faith and trust in Dr. Matthews. It certainly paid off because, he sure knows what he's talking, or in his case, not talking, about!


Jim's previous post really summed up the whole surgery experience, so there's really not much to add. The only thing I'll say is that it was alot more difficult and emotional that I thought it would be. Everyone kept telling me how resilient babies are, and how quickly he would bounce back, etc., etc. And that is all true, but I don't think anyone can really prepare you for seeing your baby in the recovery room hooked up to all kinds of machines and struggling to come out of the anesthesia. At least I wasn't prepared for how hard it was to see James like that. It was a feeling of helplessness like I've never felt before, because there was nothing I could do to make him comfortable. I keep playing that first day and very long night in my head over and over again. I can hear him crying with that horrible hoarse cry from the tube in his throat and see him thrashing in pain, and it just makes me sad. Luckily by early afternoon on the day after, he was nursing again, and we started to see signs of the old James shining through. Then as we were walking through the hospital to take James home after we were discharged, I had a major reality check as I saw all the families who weren't taking their babies home. I hugged James a little tighter that day as we walked through the lobby, because no matter how tough the last 24 hours had been, I knew just how lucky we were that James only had a cleft lip.