As Jaelynn's surgeries begin, I will tell the story here, with pictures. She first saw her surgeon, Dr Beals, on Monday, June 11, 2001. Her surgery to repair her lip was scheduled for Sept 4, 2001, at 9 am.

To the left is the last of my wide smiles on film. It was taken in the morning before we left for surgery.We arrived at the hospital at 0730, since the surgery was originally scheduled for at 0930. She was all smiles and I wondered if I was doing the right thing, causing her the pain of surgery. But we were there and I did go through with it. Surgery actually started at 1000. She was out of surgery at 1200 and I was in the recovery even before the report was given to the recovery room nurse. Jaelynn was still asleep and didn't look like my baby! Her face was so different! The repair looked good, the nasal conformers were so obvious! The pictures below were taken in the recovery room.

After arriving home, Jaelynn stayed asleep for about two more hours and then WOKE UP! She was crawling around the house, pulling up and even smiling (a little tenative smile)! The only hint that she had surgery was the incision line onher lip and her eating. She wouldn't take more than 3 oz and only that every 3-4 hours! She only woke up one time during the night the first night, despite having to sleep in the bouncer seat to keep her off her belly.

By the second morning, She was eating better but still not up to her old self. She was all go, stopping only when mommy tied her down for lip care and nap. She almost turned the bouncer seat over during the nap and mommy called the doctor. It was agreed that she ran more risk of hurting her mouth turning over the bouncer than by sleeping on her tummy and the bouncer was out. She slept from 530 pm til 0530 am that night.

By the morning of day 4 after surgery, she is up and running full steam, with only Motrin for pain. She is eating almost 6 ozs at a time. She has some bruising around her eyes and nose and the incision line is red, but not other problems (except that she seems to be able to get out of the arm restraints at a drop of a hat!) She has a Doctor's appt next week and we will see if he thinks that she is doing as great as Mommy does.
At her doctor's appt, Jae was an "in to it" girl. She was all go and had to be held down for the exam. The doctor took out the nasal conformers (yeah) since they had don their job. Jae didn't even wimper when he cut the stiches. She looks sooo much better with those thinge gone. And she got to lose the arm restrains unit the palate repair, which will be 11/27 (the earliest they can schedule it due to the doctors case load). Check out the photo pages for pictures of Jaelynn after the surgery.