Dollywood Photos April 2008

No Holes!!!!

Not sure how he even could see in there but Dr. Burstein did a peek a boo into Ricky's mouth.
No holes!!! He did tear a stitch out near his uvula. The uvula is the thing-a-ma-gig that hangs down in the back of your mouth. Ricky wasn't born with one so they "re-create" one. Well his is now a little deformed due the losing the stitch but the doc said he could fix at the next surgery.

Yes I said next surgery. We don't know when it will be. It all depends on his speech. We need to get Ricky to start talking now. That way they can evalauate the length of his palate. They might need to lengthen the palate so then he will need surgery sooner than later.

Ricky starts speech therapy next week with a local speech therapist (covered by babies cannot wait program here in Georgia). We are also going to call Scottish Rite and get him started there with Dr. Riski. So we are going to go double dose with him. Hopefully we will see some improvement. Ricky is already doing some L sounds we didn't hear before. He is babbling more so I think we are going to see some improvement with additional help.

Plastic Surgeon Appt Tomorrow

Please say a pray for no holes in the palate. I cannot see any but I'm not the expert and I don't know what I'm looking at.

Ricky is back to normal for the most part. He is a bit clingy and tempermental.
He is finally sleeping through the night again! Hip Hip Horray!!

Three Months With Us

Ricky has been with us for three months. Hard to believe. It seems like a lot longer. Life has definitely changed. Mostly for the better - I still miss the old life but it does give me great joy to see Ricky and Emily interact. Emily having a brother..a sibling... is probably the best thing we did for her. She is growing as a person as she is learning on how to share and adjust to a sibling.

As far as Ricky, I think we may have turned a corner in his recovery. He is now off the codeine (well except for a dose late last night). He is only on Tylenol and his mouth doesn't seem to bothering him as much. He ate 5 mini pancakes for breakfast and had some milk. This was a good breakfast for him. Last night he also ate a good dinner so we are seeing improvement.

Now we just need to work on the sleep AGAIN. Boy, bill and I are both very tired. He is waking up 1-2 times a night. He went to bed around 9:30 pm, woke up at 12:30 am, then again at 6:00 am, then finally for the day at 7:15 am. So he did give us at least several hours in the middle of the night - an improvement. unfortunately for me, I have a hard time falling asleep after being woken up. I didnt get to sleep until almost 2 am.

I will try to post some updated photos later. I have to get them off the camera. Blogger is also having issues uploading photos.

Tough Kiddo

This surgery recovery has been hard. More than what I expected. Ricky was such a go with the flow kind of baby I thought he would go with the flow. Well we got a peek inside of his mouth to see the repair work.

1. His gums - his cleft went to the gum. He had two small gaps on each side of his front teeth. Well now he is sewn up there.

2. Stitches in the middle of his palate.

4. Packing on each side of his mouth. For those who don't know, how they fix the cleft palate is that they basically remove the skin off the palate - what is there basically and they shift it to the middle to close the whole. The sides are left raw since tissue will go back there - they place dissolveable packing there with several stitches.

No wonder why this kiddo is in pain eh? Well Thursday we really hit rock bottom. One word to those who are following with children still needing the repair - STAY ON SCHEDULE. Okay more than one word but stay on schedule with Tylenol with Codeine. We were going with the way Ricky was acting not on schedule. Well he was fine so we didn't give him medicine. Well then it hit him and it took hours, long hours to get him back to feeling okay. We ended up having to syringe force feed fluids into him because he wouldn't eat or drink.

Eating and Drinking really isn't normal. Ricky was a pig about eating. Well he has definitely slowed down. He just have no real interest in eating unless it what his Sissy is eating. Oh yeah, we have gotten his addicted to Diet Coke. He wasn't drinking at all but shown interest in Daddy's coke. So we got desperate. Yes he drank Diet Coke. Now when he sees a can he gets all excited. We are weaning him off.

Ricky has also become the Velcro baby. Those familar with adoption know that sometimes when you get home from China - the baby doesn't want to be put down because he/she is anxiously attached to you. Ricky was never really this way. He liked to be held but was much more independent. Well I think he has finally figured out we are Mommy and Daddy. He is very much a Velcro baby. We are trying to accomodate him but also try to teach him his independence. He does like to sleep on us now - never did before. He also comes for us to comfort - never did before.

Sleep is another issue. Ricky was pretty good about sleep. It did take the first month home to really get him to sleep through the night. Well now we are up 2-3 times a night. We are very very tired. Hopefully this regression will go away as he starts to feel better.

We are home from Surgery

Sorry I couldn't post an update. Childrens Hospital blocks blogspot. I forgot how to email the blog.

The Fast Facts

1. Ricky didn't have anything to eat since 7:30 pm the night before. He did great. Didn't even ask for food. Surgery was scheduled for 9:20.

2. They did take us on time!

3. Surprise to us, they didn't knock him out before taking him away from us. They gave him a sedative but he wasn't knocked out yet. He went with no problems. Mommy cried though.

4. Procedure was done within 1 hour. Wow a quick job! Ear tubes, gum reconstruction and palate repair.

5. Thank god for Childrens Hospital of Atlanta - it was a wonderful experience - well as best as can be expected. They definitely made it easier.

6. 4 hands are better than 2. Bill was going to go home that evening to take care of Emily. Well after reading the Straights blog I told Bill he be better stay. Thank God. Ricky had a tough 2 days. Didn't want to be let down. We always had to hold him even when sleeping.

7. No drinking from Ricky led us to another night in the hospital. On Tuesday he started to eat, I cried. Still no real drinking. We think his gums are bothering him. Dr. visited us and told us we could go in the am if he is eating.

8. Ricky ran laps Tuesday afternoon around the nurses station.

9. Let's pray for a good night of sleep for all - Ricky in crib and Mommy/Daddy in bed.

Surgery on Monday April 14th

Ricky is having surgery on the 14th - not sure of the time yet.


Please think of him on Monday as he goes through this.

Please think of him as he will have a great deal of pain for the first couple of day.

Please think of me as I will need all the patience in the world to get through the next couple of weeks.

I have had a tough couple of months bonding. I think we have started to make some serious improvements in the last week. I hope we continue to strengthen our bond. I hope this surgery doesn't set us back.

Billy Goat

Ricky seems to have taken a liking to leaves. He ate one and got it stuck in his open palate. Yes a leaf.

We didn't know...

He has sinus issues for the past two weeks. We took him to the dr two weeks ago and she gave us some medicine. It was getting better then all of sudden it got worse - cough and fever.

Took him to the pediatrician. She said his nose stunk plus she could see something black. She couldn't get it out.

Off to the ENT.

This was a first for the ENT - they got it out and was very surprised to see a leaf. He goes down in the record books.

Here is a picture of the leaf. We suspect it has been there over a week.