HAPPY NEW YEAR

Snow Day

We were blessed last night with a huge amount of snow and have really been enjoying it!
Here is James shoveling the lane!! I thought it was so funny that he had the worlds' smallest snow shovel and a huge lane (this is only 1/4 of it) and the guy across the street had a snow blower on his drive way! Don't worry after a couple hours of hard work, a friend from the Church came and plowed it all. Here is Caidy enjoying the beautiful weather, it was only about -2 out and gorgeous!
Another of Caidy, she was only wearing her Robbies because I couldn't find her boots!!
Leah was so excited to make a snow angel, she fell back into the snow and almost was lost in it!! She had so much fun running around and tried so hard to make a snow man, until she figured it was more fun to jump on it!
And of course our Elijah, who has never experienced a cold Saskatchewan winter, who prefers to be warm, and who would rather ride his bike than venture into the cold unknown snow! What a goofy kid!!

Clapping and Cheerios

My Christmas present this year was Caidy learning to clap, it was as if it just clicked and she started clapping away! Also we decided to try cheerios today, seeing as we can't get her too eat too much and she only wants foods with some texture to them. She loved them instantly and in no time was popping them in her mouth with ease! Here is a video to prove it :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Trip to the ER

Poor Caidy woke up tonight with green goo coming out of her right ear :( The little monkey has been so grumpy the past 2 days and I knew something was wrong but wasn't sure what to do about it. I am kicking myself for not taking her in sooner, but hopefully now that we know the problem it won't be long for her to start feeling better. I find it slightly ironic that she has never had an ear infection until the tubes were put in, goes to show you. . . don't fix it unless its broken!! OK well maybe not in this circumstance, but it sure is a little annoying!

Also the Dr checked her palate and said it was looking perfect, which is great news.
Thanks for all your Prayers

Another Caidy Update

It has now been 2 weeks today since Caidys' surgery and she is not quite back to normal, but definitely doing better.

We met with a public health nurse yesterday who weighed Caidy and she is down to 15lbs 12 oz, almost a whole pound since her surgery. I knew she hasn't been eating well, but that really put things into perspective. We are going to meet with Linda once a week until Caidy gets gaining again, which once she figures out a bottle and eating more shouldn't take any time at all.

I talked to Linda about Caidy not wanting anything to do with liquids at all. She won't even take them from a syringe anymore, I think it has to be that there were a couple times we fed her without enough Tylenol in her system! I can't think of another reason she is so completely against them, but we did get a new bottle yesterday, it is called a haberman feeder, this is the only way we can get liquids into her. It allows us to squeeze the tit into her mouth without her having to do too much work, used a lot for preemie babies or those having trouble sucking. The health nurse is allowing us to borrow it for a couple weeks and then if this is how she chooses to eat we will have to get ourselves one. I am not sure but it seems our daughter has very high standards for her bottles, never the cheapest one!

I think all in all she is doing ok. She still wants what she likes and refuses to try anything new at this point, but I will stick with it and hopefully not produce too spoiled of a baby once she is all healed! :)

Thanks again for all your prayers and great advice!

The End??

The past couple days with Caidy have proved to be more of a challenge than I have expected. She hasn't been eating very well which has been so frustrating, you can see she is hungry but I can't seem to find what it is she wants to eat. She has eaten so much milupa, that I am sure she is sick of it, she won't eat my breast milk which is obvious that she needs. There is no consistancy and I am getting worried that she may get dehydrated. Right now she is with James at the table and he is trying the old cleft bottles that you squeeze with a Nuck nipple, which seemed to work for about 1/2 an oz, but now she is crying again. It is as if she gets frustrated along side us because she knows she is hungry but hasn't figured out how to do it yet without her plate in, and we get frustrated, so the whole scene is one of chaos!!

I know there is an end near, I know her mouth will heal and this is just one more thing we have to go through, but man when you are in the middle of it, it sure is hard to put things into perspective.

She is now laughing hysterically at James as he plays 'hide and seek' with her. It amazes me how she can smile while I am in tears! How she can only take a couple tsps of food and be satisfied, how she can care more about playing with a piece of paper than filling her body with the nurishment it needs?

I know God is here, I know he is taking care of her, I know He is taking care of me, I know He can see the end and His timing is perfect. God show me that the end is near, show me that we, as parents, can do all for her that she needs, show me how to feed her all that her little body needs, I pray Father be here.

5 Days Post Op

Caidy has been doing well since we have gotten home from the hospital, she was released 2 days after the surgery and was happy to be home. We were really blessed while we were there as well, the ward that we were supposed to stay on was full, so we were placed on the Oncology ward, which was so nice and quiet. We have our own room, our own washroom, as well as free cable tv!! It was wonderful being on our own schedule and the nurses were so much more laid back, a huge huge blessing!!

Since we have been home she has done fairly well, we had a little trouble with feeding. She really did not want to eat, but has done really well on Malupa (wheat cereal with apples) and breast milk, as well as fruit. We are still working on getting her back on bottles, she wants nothing to do with them at all, we have had to use syringes to at least get milk into her, but now that she is really wanting cereal I am less worried about how much she is getting milk wise.

Also Caidys follow up appts have been going well, the plastic surgeon, who did the palate repair, said unless we were concerned he didn't need to see us until Caidy is 18 months old. That was a blessing because we were concerned about timing and how it would fit in with all the other appts. The other appts went well and actually scheduled earlier than we thought, so on Thursday we are headed back to Grand Forks which will be earlier than expected.

It has been a great last couple days also, we have been running into a couple other cleft affected families and just looking at their wide smiles was great, but it is soooo nice to be on the other side and be finished with all the surgeries and such for a while. Our next appts will be at the end of January and then from there we will meet with the cleft team again when Caidy is 18 months old. So all is well and moving forward!!

Surgery Update

Today was Caidy's surgery. We arrived at the hospital at 11am and her surgery was at 12:30. Caidy was in surgery for 3.5 hours. I (James) was the first to see her, she looked very tired but well. The doctor said that the surgery went really well and she should be feeling better in a couple of days. Jaime and I are thankful for all the people who have been praying for Caidy and us! They are truely felt! Jaime and Caidy will be at the hospital for the next two days! I'll try to post some more updates with pictures later.

The changing smile of Caidy

I really wanted to post pictures showing how much Caidy has changed over the last 9 months. Her surgery is coming up this week and although it won't change her smile, it will once again change her, expecially the sound of her voice!

Caidy on her birth day, March 2nd, weighing 7 lbs 2 oz

Caidy's first Bath, 3 days old.

Caidy sitting with daddy, her cleft was quite large, 13 mm but the next day we learnt how to tape her lip which started shrinking her cleft right away.

This is Caidy when we first got home after learning how to tape her lip. It was so hard for me to do this to her, I knew the results would be great and it was necessary, but at the same time it was really hard to see her little chubby cheeks all squished.

 

The changing smile of Caidy

This is Caidy a week after we initially started taping, the orthodontist attatched a nose stint which would stretch Caidys nostril and help with the closing of her cleft. Once she had the tape and nose stint in for a while she really didn't mind it at all, she actually got to where she preferred to have it all on, almost like she felt more secure with it.
This is Caidy right before her surgery in July. With only 3 months of wearing the tape and plate you can see a HUGE difference in the size of her cleft. Right after Caidy was out of surgery they let me come in and see her. I couldn't believe how beautiful she looked and how she had changed.

The changing smile of Caidy

This is Caidy on July 18th, only a couple weeks after her surgery. It is amazing how quickly she healed and how amazing she looks! Caidy just being her happy silly self!!
The scab that is right under her nose took quite a but longer to heal, James and I were told to massage her lip to prevent it from pulling up and shrinking as it healed. I didn't like the idea of doing it while there was still a scab, so I have to admit I haven't been very disciplined in this. Caidy will now allow us to rub her lip, but after talking to our plastic surgeon he put our minds at ease, telling us that over time the lip will come down. We are still massaging, but I know I need to do it way more often in order to really see results.
This is Caidy the other day playing outside. You can see that her lip has shrunk quite a bit from the scar shrinking, but there is still time to massage and it will also loosen over time. You can also see her 2 teeth on the bottom! This big girl also has 2 teeth on the top, the one close to the cleft has come in quite crooked, but that is something they will fix once her adult teeth start coming in, the bone graph surgery.
Thank you for reminiscing with me over how much Caidy has changed over the past 9 months. We are not looking forward to the surgery this week, but we also know it is mandatory for Caidy and so important for talking and eating. I will try to update when I can after her surgery. Thank you for continuing to pray!