Preparing for Surgery

Grace with Snowbaby and the blanket we gave her in China, these will be going to the hospital with us.

I will spend the next 2 days preparing to take Grace to Children's National Medical Center for her palate repair and ear tube insertion. This is a day that I have looked forward to with anticipation and dreaded all at the same time. It is our privilege to meet this need in our precious little girl's life. At the same time, recovery is going to be lengthy and uncomfortable.

A sweet friend is coming tomorrow night to stay with the boys while Joel and I are in DC. Since Grace's surgery will be early on Wednesday, we've elected to stay in DC on Tuesday night. We discovered that Children's has a "hotel" of 30 rooms connected to the hospital where we can stay at a discounted rate and then walk next door to the hospital that morning...what a blessing!

We will not know the time of surgery until the night before. I will try to update the blog once we have a time. Grace will be given a sedative and then she will be given general anesthesia through a mask while I hold her. She will not remember the trip to the O.R. We will be given a pager so that they can update us through surgery and let us know when she is in recovery. The surgeon will meet with us privately to discuss the outcome and then we will go to recovery to be with her when she wakes. We will spend at least one night in the hospital, possible more. They will be looking for markers like her consuming clear liquids and good pain management before discharge. She will be on a liquid diet for a while and will be in arm restraints called "no-nos" to keep her from putting anything in her mouth.

A Peek Inside Her Mouth. (The cleft is from gumline to uvula, all the way through to her nasal cavitiy.)

I think I've stressed about packing for this almost as much as I did for China. Thankfully, I have suggestions from friends who have gone before me on this journey.

We appreciate your prayer for our little girl. She won't understand why this is happening. But, we know it will be a great opportunity for further bonding. Putting your child through pain for their future benefit is one of the most difficult things a parent has to do. I'm so thankful that she won't remember this.

A Favorite Activity~Playing with the Laundry