In Surgery

Elijah's been in surgery since shortly after 9am this morning. He's doing great so far, and we are thankful for the hourly updates from the nurse. It may be another hour or so before he is done. Last night, Nate woke Elijah up at 2am to feed him one more time. When Nate woke him up to feed him, both sides of tapes were off. Nate thought it was Elijah's final middle finger to the tape :) Too bad we have four more months of taping nasal stents ahead... He wasn't allowed to have anything after 3am to eat. We woke him up again at 6:35, and then left for the hospital this morning.

We checked in around 7:30, then Nate, Elijah, and I went back to the pre-op area. The two sets of grandparents had to just wait out by the check-in area for a while.

It was nice because a lot of people Nate works with stopped by and checked in on how we were doing. Some knew we were going to be there, and some were surprised to see us on that side of things. I'm not going to lie, it's been very helpful to have Nate's knowledge of how things work. He gave us the run down last night at dinner about what to expect for today. Elijah did pretty well for not having slept well and not having his breakfast...

...but the closer we got to 9am, the grumpier he got :) We were supposed to keep the NAM plate in until just before they took him back to prep him for the OR, but Elijah decided he was done with it about 45 minutes prior.

We signed several consent forms, talked to the pre-op nurse, the ENT, the anesthesia nurse practitioner, anesthesia attending, anesthesia resident, and anesthesia med student, plastic surgery nurse practitioner, plastic surgery fellow, plastic surgeon (Dr. Flores), and probably more than I can remember. We brought both sets of grandparents back to say goodbye to Elijah briefly. Shortly after 9, the OR nurse came back, and we passed off our little guy to him to take him away. It was hard, but I think at that point, we were just ready to get this thing over with. Here are the last few pictures of Elijah with his cleft lip. Gonna miss that smile, but excited to see his new face.

The nurse just came by and told us that she thinks they will be done in 20-30 more minutes! Crazy. The last almost 5.5 hours have gone by pretty quickly. The grandparents have been enjoying each other's company; Nate has been reading, and I have been immersing myself in reading, some work, and now this. This morning was a little hard, but all in all, God's been generous with his peace. Truly this:

Philippians 4:7 - And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

So thankful! 

The ENT came and talked to us just shortly after we got to the waiting area. His part (putting in ear tubes) was super fast. Elijah had a lot of fluid in his ears, so it's good that they put tubes in so early. The nurse has been by several times like I said (about each hour). She was able to find out that Dr. Flores was able to connect the left side of Elijah's gumline, but not the right. That's completely what we anticipated, so I am thankful he was able to connect at least one side. I don't really know what that will mean for future surgeries, so when I learn more, I will post about that. 

Here are some pictures from the last few days. Time with Grandpa Marty and Grandma Ina:

Awaiting Grandpa Marty's arrival on Saturday. Grandpa Marty loves (actually hates) the Colts.

This happened again

Exercise with Grandpa

I will end with these last few verses which I stumbled on this morning:

Isaiah 26:3-4: You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

I cannot say that I have kept my mind on God or trusted in him well, but if I have at all, it is because God has brought my mind to him and given me more trust in him. But I can say he has given us peace.