A Peek Into This Past Week

Look at how well Baby D is sitting up! He’s doing so well with sitting that we can now put him on hard surfaces without worrying about him falling over.

It was cold enough to pull out the coats a few days last week!

We took some pictures in the leaves the day before Baby D’s surgery.

Sweet friends organized a prayer night before Baby D’s surgery. Some came in person and a number of women joined us online on Zoom.

I found these two on the bed the morning of his surgery — cuddling with him and telling him goodbye.

He was SO excited about all of the new cords in pre-op!

These friends came and sat with me while I waited during the surgery. It was such a gift to not be alone!

Thank you so much for praying for Baby D as he went into surgery on Friday to repair his cleft palate. We felt your prayers in such a very real way and felt so carried and loved by you all!

Our boy did SO well! In addition to the cleft palate repair, while he was under, they were also hoping to get some clarity on what we have thought was pretty severe hearing loss. They did a CT scan of his ears, put tubes in his ears, and did an ABR test after the tubes were placed.

To our HUGE surprise, while the CT scan showed abnormalities in his ear bones, the ABR test showed that he was hearing almost normally after the tubes were placed!!!!

I can’t even begin to describe what a shock these results were! We just sat with our jaws dropped open saying, “You’ve got to be kidding me! What on earth?!?” There will still be lots of testing in the future, but we are thrilled for this amazing news of hope!

The first half day of recovery was rough. Baby D was in so much pain, bleeding out of his mouth, writhing, struggling to breathe, and just really scared and upset. He was also still really out of it from the anesthesia. He fought hard — in fact, he even kicked his IV out of his leg and it bled everywhere!

But then, he calmed down, was able to go to sleep, and woke up about 4 hours later in very different spirits. He was babbling a little, interacting, and not at all as anxious and upset.

They were able to take him off supplemental oxygen and he did so well that they ended up letting us go home from the hospital on Saturday — which we totally didn’t expect!!

He is still sleeping more than normal, but in a lot less pain, much more himself, and not needing pain meds as often. We can tell a marked difference from the surgery — he’s able to say more sounds already and he is more alert and interactive with his surroundings (because he can hear now!!)

We’re excited for him to start back to feeding therapy and speech therapy so he can begin to learn how to eat more by mouth and slowly use his g-tube less and less! We’re also excited for him to be able to learn to communicate better now that he can hear better & form sounds better!

Your prayers were a GIFT to our family this past week. THANK YOU!