Worth Pondering

(Cleft lip progression: Sage at a few weeks old, six months old, and 10 months old, a few months after surgery)

Actually, I realized after I finished that last post that I *do* have something to say and that is this: Today my husband was feeding Sage, and he was talking about Sage's past and upcoming surgeries. And he said that we were "un-perfecting what God made perfect." I have to admit that I've thought about that before. Certainly I wouldn't want Sage to go through life feeling Other and ostracized--but I think the way I'm planning to raise him, he probably would anyway. I always did.

I've settled on the conviction that if it were simply cosmetic, I don't think we would've gone through all of it. I think that would send a message that he is unacceptable as he is, which couldn't be further from the truth. But since these things affect his functioning (lip, palate, teeth) I think it's justifiable. I guess that's my little thing about acceptance and what God makes and all of that difficult stuff.

Lip Adhesion: All Gains Erased

Sage's adhesion tore open last night, so we went through all of that for nothing. I called his plastic surgeon this morning and talked to her about the next step. We did know that there was a possibility of it tearing going into it, and Dr. White told us that if that happened, she would recommend another adhesion. When I spoke with her this morning, I told her that although Tom and I knew what her suggestion was, we felt that we'd prefer Sage to have as few procedures as possible, so we'd like to go ahead with the full repair next. The great thing she said was that when she was doing Sage's adhesion, she wished she was doing a complete repair, because there was actually a lot of give in the left side of his lip, so she would've felt comfortable doing the whole thing.

The adhesion is typically to bring the two portions of the lip closer together so the muscle and skin get stretched a bit--then it's not such a struggle stitching them together in the permanent repair. So after he heals up a bit, we're going to schedule the full repair!

My heart just sank this morning when I saw it, because I felt so sad that he'd gone through all that for seemingly nothing. But he's a resilient boy-- he was already smiling on Saturday and he's back to his happy self now.