Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

We have quite a few surprises over the past few days. The biggest being how easy everything has gone with Adalynn's lip repair. She has been such a trooper and the whole ordeal has been a lot easier than we ever expected. This was a very pleasant surprise. She is taking it all in stride and is doing so well. The arm restraints don't bother her at all. The written instructions from the plastic surgeon said 5 days, but when he came to see us in the hospital, he said 7 days. I didn't think we would ever make it that long-but she is doing great with them. We did take them off for a little bit longer than normal today and she put her fingers immediately in her mouth. She must still be a little sore, because she poked herself and started to scream right away. We are going to go ahead and leave then on for a few days longer, even though tomorrow is day #8. She does have the coolest arm restraints ever though...mommy's socks (with the feet cut off) are a perfect fit. And you can't get any cooler than pink fuzzy ones, or stripes with stars.

We are also surprised at how amazing she looks. Her full lip is beautiful and Dr. Burstein really did a fantastic job. We can't wait for all the swelling to go down (which can take up to 3 months) and for the crustiness to go away. She still has a lot of dried blood/glue around her nostril, so it makes it hard to see exactly how good she looks. We do notice her nostril is still a little flat and not exactly like the other side, but that is to be expected. Considering that she had a wide open space in her lip almost all the way to her nose and now that is gone...well, it is amazing to say the least. She is still scheduled to have her palate repair in December and will have a nose/lip scar revision surgery sometime before she starts school.

The next surprise was that my dad and his girlfriend came to visit. They arrived (in a rented convertible) on Friday evening and stayed through Sunday afternoon. I couldn't believe that he was able to make it down. The last time he came to Georgia was when Camden was just a couple of months old. 'Papa Hairface' as the boys call him was very excited to see the new addition to our family and her "new face". The boys were really excited for daddy to take them for a ride in Papa's 'cool car'. He loved "talking" to Adalynn and she let him hear it while he was here. She is such a talkative little lady and is really starting to feel and act more like herself.

Well, thanks for checking in on us. You can see, despite the blurriness of the photo, that the smiles are back! She is so happy! Please keep John's family in your prayers this week, his cousin suddenly passed away on Friday. Also continue to pray for Ryan and his mom as they "kick cancer's a**"!!