PLASTIC SURGERY CONSULT and FIRST LONG CAR RIDE!

     So, yesterday we had our first trip to the Twin Cities to have a consult with Dr. Marie Chistensen who is a Plastic surgeon who specializes in Cleft Lips and Palates and works with the Cleft Team at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. It was also our first long car ride with Miss Sophia. 

     The car ride started out really well, she ate a bit in the AM prior to leaving and as soon as we took off in Duluth she was out, and we were feeling pretty cocky about how well our baby travels that is until we stopped for gas in Cloquet. she woke up and after that was pretty much in and out of crying the rest of the way down to the cities, so about an hour and a half two hours....yeah we spoke too soon! So, we put on a little Cities 97 and just tried to soothe and ignore the best we could :)

     When we got to St. Louis Park, where the clinic is, mom pumped in the parking lot..it was pretty funny...and Sophia laid on Tanner's lap in the back of the car wide awake still. Then we drove about 5 minutes to actually park in the lot of the clinic and she racked out, and stayed racked out the entire MD visit, even with a tongue depressor in her mouth she only fused a little bit! We were shocked! I guess that is what you get when you scream bloody murder for awhile!

      The MD visit went well, put Tanner and Sarah's mind at ease. We look at her cleft and think it is huge, and the MD looks at it and sees a cleft, a big cleft, but nothing she has not seen before. She told us that she will probably have surgery at about 10 months of age, so Merry Chirstmas Sophia mom and dad are getting you a hard and soft palate :) They wait until this time because the ridges that make up her cleft will have dropped down enough to make the closure more successful. She was telling us that when they have done them at 6 months of age the speech results are actually not as good. The main criteria for her prior to having surgery is that the ridges have dropped down enough. There is no weight criteria as there is for kids prior to cleft lip repair. She said as long as she is not a "failure to thrive" kid she doesn't care if she weighs 12 or 20 pounds! She explained the procedure to us and I think I have a picture of the procedure in our slide show, but if not I will post a picture of what will take place in the repair. It will consist of a 2-3 days hospital stay at Children's and the surgery will take between an hour and an hour and a half, depends on if Dr. Chistensen has been in Peru prior to Sophia's surgery or not. She does mission trips down there to repair lips and palates about 2x a year, and if she is just back from the trip she is in a good rhythm and flies through the surgery, if not she takes her time and converses with people and whatnot :) We liked our MD a lot she was very nice and approachable. She also gave us a new bottle to try with Sophia, because she said some parents like this bottle more and some kids do better with the new bottle. So, we are going to try it this weekend. She gave us the bottle after we were telling her about our fun nights we were having right before coming down, no sleep, no eating for Sophia, means no sleep and little eating for mom and dad! 

     Anyways,  we will meet with the Cleft Team at about 6 months of age and we will meet with Dr. Christensen at that time as well and then we will really be in the Team's system as we prepare for surgery. The nice thing about being part of this team as well is that they will monitor Sophia every year or every other year until she has stopped growing. This is nice because it will help put our minds at ease if something comes up in the upcoming years....wow a lot of ups there:) So, we were all in all really happy with our MD visit and what to expect in the future. As I said before we look at her mouth and go WOW! will they really be able to fix that and the MD looks at it and goes, oh yeah we will totally be able to fix that! So, YEAH!! :)

     So, after the appointment we were going to possibly go see Auntie Wendy and Uncle Tim in Victoria, but it had been a long day and rush hour traffic was about to start so we decided to head straight to Brainerd, SORRY TIM AND WENDY!!!! We will make it down there to visit we promise! On the way to Brainerd Sarah drove and Tanner sat in the back with Sophia, and she obviously likes her daddy to sit by her and and her mom's driving more because she pretty much slept hard core until St. Cloud and then even after that she was pretty good all the way to Brainerd! 

     When we got to Brainerd she was obviously showered with affection and made her first Thursday night visit to Matty's, the first of many! She was again showered with affection from her cousins and Aunts, her cousins are excellent with her and love her so much it is just adorable to see them all want to hold her and kiss her and stroke her, even the rough and tumble Alexander gets to be a little softy around Sophia :)

    Well it is bath time, she has to smell good to make her first appearance at Coffee!

More pics to be posted!