Post-Op

To all who visit our West Coast forum here, I wanted to let you know on behalf of Megan, Owen, and myself, Owen came through the surgery with success. He is doing well in his own room, and we are actually staying overnight with him. The change in plans came about as a result of the anesthesiologist expressing the practice to keep any infant in overnight for observation under 60 weeks (Owen came in at 53). There was no surgical need to detain him, just the unlikely and highly infrequent heart/respiratory issues that little ones like him may suffer from.

He has now a joined cleft lip, and a stitch in his right nostril that was collapsed due to the previous dysjoined muscle tissue. The notch in his gum will wait until he's older, and there seems to be no outward signs of soft palatial cleft, although the jury is out until he gets into his higher vocal communicatory ages, around kindergarten and first grade.

Sorry if this seems direct and somber; its been a tough day - I think moreso for me than Megan! We both wept when they took him, and I had trouble when he came out while Meg did a little better seeing the glass as half full. You'd think I'd be elated when we knew he was okay, but his screams and sobs will never leave my mind, which in turn made me sob. I couldn't contain myself and wanted to rescue my son from all the pain and struggle. From time to time I weep at the memory (like now), and pray that this is the worst he'll ever endure in life. And to think that others have struggled well beyond a child with a cleft lip, like the woman we met in the waiting room whose son was Owen's age with a heart transplant. This being a daddy thing is much more painful than I've ever thought. . .

For those of you who have prayed and thought of us, we cannot thank you enough. We have been aware of the work of God in our lives over this weekend and today, through your spoken and thought concerns to him on our behalf. Please continue to pray and think of us, his recovery has just begun.

More soon, perhaps when one of us isn't so raw from the experience!