Phoebe's Surgery

Phoebe has a new look! On March 13th, she went in to have her cleft lip repaired. As I already said, it was a bittersweet day for Jon and I, but overall we are so happy and know that Phoebe is still our same wonderful Phoebe.

The most stressful part of the day was getting to the hospital in time. We left for Seattle Children's Hospital at 5:10 am to get there for Phoebe's 6:30 check-in. When I checked the googlemap on my phone twenty minutes into our drive and it said that, due to a crash, the drive would take 2 hours and 40 minutes, we got a little anxious. But we said a prayer and ended up only being five minutes late.

Phoebe was her normal social butterfly self as we got checked in and met with all the nurses and doctors. I was calm until they took her away...she didn't cry, but I did! But after calming down, Jon and I went out into the main areas in the hospital and waited to see how things turned out.

The nurse in surgery paged us at 10:45 to let us know that everything in surgery was going as planned, and at 11:45 they paged us to let us know that they were done and our doctor was coming out to meet with us. He did, telling us that everything went smoothly, and we expressed our gratitude to him. Shortly afterwards, I went back to the recovery room to feed Phoebe--which they try to do right away to encourage the baby to find comfort in eating rather than in heavy pain medicine--and by one o'clock we went up to join Jon in our hospital room.

You could tell that Phoebe wasn't feeling so well that day. Normally, she wants to see everything and she's never been one for snuggling. That day, however, all she wanted was to be held in my arms, resting her head on my shoulder. She didn't really want anyone but me to hold her, but Dad did a fantastic job at getting her to smile and laugh. Miraculously, the only pain medicine they had her take were Tylenol and ibuprofen, which seemed to get the job done.

The next morning, our old Phoebe was already returning to us. She seemed to be saying: "Get me out of this small hospital room! Let me crawl around! I want to see everyone and do everything!" No more head on the shoulder, and sitting around was boring. Luckily, by this point she was no longer attached to any monitors, so while we waited for things to wrap up, Jon and I walked the halls with her. She loved seeing the murals on the walls and saying hi to the nurses.

We were in the car and on our way by 10:30 that morning! Everyone was more tired than usual, but happy and well.

That was two weeks ago, and Phoebe is healing beautifully! She wasn't taking any medicine by the Saturday after the surgery, and the swelling died down within the first week. Two days ago she got the stents that were placed to help shape her nose removed and the doctors said everything looks fantastic. Phoebe's scar still needs to form a bit more and there's some things they've asked us to do to help with that--like applying gel and doing gentle massages. We'll also be checking in with the hospital about once a year, just to make sure things are going okay and to keep an eye on some things.

We are grateful for all the kind words, thoughts, prayers, and fasts offered on our family's behalf at this time. We have amazing family and friends and were blessed to associate with amazing medical personal throughout this whole adventure (Seattle Children's is fantastic!). And of course, we are blessed to have our wonderful, beautiful Phoebe!

Seattle Children's Hospital

One of the biggest blessings through the adventure of repairing Phoebe's cleft lip was being able to work with Seattle Children's Hospital. I cannot say enough good about them. They have the friendliest receptionists--both over the phone and in person--that I have ever worked with and their medical personnel is top notch. I felt like people actually listened to me when I expressed questions and concerns and that they actually wanted to help me and my daughter. Above all, I can see in the eyes of the nurses and doctors that work there that they are passionate about their work not just because they enjoy the job, but because they care about the patients they work with. 

In a nutshell--this hospital is just full of genuinely good and caring people. Their goodness, paired with the goodness of their line of work, makes it a place where the veil between this world and the next is thin. Phoebe is a lucky girl to have been taken care of at such a special place.

Here's some snapshots of the people we worked with (click on their names):

Our Plastic Surgeon: Raymond W. Tse, MD

Our Pediatrician at Seattle Children's: Emily R. Gallagher, MD, MP

Family Photos

A friend of ours took some family photos for us before Phoebe had her surgery and we're so happy with how they turned out! Now I just have to take the initiative to make sure they end up on our walls...

"You-Isms"

I've said it before--we are more than a little torn that Phoebe will be losing her cleft lip this Tuesday. Yes, come school time it won't be exactly "cool" to be walking around with a cleft, but we've grown very fond of it over the past eight months and part of us is sad to see it go. Things like seeing her projectile food out of that gap in her lip line are rather enduring.

I think that Heavenly Father feels the same way about us and our quirks and imperfections. While His ultimate goal is to help us become perfect, I think that in the meantime, these imperfections make Him smile. I'm not talking about our sins--God is sorrowful when we choose to break His commandments. What I'm talking about are those little tendencies and trademarks that make all of us each a you. Those little "you-isms"--those things make Him smile.

Things like having a cow lick on the front edge of your hairline or talking too fast when you get nervous. Things like being so clumsy you've considered walking around wearing bubble tape or being so tone deaf that you sound worse than nails on a chalkboard. Things like being such a bad cook, you can't even get rice down, or that the Pintrest projects you attempt look more fitted for a kindergarten classroom than a Martha Stewart magazine--all of these things, all of these innocent little imperfections, make Him smile.

So while we hope that these things which make us less than perfect will go away someday, let us not be too hard on ourselves while we live with them in mortality. Just like Phoebe's little cleft lip makes Jon and me smile, each of our "you-isms" make God smile, and with how things in the world are going, He needs something to smile about.

February 2018

Here's a bit of what we were up to in February...

First Row:

• We got together twice with our friend, Cassy, for lunch.
• We hiked Tiger Mountain with my friend, Erika. Phoebe did great the first 5 miles, but protested the last two...
• Jon and I went mountain biking at Swan Creek. It was the first time I've gone in a year and a half and I LOVED it! Plus, the bike Jon got me for my birthday is awesome!

Second Row:

• The family went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the BYU v. Gonzaga basketball game. BYU lost unfortunately, but the food was good and Phoebe loved it (all those TVs and noise, you know?)
• Jon took a day off work and my family came to watch Phoebe so that he and I could go skiing. I learned that I appreciate skiing more than snowboarding, though I still pretty much fell down the mountain the whole way.
• While my parents and Kate were in town to watch Phoebe, Kate got creative and invented the "Swami." #mysisteriscoolerthanyours

Third Row:

• While in town, my dad helped us do a lot around the house. For example, he hung this beautiful shelf he made me for Christmas. He also helped us fix our kitchen light (it needed more than a new light bulb), hang a shelf in Phoebe's room, and hang a plate in our kitchen. Yay for handy/awesome dads!
• Phoebe and I met up our friends--Lui and her daughter, Suri--at a yummy Asian bakery. I love Lui and Suri...we happened to meet each other at a library baby storytime, and since then have become really good friends. Yay for yummy treats and awesome friends!
• It snowed in Tacoma! For a whole week! We almost didn't know what to do with ourselves.

And then because I can't help but make a collage of Phoebe pictures...