Hurry up and wait

We have been doing a lot of waiting at doctor's offices since Simon was born. Most of all, we've been waiting to hear when his first surgery will be. And we're still waiting. But today the orthodontist said he's making enough progress that he will recommend to the surgeon that we schedule a date. We still have to wait 2 weeks for the next appointment before we get the date, but it will probably be 4 weeks from now more or less, when he is 12 weeks old.

It's great to feel like we're making progress, and we're very anxious to be done using the NAM (palatal obdurator) which is helping shape his nose and narrow his palate cleft. We were not pleased to hear that after surgery he will have to wear a nasal stent for another 2-3 months to continue shaping the nostril on the cleft side, since that means more devices to clean and more tape on his face, but obviously we want to do everything we can to minimize the need for "nose revision" surgery later on.

At today's visit, we also were able to meet a 16 year old boy who was born with a similar cleft and see what his palate and gumline look like now. He was gracious enough to let us take a look while he was getting his braces adjusted. The palate looks pretty different from a non-cleft palate, but no one is going to be looking at that. The gumline looks great and he seemed like a happy, well-adjusted kid. Then we did our part and went to show off Simon to a couple that had a 9 day old baby so they could see how the NAM looks and how comfortable Simon is wearing it.

Simon was a good sport about all of it, and only cried after an hour when he got hungry.