what a week!

 

 

We started Sunday with visits from my sis and her family (and my parents again too), it was fun to see the cousins play!

 

Then Monday, it was off to our regular pediatrician.  All in all, Ella screamed pretty much the whole visit once they gave her a finger prick for an anemia test at the beginning all the way through the 5 (yes, 5)  immunizations that came at the end.  Good news, Dr gave her a bill of good health.

 

Moving onto today (wed), we had our initial appointment at the UCD Cleft center which is luckily only about 20 minutes from our house.  I had booked the appt way back in Jan so it just happened to be so soon after returning home.  We had to leave at 7am (which required a friend to come watch the boys and drop them off at preschool at 8:30) and was basically an entire morning of German, Ella & I sitting in an exam room as none less then 10 different practitioners (some in groups) came in to see us and take a look at Ella.  They gave us a list of specialties and names and overall except for one guy (whose name was nowhere and who knows who he was but seemed to know what he was talking about)  then meet after to give recommendations and write up a comprehensive treatment pan.  This is the coolest idea, they I (being efficient by nature, I guess) could have found ways to improve on the process, maybe too much Intel in me :)  But overall, Ella was amazing, of course she cried when people wanted to examine her, but she didn't kick and flail, and even did an age appropriate hearing test in a sound proof room (with Dad of course).  She even gave the cleft program director (who is also going to be her palate surgeon) some crayons and her cup of snacks (she knows who to suck up to and the cool thing was he thought it was cute and went with it).  We were at the clinic from 8-1, and all 3 survived!!!

 

So, important thing is the palate surgery scheduled for 6/21, German will be on leave, my parents will come the night before so we can both take her to the surgery and see her after she gets out.  We haven't gotten the final recommendation report, but all the folks seemed to think she was very bright and would recover and do well with speech therapy after (she said bye and wave to everyone, I think partly because she truly was happy for them to leave).

 

I feel truly blessed to have such an amazing little girl in my life, she amazes me more everyday, though of course still has her moments, but I can't imagine her not being part of our family :)