cleft lip – ryanguard.net

Palate Repair Surgery

We woke up early this morning, grabbed a bucket of coffee from Starbucks, and came to Phoenix Children’s Hospital for Gavin’s palate repair surgery. We were here in August to get his lip repaired, and Dr. Singh did a phenomenal job. We were here a year ago to have Griffin’s kidney repaired, so we’re getting pretty familiar with this place.

Dr. Singh is amazing. She has taken such good care of us and Gavin, and so has Phoenix Children’s… well, except for that cranky chef in the cafeteria. The burger was good, but that dude had a case of the Mondays.

Gavin had some fun in pre-op.

Then he did great during his surgery!

Gavin 5

He’s sleeping right now all snuggled up next to his momma, doped up on some codine. His recovery will take a few weeks.

After his surgery in August he became super attached to his mom. In fact, it wasn’t until last week that I was able to hold him for more than a few minutes without him crying for her. This surgery was more intense for him than the last one, so it might be Easter before I get to snuggle with him… but he’s in good hands 🙂

Gavin’s Big Surgery

Our baby boy Gavin was born with a cleft lip and palate.

His lip was repaired weeks ago, and it went great!

Tomorrow morning we’re taking him to get his palate repaired. People keep asking me how it works, and I seriously have no idea. We’ve heard the doctors explain it, but even after hearing it we have no idea! They did an incredible job with his lip repair, so we’re confident in their abilities for this next step.

The surgery should only take a couple hours, and he’ll have to stay in the hospital for at least one night.

Please pray for him and for us 🙂

Gavin’s First Surgery

Gavin Guard

Gavin’s first surgery is tomorrow!

I wasn’t sure whether to end that sentence with an exclamation point or a period or an ellipsis. There are all sorts of emotions wrapped up in this big day. We’re excited, but the fact that my 3-month-old is getting plastic surgery tomorrow is a bit hard to wrap my mind around.

I’m not as nervous as I thought I’d be, maybe because we’ve already been through a surgery with Griffin. It helps that the surgery is cosmetic, all right there on his face.

We’re waking up at 4am tomorrow and heading to Phoenix Children’s Hospital. The surgery should take a few hours, and if he’s able to hold down milk afterward they should let us go home that night.

We’re super thankful for the advances in technology that make this surgery so effective.

It’s hard to believe that this is our last day seeing this fancy little face!

Can’t wait to see his new smile, but I’m gonna miss this one 🙂

Gavin is here!

Our baby boy is home!

Gavin has been home for two nights now. He’s eating and sleeping really well, although I can’t say the same for his mommy! She’s been really strong this week and I’m so proud of her.

Gavin’s cleft lip makes feeding him a little more challenging than a typical baby, but he’s really getting the hang of it. We were able to get a really good idea of what to expect with his cleft lip and pallet while Lindsay was pregnant, and so far things haven’t been too difficult. The most difficult things when it comes to feeding him is keeping him awake long enough to eat!

He will have plastic surgery in 3 months to repair his lip and nose, and then another surgery at 8 months to repair his pallet. Until then he’ll have what Lindsay calls a “fancy face”. I like that 🙂

We’ve seen some really great “before and after” photos of babies who have had the surgery. We’re super encouraged by the confidence of Gavin’s surgical team. He might have a minor scar on his lip when he grows up, but everyone knows that chicks dig scars.

He’s gangly like daddy and has adorable blonde hair like his mommy. He sleeps allllll day like his mommy and he gets grumps once in a while for no reason like his daddy.

Both of our boys have pretty remarkable stories already. We wouldn’t want it any other way!