It has been far too long...

I can't believe it's been three months since I last updated! We have had a lot going on - both personally and medically - and I'm not ready to share everything yet so that may be part of my silence. Much of it also is the business of life with three kids, and I'm far more relaxed about everything medically as well.

Regarding Maddy's spine, we know that she will need growing rods put in. Our team here say that it won't be done this year, so we are just continuing to monitor it. It is better to do that surgery as late as possible - but at times it is hard having it looming over our heads, not really knowing when to expect it. 

Briella is growing up - she's so much like Maddy in some ways, and so different from her in others. One example: Maddy was sitting pretty well around 7 months, and while she could roll, she preferred to be upright. Briella on the other hand is CRAZY FAST at rolling but is only now starting to sit at 9 months old. I think that Briella is much more adept at using her feet as a second pair of hands - she's ALWAYS picking toys up with her feet and passing them to her hands while she's on the floor. With those rolling skills, why would she want to be stuck sitting in one place?

When Maddy was younger, the cleft surgeons delayed her surgery until she was 22 months! I've always felt that it had detrimental effects on her speech and also as a result, behaviour/frustration at her inability to communicate. I have been hoping that Briella's surgery would be much sooner than this (for average babies, the cleft is repaired around 9 months old). It looks as though she MIGHT be having her surgery in November/December at around 12 months old - which is spot on when I personally think it would be best.

We've got some tests coming up - we already know that Briella has significant hearing loss (as did Maddy). This could be purely as a result of the fluid in her ears associated with cleft palate. If it is, putting in grommets (ear tubes) during her cleft surgery will fix that completely (that was the case with Maddy). She has another hearing test on Thursday to determine if the hearing loss is just related to the fluid or not. 

In early October, we have two important tests coming up. Firstly Briella has an overnight oxygen monitoring test. We had one of these in April and the results were inconclusive (mainly because she didn't really sleep very well!!). We also have an MRI of her spine to see if it is stable for surgery. If both of those tests are fine, we will begin moving towards surgery. 

So that's where things are at with us at the moment!