One Week Past Surgery

Abigail playing with her cousin
the weekend before her surgery

One week ago, we were at Children's National for Abigail's lip and nose reconstruction surgery.
She had an initial surgery sometime between 5 months old and 8 months old when she was in China and, although it was done by an American surgeon who was on a mission trip there, it was a functional fix but not an aesthetic one.  Our amazing surgeon at Children's National said he does similar trips and often gets only about 20-25 minutes per cleft kid, but in America, he spends 3 hours on such a surgery to do A+ work.  

Two nights before her surgery, Abigail
was wound up at bed time and insisted
I take a picture of her.

The goal of last week was to give Abigail some symmetry to her already adorable and beautiful face.  I'm not going to blog the details or post pics until her stitches are out in order to protect Abigail's privacy.  (However, if any other parents of CL/CP kids are going to be facing a reconstruction surgery, please feel free to PM me.)

So it has been a long week, but kids are so resilient and Abigail is doing great.  Kids just go through things way more easily than adults do, I think.  Abigail is so brave and spunky.  I have been so proud of her this past week.