3 Weeks Post-Op

We're getting thru, day by day. It's all we can do some days to survive. Jackson is currently recovering from an ear infection - babies with cleft palate are more susceptible to them. We just keep reminding ourselves that some day life will be different.

Here are a few current pics of our boy 3 weeks post-op:


He loves blankets...


So much, sometimes, that he gets himself all wrapped up in them.

First Mother's Day

Mother's Day. For as long as I can remember, I have longed for the day when I would be able to call myself a mother. This Mother's Day, however, held a mix of emotions for me.

Having spent part of Friday and most of Saturday in the hospital with Jackson, I wasn't quite sure what Sunday would hold for us. I was pleasantly surprised when we found out we would be able to take our sweet boy home with us on Saturday evening. We'd be home for Mother's Day.

We woke up early as usual on Sunday morning (sleeping in no longer exists with a baby), got Jackson fed, and made sure to give him his pain meds as we did not want to end up where we were the night before. Daniel was eager for me to open my gifts; one from Jackson and one from him. Jackson bought me a gift (pretty talented lil guy considering he was in the hospital the previous couple days)! I made sure Daniel brought me my coffee prior to opening gifts - I wanted to be awake for the event.

Here's what I found inside:

Yes, you see correctly. A John Deere Salt and Pepper Set. How do you tell them apart? For one, the salt always has more holes, plus the tractor with the black steering wheel... definitely the pepper! Daniel made sure that I received my first 'useless' Mother's Day gift - you know those gifts we kids think are perfectly brilliant but really have no practical use. Daniel tells the story of how his mom once gave his grandmother a spaghetti fork - a perfect illustration.

Later on that day, I got a card from Jackson. I have a very talented 4 month old - he can write (although a bit sloppy) and spell fairly well too!

So if you happen to visit our house in the not-too-distant-future, you might just find on our table a perfectly placed set of salt and pepper shakers along with one of the cutest little boys in the world.

What A Week!

This week threw us some interesting twists. Jackson, having just gone through major surgery, started out the week fairly lethargic. The doctors had prescribed Tylenol with Codeine every 6 hours which we initially followed religiously. However, Tuesday night, following his regular dose, Jackson was not falling asleep. In fact, he was awake most of the night, only sleeping in 15 minute increments. We had heard that codeine can have this opposite effect thus we decided to switch Jackson to straight Tylenol starting Wednesday morning.

Well, Wednesday started us on a downhill rollercoaster quickly headed for Disasterville. The days got progressively worse, climaxing on Friday where Jackson cried for 5 hours straight and the end to his tears were not in sight. At the five hour mark, I decided to put him in the car and take a drive (the car tends to rock Jackson to sleep). Not knowing where to go, or how long we would be in the car, I started to drive down Los Osos Valley Road toward San Luis Obispo... still not knowing where I'd end up. The tears were not letting up.

I was almost to SLO when the phone rang. Daniel had called Dr. Bravo's office - Dr. Bravo would see Jackson at 3:00pm (although he was supposed to be out of the country). Love him! I killed a bit of time at Daniel's work prior to heading down the street to try to figure out what was going wrong.

We arrived at Dr. Bravo's office. Jackson cried on the way in, in the waiting room, and in the room while we waited. Having seen Jackson that previous Monday, we found out that Jackson had lost 10 ounces... Not a good sign.

Long story short - we ended up admitting Jackson into Sierra Vista overnight. After running a bunch of tests, the doctor was pretty sure that the Tylenol and Tylenol with Codeine weren't cutting it. Poor baby was in pain. Crazy pain. How did we find this out? After a dose of Toradol and a couple doses of Morphine, our baby's disposition changed for the better. Sheesh.

We checked out of the hospital at 7:00pm Saturday, just in time for our friend's 30th birthday extravaganza and my first Mother's Day. More to come...

1000 Yard Stare

Our lovely (& a bit drugged up) baby:


Dazed Jackson (after surgery) from Halle Whittington on Vimeo.

Post Surgery

Here is a pic of Jackson right before we got in the car to head to LA.
One last shot of our wide smile boy with no face gear on:


The trip down to the hotel was great. We made it into LA with minimal traffic and were able to get a bit of sleep before having to be at the hospital at 6am on Thursday morning.

We spent an hour getting Jackson checked out and answering pre-op questions, and then sat with him waiting for the surgical team to show up.




5 hours later, we had our boy back and in recovery. Lip and nose fully repaired and ear tubes put in place. However.... it didn't exactly look like our boy anymore. Totally crazy.





Say hello to the new Jackson. He comes complete with arm braces, and movable limbs!




He was awesome on the ride home. He has slept almost constantly since he got out of surgery and is drugged up most of time. He breathes about 100 decibels quieter and is really mellow right now. It's taking a bit of getting used to, but hopefully he'll be getting off the medication soon, and then we'll have our boy back!