Pre-op appt.

Annika had her pre-op appointment with Dr. Mann's office this past Thursday. I took a half day of work and made the trip to Grand Rapids with Annika in the morning. The nurse, who always pronounces her name wrong by the way, was updating her charts, and she said, "so this is her first surgery coming up, huh?" And I replied, "No, but if a nurse who works in this office can't tell she's had a first surgery, then the Dr. really did the first one well!" Her first surgery has truly turned out fantastic so far, and our reservations about the next are much less because of that. Anyway, the rest of the appointment went pretty much as planned. The Dr. looked at her and explained a little bit about surgery and after. The only suprise was that he said there is a VERY SMALL posibility that, when he takes her into surgery and looks at her mouth, he may start doing some palate work as well. He actually said to not even plan on it, but that we needed to know it was possible. We've been planning on palate work not starting until at least late winter, early spring, so this as great news! Its difficult to not think about it, but we also don't want anything rushed.

We won't find out the time of her surgery until a few days prior, but she is set to have it done Friday, November 12 with the plan of staying at DeVos just one night again. I will update with the time once we find out.

In the mean time, please begin praying that conditions are right for palate work to begin. This would mean so much as far as eating baby food, getting started on speech, and so many other things I'm probaly not even aware of. Also begin praying for the surgeon, anesthesiologist, and the surgical team as the day draws closer. And mostly, pray for Annika as she's the one who will be in the physical pain for a few days, but also the frustration of dealing with arm restraints. With a girl so close to crawling, not using her arms is going to be tough.

On a side note, a few developments since last post:
~ Annika has 3 teeth and a possible 4th on the way! Two are on the bottom and one on the top in her little nub area.
~ She sits up all the time and is beginning to stand by things. She's not pulling herself up yet, but once she is propped into standing, she can do it on her own.
~She's decided that 5:30-5:45 is an appropriate time to wake up every morning. I've asked the advice of too many people to count, and nothing seems to break the cycle.
~She wants to crawl SO badly! She scootches around on her butt right now, but if she's not crawling by surgery date, I would be suprised.

Thanks again for checking in, and for your conitnued prayers!