Happy 4 months

Judah is four months old today and we are three days shy of 'officially' being one month post-op. Judah's appointment yesterday went fine, Dr. Grant said everything looks great.

He said it will take about 3 months before it is completely healed...we should be able to tell when all of his lip feels the same, right now it feels kind stiff where it was sewn together. We got the go ahead to start massaging his scar to try and help it relax a little more, but it could take up to year and a half before it completely lays down where it should (You can see in the picture above how the scar tissue has started to pull his lip up). Right now the scar tissue feels very tough and hard... hopefully massage will help break some of that up.
Overall, I feel like the recovery from his lip surgery went much better than I expected. Even though we had some difficulties in the beginning, it has not been bad at all. I figured Judah would be screaming non-stop or just miserable...he really surprised me by continuing to be good natured, as always, and it is just amazing how quickly he healed. Micah and I spent so much time worrying before the surgery about what Judah would look like after, and I can say now that it has turned out much better than I ever imagined.
We also set the date for his palate surgery yesterday...We go for his pre-op appointment on August 23rd and his surgery will be the next day on the 24th. He will stay a minimum of two nights, he will go home once he is able to eat enough to satisfy the doctors. Dr. Grant said the recovery from palate surgery is a little more prickly than the lip, and understandably so.
Dr. Grant has a book that he showed us when we saw him for the first time of before and after photos of surgeries he has done. I printed out pictures of Judah for him to put in the book and gave them to Dr. Grant at our appointment. He was so tickled and said they were 'delightful'. I am so impressed by the job he did and I thought he should be able to show that to parents of children about to go through surgery...hopefully it will comfort them knowing how capable a surgeon he is!
I am excited that we don't have to deal with much 'extra' stuff for the next six months and just get to go back to normal for a while. We are celebrating Judah's birthday by getting his 4 month shots today...what a birthday! ;]