New Look! Same Great Ezra!

Well here is the long awaited moment. Bob wanted to wait to post pictures until he looked less beat up so sorry for the delay! I know that many have you have already seen pictures and a few of you have been fortunate enough to see him in person but here is a more complete little showcase of Ezra's new face. Thankfully my mom and sister came out to help us out because boy did we need it. Ezra had a few rough nights where we took shifts being up with him and I'm not sure we could have survived on our own. He was also a lot more needy this round, so it was nice to have a few spare pairs of arms to help hold him. We also got to play a lot of Pinochle and some other games, and as if that wasn't enough Jamie totally started his scrapbook for me, and it is now up to date! Thanks Mom and Jamie!! Okay, okay, I will get to what you all want to see...the pictures!

On the way to the hospital!

All ready to go home.

What a beautiful new smile!

We couldn't miss free cone day!

One week post-op!

Well as you can see he is still a little swollen, and its hard to see but there is still a little bruising. He still has a bit of a bloody nose, but for the most part he is looking lightyears better after just one week. I think it will be a couple months before we see the finished product. What a handsome boy, huh!
Bob and I would like to give a special thanks for everyone's fasting and prayers on our behalf. Everything went so well, and we have been so blessed thanks to all of you!

Quick Update

Just wanted to make a quick post to let everybody know about Ezra's surgery today. This morning he went to Children's Hospital at 7:30 to have his lip repair. First the dental team took out his Latham device (which, as a dentist to be, I naturally kept...picture to come). After that Dr. Meara did his lip and gum repair and fixed up his nose. Everything went really well. The palate repair will be a few months down the road. Ezra (and Mom and Dad) are doing really well. Ezra is on pain medications and is learning to eat for the thrid (and not the last) time! It's tough but he's a trooper. He has some bruising and swelling which is normal. We'll post pictures once that goes down so it doesn't look like he was in a bar fight when you see his updated face for the first time. Thanks for all your love and support!

Some kids have all the luck...

...and Ezra is not one of them! This last week we had three appointments, first his pre-op followed immediately by one with the dental team for a cleaning of the latham.

Dr. Siva (Dr. Australia) & Dr. Shusterman
Post cleaning which explains the "smile"

Then the following day with the plastic surgeon to get one last look. While we were there the nurse mentioned that they were going to have Dr. Meara look at his head because they had noticed some flattening (I'm guessing at the pre-op appointment). He came in and looked at his head for all of like three seconds and told me that Ezra would need a helmet because he had "pretty severe" plagiocephaly (from sleeping with his head turned to one side...common since the "back to sleep" campaign), but that it was up to us because it really is just an aesthetic thing (his brain is fine regardless of his head shape).

Rhombus

AHHH! I was freaking out, my son is finally going to look normal and you want him to wear a huge helmet 23 hours a day for the next three months!!! I had already been talking to his pediatrician for the last two months about it and she said that it would be much less noticeable by the time he was a year and that we didn't need to worry about it. (On a side note one good thing did come of the appointment...they said that he won't need to wear the arm splints that would keep him from touching his face!) So they wrote me out a prescription and told me to stop by the NAPCO office and see if our insurance would cover it because it costs "in the thousands". NAPCO informed me that Aetna usually doesn't cover it because they consider it to be cosmetic, but that MassHealth (our secondary) usually does. I made an appointment for the next day (third trip to Children's in 3 days) to get measurements taken of his head for them to send to MassHealth so that they could decide if it was medically necessary. I came home on the verge of tears (how much does Ezra need to go through?) and wrote an email to his pediatrician and started researching plagiocephaly. I had calmed down by that night and his pediatrician called me when she got the email (she is an amazing doctor). We talked it over and came to the conclusion that we did not need to do the whole helmet thing. We are going with aggressive repositioning instead, its much less cruel and much less expensive. He sleeps with a blanket rolled under his sheet so that he will lay on the other side, I try to give him more tummy time, and I am looking into getting him an exersaucer to further keep him off his back as much as possible. SIGH... so after a long week we are looking forward to getting another surgery under our belt and getting used to Ezra's new little smile. On a happier note Ezra experienced 60 degree weather for the first time in his life yesterday, and we had a bunch of little friends over to dye Easter eggs today. Pretty good ending to a pretty crummy week!

Bob had to work, but they saved one egg for him and Ezra to do later!

Growing Pains

Today Ezra went in for his 4 month check up. Crazy, I know. He is just under 25 inches long, and only weighs 13 pounds. He also got shots, three of them. He was crying before they gave them to him so it made them seem a little less traumatic to me (although I'm sure it wasn't that way for him). He fell asleep in the car and has been a super happy camper ever since. Ezra has been looking much more grown up, and I'm having a hard time with the fact that my baby is quickly becoming not so much a baby. He looks like a little boy now. It's fun to see him develop so much from day to day, but Bob and I recently had a conversation that went a little like this...

E: I don't want Ezra to grow up. I want him to stay my baby forever.
B: Don't you want him to go on a mission and get married, stuff like that?
E: No, our other kids can do that but Ezra has to stay my baby!

The one reason why I want him to get bigger is so that I can squeeze him harder. He is so stinkin' adorable that I could hug him to death if I didn't use self control. Despite my best wishes, he is growing and getting so smart. He is going to be so ready for his surgery in two weeks. Let's just hope that he will pack on some more weight between now and then.

The following pictures are from birth to four months. Each picture is relatively close to the respective birthdays. Enjoy and try to not get teary-eyed at how big he is getting. You will notice that like all old men he loses hair with age!