Claire's First Consult

Claire’s first visit was on May 20^th. We had an appointment with Dr. Schmelzer and Dr. Yamashiro that day. I had previously met Dr. Schmelzer, but not Dr. Yamashiro. As if these appointments weren’t packed enough of anxiety for me you have to make sure you figure in the 4 hours of driving we have to do every time we go. So, not only do I get to stress about every appointment every day, I get to have 4 hours dedicated to it RIGHT before the appointment. I tend to get myself worked up over these types of thing anyways, as I have learned with previous specialists and ultrasounds, so I get myself stressed about the stress I am going to have on the ride!

 Besides the ride, I think that one of the worst parts of these visits is the waiting room. I look around at all of the other families and see how fortunate we are. Its hard to see all of the other children and not feel lucky, and hopeful. Its hard to sit there with children who have it much worse than Claire, the room is so heavy. There is such sadness in the room, but at the same time so much hope, happiness and love.  Its as if all of your emotions have been thrown on a roulette spinner and you are just watching the ball bounce. Its nerve racking to sit and watch the nurses come to the front of the room and call names, you never know if you should look up and smile at the family walking towards the patient rooms, or pretend that you aren’t dying to be the one called back and go about your business “reading” .

I always thought I wanted to have these long consults that proved that the doctors cared. I realize now that a quick in and out is what you really want. We were in and out very fast once our name was called. I realize now that it’s the children who have the most problems who have the longer appointments. I was so proud when he asked his questions. I had the answers he wanted to hear; about her eating, sleeping, breathing, alertness. Everything he was asking about Claire was doing, or was so much more advanced at doing than he expected. When I got into the waiting room I was wondering how Dr. Schmelzer was going to have quality time to spend with us with all of these children waiting. Now, I know that each patient gets quality time with him, but not all of us are lucky enough to be able to have a smooth, quick appointment.

Our appointment with Dr. Yamashiro took longer than our appointment with Dr. Schmelzer. Much to my surprise we are not going to see Dr. Schmelzer again until we are seriously talking surgery, which will most likely be sometime in September . We had previously committed to the NAM procedure. NAM is a technique in which the alveolus (gum ridges) and/or nose are molded with an appliance similar to an orthodontic retainer. This is usually done by a specially trained orthodontist prior to surgery, in order to make surgery simpler. The baby wears the appliance 24 hours a day for a period of weeks or months. It does not interfere with feeding or breathing for the baby. They also use a technique along with the NAM that helps with the lip being pulled together. At our visit with Dr. Yamashiro I learned that I will be doing a procedure with Claire at home with medical tape to help pull her cleft lip together, and he will be doing regular adjustments on her ‘retainer’ to pull her cleft palate together. To sum it up; we will be doing tape for her lip at home, every day and have her wear her ‘retainer’ all the time. They allow 15 minutes a day for it to come out so that it can be washed. We will also be doing an ‘adjustment’ appointment every 2 weeks for her ‘retainer’ with Dr. Yamashiro.

I was a little late getting this portion of my blog drafted so we are now T minus 1 day from her first ‘active’ visit I guess you could call it? I am very nervous about getting everything started. I have been an over-achieving planner for about 10 months now. The time has come to actually start everything and I am so nervous I don’t even know how to articulate it! I am excited that we are starting to do something that is going to benefit Claire for years to come, sad that she is already big enough to start, and scared that its going to be so hard that we don’t get to enjoy the simple things along the way. I know we are overly blessed by being able to be parents to such a beautiful, amazing, perfect daughter. I just hope that she is as blessed to have us as parents as we are to have her in our lives.