A's Update 2 (12/24/13) - Next Surgery Planned

CHRISTMAS EVE!

It's a little surreal to think that just one year ago we were entering another Christmas with complete uncertainty when we would be able to start celebrating Christmas with a child of our own.  Yet, here we are, headed into the very next one with the most perfect child we could have ever dreamed of having:

A few things have changed since the last update.  Nothing dramatic but we've nailed down an important date so that's the main reason for this update.

February 5th

That's it. THE day.  Abriana is scheduled to have her facial repair surgery that day and her parents couldn't possibly be experiencing a greater level of mixed emotions about it.  Sure, we all agree 100% that this is an essential surgery for her.  However, no matter how many times we tell ourselves that we've selected the absolute best possible neurosurgeon and the best possible plastic surgeon for the job and no matter how many times we tell ourselves she NEEDS this done it simply does not balance the parental anxiety and weight of the surgery at hand.  Her shunt surgery was, by comparison, a simple procedure and we were still on pins and needles.

It's kind of funny looking back on the past 3+ months of having this kid.  We obviously knew that she was going to have this anomaly and thanks to modern technology we even had a really strong idea of what it was going to look like before she was even born.  What I don't think either of us expected was how much this encephalocele was going to be accepted by our comprehension of who our daughter is.  Certainly I don't mean that there was ever a risk of us having a hard time loving her or anything like that, but I think it was reasonable to expect that we would love her to the moon and back and countdown the days till we were able to get this thing off her face.  Contrarily what ended up happening is the thing on her face has become such an integral part of "her" to us that I would be lying if I didn't admit there's a small piece of concern of how she'll look without it.  Now, trust me, no one understands how off the wall "bat shit crazy" that sounds than me.  Are you kidding me??  Hear me out.  Once again, it's not a matter of loving our daughter it's a matter of changing our daughter.  We love every piece of her so much that changing something you love so much is sort of a big deal.

It's certainly an incredibly strange place to be in and I don't expect that it's a universal feeling.  In fact, if I had to guess I'd say most parents in our situation couldn't get rid of it fast enough.  Granted, there are so many cases far worse than Abriana's and I am positive this lamenting would be non-existant if we were in that position.  The first moment when I realized maybe we held a unique viewpoint of our daughter was when we were talking to the plastic surgeon and after giving us the run down of the surgery and after answering all our questions he looked at us with very concerned eyes and said "Don't worry mom and dad, we'll have her looking perfectly normal soon and this will all be over".  I am 100% on board with his intentions for saying that and I appreciate them, what I wasn't expecting was how my brain processed what he said.  I wouldn't go so far as to say I was offended, but it was a weird feeling.  His words made it sound like he understood how anxious we were to "fix" our daughter but that's not really how we feel, this whole time we've been so wrapped up in what our daughter is teaching us that not once has the thought "sure can't wait to fix you" come across our minds.

I understand that to most people this all probably sounds confusing and like I am making a whole lot of grey out of a black and white issue but this is the juxtaposition we feel.  One things for sure we certainly cannot wait to have most of this doctor stuff behind us and have less surgeries to worry about (the next update will be all about her surgical plan) and more time to watch our daughter grow! :-)

So for now, from my happy little family to yours, we'd like to wish you the very best and merriest Christmas of all!!  

MERRY CHRISTMAS!