Everthing went well!

It is like a miracle when I see my son's face. He looks so amazing. I see cheekbones and a true front to his face. It is weird to say but skin and flesh simply look different with bone beneath. I am a Mama who sometimes watches her child while he sleeps (like every other awesome parent) and I almost do not recognize him. It is not the swelling. There is simply a different shape to the face I love so much.

It is like my loving eye is constantly "readjusting" to see the miracle we wrought for my son. Being a "sometimes slow to change Mama" I already miss the blue tint under his skin that indicated that which was missing. Gone is the worrisome flatness of his rebuilt lip over missing bone. That was the kid I worried about and protected from so much.

It is kind of silly, the doctors keep checking with me to make sure I have Alex on a soft diet. It is silly because I have always been so careful of anything he eats. We have talked about it so much he tells other adults what he can eat and why. My son is so precious to me.

Anyway, enough about me. Alex did great. They took bone from his hip and put it where it was missing in the bilateral cleft. He is such a favorite at the hospital. People came from other floors to say hello to him. He also got a huge balloon bouquet with a Scooby doo balloon that is actually larger than his sister. :)

Already the swelling in his face is down and we all see the new Alex - complete with beautiful cheekbones. I keep checking his mouth not only to marvel at the rebuilt palete but to also see the permanent space we made for his front teeth. My son still does not believe that he too will have "spongebob front teeth" but I look at that magic space now in the front for his teeth and I cannot wait. Those are still a bit away but we can all see the space for the dream to manifest.

I just did not know it would be so hard to get his mind away from that other place. I did not know how high the price I would personally pay to stay by his side while he came home and got what he needed.

I did not know I would love him so much - no matter what. That is what we tell each other - "I love you no matter what." I hope all adoptive families get to that point of total acceptance. For both the parent and the child. It is a great place. All adoptions take time for all to adjust.

I see it with our little girl adopted last spring. She came with none of Alex's emotional adjustment issues but it still takes time for her to adjust. We all love each other so much but it is still hard sometimes.

We are lucky to have found each other. Life is good.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow

As always, I cannot sleep the night before an Alex surgery. Tomorrow we go in for his bone grafts. I think that even this time he is worried though with him it looks like just really bad behavior. At times today he was so on and then there would be these weird behavior spikes. Thank goodness my Mom was here to help me see that at those times today he was just not being my son. Gosh I wish he wouldn't do that because he so has my buttons down. I think he just punched them to make sure that everything at home was normal. Normal Mama response means normal life.

If I was my son and had to face (no pun intended) what he has to, I do not know if I could do it. I try to down play it but this is a big milestone for us in reconstructing his face. I remain sleepless.

So we had his favorite dinner (KFC), did the bath thing and packed our bags. Really we just packed his bag. :) His has cats in toy and book form of course. Dr. Seuss made the cut as did a Russian nursery book I bought way back when we first left the orphanage together. It is the Day and Night book in Russian. I think he also tried to sneak our Maltese into the bag at one point but I was onto it because the bag kept wiggling. BeBe the Bischon is too big so was left to sleep peaceably.

So tomorrow we will take his sister to her Russian immersion kindergarten and then take the train to the hospital. We will confirm the balloons he wants from the gift shop on our way pre-op. We will then create the miracle I hoped for my son when I first decided to adopt him. It will not be the last surgery of course. But it will be the most invasive and the most helpful.

So if you could pray for us that would be awesome. I know that life will be what God wills but sometimes I wonder if he watches over the little ones closer if more of us ask. I know that my heart hopes so and I pray for many kids still not safe.