A New Hand

Tomorrow morning at 7am, we will be arriving at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee for a surgery that will change our daughter's life.  As most of you know, Lydia was born with webbed fingers on her right hand, a condition called syndactyly, caused by amniotic banding syndrome.  We knew this when we adopted her.  At the time, we did not know what would be able to be done for her.  Her doctor, Dr. Phelan, had looked over Lydia's medical records before we adopted her and knew of her condition.  Another of Dr. Phelan's patients had a baby who was born with the same condition.  She did research on the surgeons and recommended that we take her to Dr. Dailey, a surgeon at Froedtert who specializes in hands.  We took her for an exam and he was very optimistic about the possibility of surgery for Lydia.  She has bones in all her fingers and even though they are not fully developed, with separation she will be able to use her right hand more like "normal". 

It took a very long time to get the surgery scheduled, but we finally got word that it would be able to be done on Friday, November 16th.  Now that day is almost here. 

We have Lydia's special bear and blanket packed as well as her headphones and the I-Pod with her new favorite song - Zacchaeus.  She got some special gifts from her grandmas as well as a bag of surprises from my Moms By Design small group.  She is very excited to watch her new movie and eat her snacks.  She already started playing with the toys and wearing the hat that she got from them.

We've talked to her about the surgery, but since she hasn't ever experienced anything like it, she isn't really sure what I'm talking about.  When we were talking about it the only thing that Lydia was worried about was if the doctor was going to give her shots. : )

Please pray for her and us as she has surgery tomorrow.  The surgeon was not sure if he would be able to fix her hand in one surgery or if it will take two surgeries.  Pray that he will be able to take care of her hand in one surgery.  Also pray that there will be enough skin to use on her fingers, so she won't need a skin graft.  Please pray that Lydia's pain will be minimal throughout the healing process.
I will post more tomorrow as we have more details about the surgery.

Here are some pictures...Lydia was having fun taking pictures last night. : ) 

I made a plate with Lydia's "old" handprints.

Having fun with her presents!