Jack 8 weeks old

So Jack is now 8 weeks old, he's 22 1/2" and is 12lbs he is in the 50 percentile for weight and height, he's doing great and we have a surgery date. The big day is to be January 31st which puts him around 3 1/2 months.
So far the tape is working really well so were really happy we don't need to do anything else for him. Now we just need to get him sleeping all night : )

Jack update

So Jack is doing great, He is now 5 weeks old and around 10lbs. We saw his plastic surgeon this past week and his lips have not moved further apart which is good news we do not need to use any mouth plates which is great news all we need is a little tape, it's called a Dyna Cleft basically it's just a super band aid, is has a little stretchy band in the middle which will stretch his lips on either side so as he grows it helps the two separated lips grow the right direction to help close the gap, also when he cries it stops the gap stretching to much in the wrong direction. I got a couple of pictures of him with out his tape on as he'll probably have it on now for the news few months. We go again on Monday where our surgeon, Dr Amato, will show us how to change the tape we will also hopefully get a date of the lip surgery which will be late January or early Feb.

2 weeks old

So were 2 weeks in and surviving with the help of my parents (thanks mum and dad!) were getting enough sleep. Ella is doing great with her little brother in the house, she mostly points and says jack, Jack, Jack over and over, when he cries she bring over his bottle with is very cute and rather helpful, she's loving all the visitors we've had and all the new toys!

Jack is doing great he's a eating monster, we were warned that our biggest hurdle at this point would be getting him to eat enough, but we haven't had that problem he would and does eat all day, our little bruiser is 8 lbs so he has surpassed his birth weight by almost a pound, which is great. the Dr's are very happy with him, we go and see the cranial facial department at St Barnebas on Wednesday so hopefully I'll have a lot more news about his cleft lip and palette after that. Here are some picture of them both for now.

Jack is here!

At last here he is, Jack Benjamin Smith was born today 10/20/11 at 7.28am. Weighing in at 7lbs 1 oz he is 19 1/2" long. Were so glad to have our wee peanut as an outside baby.

He's doing really well so far he is a good eater, it does take a long time to feed him but he gets there in the end. His lip luckily has a "Simon arts band" which is a little band of skin under the nose this is good as it means his cleft lip is being held together a little bit and his nose is not pulled to far out, His palette however is a little worse than we thought he actually has 2 holes in his palette the surgeons reassured us that this wasn't a huge problem and will be fixed the same as one hole. So all is good the wee guy was in the NICU for the past 24 hours but only because I had a fever a few hours after birth and they had to make sure he didn't have any infections, but were both completely fine, and it was actually quite good because the level of care he received there was great and the nurses spent extra time with us and him making sure we can feed him and everything else was ok.

Ella's first year!

our first picture day 1

Since were still waiting for the baby to arrive, I'm trying to get myself familiar with this whole blogging business, so were going to do little Ella photo trip through out her first year! Sorry facebook friends most of these pictures are already on there!

smiling already

pretty girl

Halloween my sweet pea

Who Me!

I can't believe my ears!

Mug Shot-or Passport Photo?

Bath time

Like my Hair Style



First Year!



What!



To tired to bounce 

Love my Tutu!

More tutu's

HI

Merry Christmas everybody!

Snuggling with daddy!

Huge Pants!

Yeah!, I'm going to be a big sister!

My 1st Birthday

Put some clothes on me mum!

Getting weighed old school!

Little face!

Pretty Eyes!

Apple picking with Dad!

"The Boy"

As we been affectionately been calling our soon to be born son, As most of you know is going to be born with a cleft lip and palette, We were told at our 20 week scan so we’ve had plenty time to prepare and get used to the idea. This is one of the most common birth defects in the UK and America about 1 in 700 babies are born this way, it happens during early development around 7-9 weeks of gestation, quite simply your face grows from the sides into the middle and in his case just did not match up, the offical name is a unilateral Cleft lip, which mean it’s just on the one side and he has a hole in his palette from what they can tell goes 1/3^rd of the way back into his hard palette. This is completely fixable in his early life starting with lip surgery at 3 months, palette surgery at 12 months, then possible gum line surgery which includes a bone graft at age 8 so his adult teeth come in properly and maybe face corrective surgery at 15 to 18 depending on if he wants, needs a nose job or jaw readjustment.

I thought it might be a nice idea to do a blog about this, that way you can all see before and after pictures and follow along with his progress, I’ll try and keep you all updated as possible even though I think the next few months are going to be very busy. Wish us luck!.