My beautiful Layla...

Isn't it funny how you can sometimes look at your life and think you have lived in a different time, a different place, or as just a whole completely different person. It's so hard sometimes to imagine where you were, where you've been, how far you have come and what is more to come. Sometimes it's almost as though your completely disconnected from that person you once were. 

There are monumental times in every person's life when in an instant...things change. Suddenly you have a different perspective, to the very core of your existence you are rocked, humbled, brought to your knees.

her poor lil face was swollen :(

My beautiful Layla Alea was born on Sept 5,2001. We had no idea that she would be born with a cleft lip and palate. I was not a nurse then and I had no idea how to even synthesize that information. All I knew is she was ours, and I loved her....everything else we would figure out along the way.

Someday I hope to fully tell her birth story but I'm still not there yet. I mean mostly because I can't really put my finger on the right words to tell the story so that you would truly understand. Someday.

one of my only pics I have of layla in the hospital...look at those little toes

Thank God we have such a wonderful family to help us out during those early days. My dad had helped us get in touch with the cleft palate association, he had researched surgeons and hospitals. Greg's aunt Chris was also so very helpful to us...what a wonderful woman she is. 

I have probably about a billion pics of Layla so I will try and contain myself with all my photos ....:)

This was one of our first real outings. We went to the mall to JcPenny's. I remember having so much anxiety about it...the stares...the questions.... I was never, ever ashamed...I just wanted to protect her from our mean cruel world. Look how cute she is, man I loved that face.

I remember crying taking these Halloween pics. I cried all the time that first year, everything was always changing. This was Layla's first smile...I caught it on camera, she was smiling for her mamma and it melted my heart.

Layla's first surgery was scheduled for October 30,2001, just a month and a half old. It was a hard time for us. I really hated the fact that she would have to have surgery. I just loved that little face and I didn't want it changed. 

My parent's had graciously bought a case of cleft palate bears to be donated to all the kids having cleft surgery that day. We took Layla's picture with them. She was a bit grouchy that morning as she had to be fasting so she wasn't able to be nursed. 

 It felt like forever that Layla was in surgery..They don't let you go back to the operating room obviously, so you have to hand your baby over to the nurse and anesthetist...not easy to hand over your baby...makes my belly hurt just thinking about that day.

Layla was in surgery/PACU for 2 1/2hrs before  we got to see her again.

She was pretty doped up from the meds. Her little face was really swollen. She didn't really open her eyes for quite along time. She had a metal guard taped across her face which protected her stitches. She had some plastic stints placed inside her nose with a stitch through the cartlidge to hold it in place. Worst of all she had restraints on which she had to have until she got her stints out.

Even though she had required some extra oxygen and morphine throughout the night, they let her go home just after 24hrs. She was discharged on Halloween day. I cried the whole way back from salt lake. I was scared that she was in pain, I was also very sad from seeing all the little kids suffering from terminal illnesses, celebrating Halloween in a hospital, I felt guilty for feeling sad for my baby, when I knew there were mothers in that hospital that would be holding their baby in their arms for the very last time.