And so it begins...

Greetings!

In my last post, I indicated that our regular daily lives are not that exciting and indeed that has not changed.  However, I did promise to update as to Nicole's medical progress and so here is the most recent!

We have essentially been getting back to our "new norm" over the last 2 weeks, Nicole has met most of her extended family (cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents) as well as some friends.  So far she has charmed most of them!!

Here are the girls with Grandma Helen and Grandpa Charles (my family)

and Grandma Sherry and Grandpa Ray (John's)

We also have been on our first bike ride, picnic, splash pad etc!

On the medical front,  Nicole also had a bunch of "firsts".  We started with the pediatrician appointment - uneventful outside of the fact that she has to have all of her vaccinations retaken and had 4-5 viles of blood taken to test for any diseases etc (this is standard for all international adoptions).  She had 2 vaccinations done and the rest will be done over the coming months.  Did I mention the stool sample?? That was my personal favourite....

We had our first round of appointments at Sick Kids this week - they have a whole cleft lip/ palate team  consisting of Social Workers, Occupational Therapists, Plastic Surgeons, dentist, orthodontists etc... we met ALL of them!!  Nicole was not a particular fan of the dentist or the orthodontist (who taped her lip to retrain the muscles, this will hopefully reduce some of the tension on the stitches when her lip gets fixed).  I think she bit the dentist's finger hard - the Dentist was very nice about it but I think that Nicole feigned innocence....  Surgery is being scheduled for 6-8 weeks, she will be in the hospital for 2-3 days depending on how well she tolerates everything.  She will have the tape on until the surgery - it is changed daily - needless to say, she is not the biggest fan!

Round 2 of appointments is in 10 days when we get to see our friendly Ears, Nose, Throat Specialist and she will be lucky enough to get a hearing test!  To top off the day, she will be lucky to see the orthodontist again to check out her lip.  Let the good times roll!