Thursday

We spent yesterday morning at the Bronx Zoo while waiting for 1's doctor appointment.

1 was born with a cleft lip and subqcleft palate. The cleft does affect his maxilla and alveola to an extent, but thankfully, when he was born and we found out he had this condition, his palate was closed.

He has had two surgeries surgeries, one to repair his lip when he was 6 months old, and then a scar revision before he entered kindergarten. He's had two surgeries for placement of ear tubes. The plastic surgeon we were waiting to meet was a consult for his mouth, the cleft in his alveolar/maxilla.

It was a beautiful day yesterday, we spent the morning at the Bronx Zoo, mostly at the Children's part. It was a wonderful hands on exhibit we fully didn't get to explore as I made the children break for lunch.

The consult with our Bronx Doc went well, it was very informative. He definitely wants to do the bone graft, and was surprised it wasn't done sooner. He wants to repair the alveolar cleft, making it smooth as possible. And he also wants to work on 1's nose, to shape it a bit to make it appear more uniform.

We are game to do it. What we are waiting for now is our insurance approval to do so. With our military health insurance, it becomes a fine line between functionality versus cosmetic.

I pray that insurance will cover it and we will be able to move forward to do these recommended procedures.

After that, we returned back to the Bronx Zoo.

It was a really enjoyable afternoon. The kids had their first camel ride :) We explored The Jungle, Africa Plains, 3 went a bit wild in the Butterfly Garden. At the Bug Carousel, even 1 said he was having fun.

The day was a beautiful day. Thank you, Lord.