Selecting a surgeon

We were referred to a surgeon in Las Vegas, but he wasn’t what we were looking for. I didn’t feel a connection and I felt like God was telling us that this is not the path we were supposed to take. Our search continued until my father sent me an article that changed our lives. While doing some of his own research, he came across an article posted on AOL News titled, “Surgeon Performs First Cleft Palate Surgery of Its Kind.” After reading the article about Quinn Sliment and the miracles Dr. Michael Carstens of SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis performed, we did our homework. 

Dr. Carstens (born with a cleft lip and palate himself) did not use a bone graft to repair the cleft, but a genetically engineered protein called bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) that would stimulate bone growth and reduce the number of surgeries. My husband contacted Debbie Watters, the Nurse Coordinator of the Cleft Lip/Palate and Craniofacial Deformities Team at Cardinal Glennon, and she began to send us information. By September, we had planned a consultation visit with Dr. Carstens in St. Louis to discuss Anthony’s treatment plan. We would travel after he was born, but until then, we enjoyed the rest of our pregnancy and couldn’t wait to meet our son.

November 23, 2005

On this day we went to my weekly OB appointment only to be put on bed rest for the remaining three weeks of my pregnancy (so much for working up until winter break). My legs and feet were so swollen that I could barely walk, and the nurse practitioner Luellen Greenlick said, “If you’re still working, then you’re not anymore.” We also learned that I was dilated one centimeter. We went home and for the next week I rested. 

November 30, 2005

At my 38 week appointment I had dilated to three centimeters, and Dr. Moore said that she could feel Anthony’s head. She also said that before the weekend was over, we would have a baby! I couldn’t believe it. All this waiting was about to be over and I could finally hold our son. We talked a lot about which one of us he would look the most like and in the next few days we would finally know. I was scheduled for an appointment the next day to monitor Anthony’s movement because I felt a significant decrease. The tests showed that he was doing fine and in fact he was merely getting ready for delivery. That night I cleaned my house from top to bottom and went to bed.

December 2, 2005

It was 5 a.m. when I first felt a little 'something.' I had been feeling weird 'somethings' the entire time so I didn’t think much of it. I went downstairs for a bowl of cereal (my favorite pregnancy snack) and then took a shower. Those weird little 'somethings' never went away so I called my mom and said, “Keep your phone close by. I think this is the day.” I don’t really think she took me seriously at the time, but by 10 a.m. those 'somethings' turned into contractions that were six minutes apart. I called Joe and told him that he should come home and a drive that would usually take 20-25 minutes had Joe home in 14 minutes. It was straight out of the movies. I was sitting on the couch with my bags and Joe ran right by me and upstairs to get my things. I told him that I already had them and that I was ready to go. Luckily, St. Rose Dominican Hospital (Siena Campus, Henderson, NV) is only 5 minutes from our home. 

Joe pulled the car up to the door and dropped me off while I went up to Labor and Delivery. I had already registered so they set me up in triage to monitor my contractions. By 12:30 p.m., I was admitted and we were ready to have a baby! I called EVERYONE. I even talked to my mom 20 minutes before I started to push. Dr. Moore came to see me and told us that as soon as Anthony’s pediatrician/neonatologist Dr. Susan Rizal Fernandez (Henderson, Nev.,) was there, we would push. There were about 12 doctors and nurses in the room when I delivered. Dr. Moore had arranged to have doctors and nurses from the NICU as well as Dr. Fernandez as a precautionary measure. We were all confident that Anthony was going to be fine, but we all wanted the best for him. After only 20 minutes of pushing, at 7:13 p.m. Anthony was finally here! He weighed in at 6 lbs., 6oz. and was 19 1/4" long. His cry was the most beautiful sound we had ever heard. 

Joe left my side to check on Anthony and he ran back and forth in the room to let me know how great he looked. The nurse asked Joe if he wanted to carry Anthony over to me but he was so excited that he was shaking and he insisted that she do it. I will never forget the way I felt the moment the nurse laid him in my arms. I didn’t see his cleft at all. I saw my beautiful son and I cried. It was love at first sight. I held him close and couldn’t stop kissing him. After 20 minutes a nurse from the NICU came and said that she had to take him. During the delivery Anthony got some fluid in his lungs and they needed to make sure that he was ok. I reluctantly gave him to her. I immediately called my mom who was anxiously waiting to tell her how beautiful he was. As if she already knew she replied with, “of course he is.”

The moment I was able to ease into a wheelchair I had Joe take me to the NICU to see our baby. I hadn’t paid much attention to his cleft when I held him earlier because I was so enamored by his perfection and I wanted to see how he was doing. Anthony was born with an incomplete cleft lip on the right side and a complete cleft of the palate. My first visit to the NICU was hard. Seeing him lay there attached to tubes and wires was difficult to take in, so once again I cried. The nurse assured me that he was doing well and that he would need the tubes to supply him with oxygen and that the IV was to give him nourishment. Anthony wasn’t given a bottle until the next day. 

That night, I fell asleep for a short time and went right back to the NICU to see Anthony. In fact, the two days that he was there Joe and I were in there every two hours to hold him and feed him. No matter how many times the nurses told us to get some rest, we just couldn’t pull ourselves away from him. He had become our everything. After the first day Anthony was taken off the oxygen and drinking from the Mead Johnson Cleft Lip/Palate Nurser. By the end of day two he was moved from the NICU into the Pediatrics ICU and we were able to stay with him. 

Anthony - 3 days old (12/5/06)

He stayed on the IV for the next two days and then it was removed because he was eating so well. Anthony has never had any of the typical problems that most children born with CL/CP have, such as trouble swallowing or food coming out of his nose. By day five Dr. Fernandez was pleased with how well Anthony was doing and we were able to finally take him home. For the next four weeks we awaited our trip to St. Louis to meet with Dr. Carstens to discuss the next step in Anthony’s treatment plan.