Turkey Day!

The above shot was taken today (Wed)--the scar is a bit more noticeable due to his recent face plant. The shot below was taken on Sunday, prior to the face plant; the scar was barely noticeable then!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!! This year the Kragel family has sooooo many things to be thankful for. It's hard to imagine that last Thanksgiving we did not even know our son. We were praying for God to bring us a child but had our doubts about China. We became impatient with God's timing and started looking into a domestic adoption. We felt lost, confused but still hopeful that God hadn't forgotten about us.

Now one year later we have an amazing son. We are thankful that God made us wait for him. Now looking back it, we can hardly remember what life was like without Zachary. God has brought us so much joy, love, and laughter through Zachary. He blesses us everyday!

We are CERTAIN that God had his hand of protection over Zachary during his recovery from his lip surgery. As mentioned in the last blog post, Zach pulled off the super glue and a few stitches 10 days after surgery when he wiggled out of his arm restraint. No damage was done. Now this week our boy who doesn't like to sit still did a nose dive into the wall in his bedroom. He learned what ouch meant that day (Monday). Sure enough he hit his nose and lip. The lip swelled up quite a bit and the nose bled. We called Iowa City and they said that everything should be healed from the surgery so not to worry. Today he looks a bit bruised from that fall but we don't think any damage was done. Praise God for that one!

So on this Thanksgiving weekend, we pray that you would take time to recognize your blessings even if you are lost and frustrated as we were last year. God is an amazing God and his timing is always for a reason.

He's Free!

Yesterday's appointment went well. Dr Canady was pleased with how things looked; turns out that Zach didn't harm anything when he got out of his arm restraint and pulled off the super glue and a few stitches last Friday! The doctors snipped off the bolsters and pulled an assortment of little things out of his nose. We had no idea how much he was packing up there.

No more arm cuffs. No more liquid diet. No more sleeping only on his back. We are back to normal. The Dr did say it will still be healing for the next week, so we're going to do mittens at bed times, so he doesn't pick, explore, etc. too much.

The next surgery (for the palate) is scheduled for April. We will enjoy our freedom until then;)

Thanks for all your prayers, words of encouragement and activity ideas over the last few weeks.

The Smiles are Back

Each day Zachary gets a little more energy and a little more anxious to run, run, run. He has accepted his new diet and the arm cuffs, so he's much more content now. Mom is making considerable efforts to keep Zachary sleeping on his back. She goes into his room throughout the night to check in and turn him over when needed.
It's so nice to see Zachary smiling & laughing again. His eyes look much better too--the swelling is gone and the sparkle is back. He's turned into a big boy all of a sudden!


The rest of the herd is off camera eating their cup lunches, "just like Zachary."

Can't wait to put those arm cuffs in the garbage and run and wrestle! We go back to Iowa City on Monday to get the bolsters out of the nose and maybe stitches out of the lip. We probably still have 2 more weeks left of the arm restraints. Not sure how long this diet has to continue; we will know more on Monday.

Our Brave Boy

Here are a couple of shots of Zachary the day after his surgery. The green arm cuffs are designed so he can't bend his arms and touch his stitches or bolsters. The bolsters are the three things you see on the top of his nose. They hold the shape of his nose while it heals.

Thank you for all your prayers. We are confident Zachary has been pretty comfortable throughout, i.e. low or no pain. Although he has had to accept a liquid diet...no crackers; drat.

If you're wondering how he's doing now, Mamma put him down for a nap today and went downstairs and listened in on the monitor. Within a few minutes she could here him jumping on his bed. So she went back up to get him settled down to sleep.

We are being extremely cautious with his stitches, as we were warned during the thumb sucking meeting that if the stitches separate, we will have quite a mess. So we're trying to do calm things as much as possible; movies, books, stroller rides, etc. and not let him do much moving around without a hand on him. No face plants allowed!

We have a follow up appointment on Nov 16 to have the bolsters removed. The arm cuffs stay on for three weeks. So we have a ways to go, but it's good to have a goal.

Let's hope we don't have to puree the turkey on Thanksgiving!

Home from Surgery

Just a quick note to say that we're home from Ia City. Surgery went very well--only 2 hrs instead of 3.5. They ended up putting tubes in the ears too in order to prevent ear infections while he's healing. They did some work on his nose too. He looks pretty different. He's been a trooper through it all. He has to wear arm splints at all times in order to keep his hands and toys away from the face while everything heals. Getting the boy dressed and keeping his hands out of his face is a challenge. Also right now we aren't letting him walk on his own, as we don't want him to fall and do a face plant. He's on a "cup diet" which means he can only drink his food. That's been interesting! He's a bit picky on what pureed liquid foods he will drink. Plus he's not too hip on the medicine so we are having to find foods to put it in and hope he can't taste it!
Of interest, his favorite word right now is "no". He says it very clearly! Before surgery he really didn't say no very often and really couldn't pronounce it well. That's changed;)

Thanks everyone for your prayers. Keep em comin'.