Sticky Hand No Longer!

Bye bye, pinky wave! And hello, high fives! We left the house at 5 am today with one "rosebud" hand and returned at 3 pm with five separated (albeit heavily bandaged) fingers!

The surgery only lasted about 2 hours and they were able to successfully separate her thumb and three adhered fingers without a problem.  It turns out that each of the fingers did have space separating it from the others, so that made the procedure a lot easier.  The surgeon showed us pictures of her hand post-op and it looked great - four stubby little fingers where one ball-o-finger once was.  We can't wait to see it in real life in a few weeks!

WanYing was a cherub pre-surgery... unfortunately, she must have used up all of her sweetness reserve because she was mad for the rest of the day. I would be, too, if my hand hurt and was all wrapped up and I had strangers checking on me every 20 seconds and a stupid IV in my foot. The nurses kept commenting that she was, "very strong" and "quite the fighter" and they're right! Those are traits that will serve her so well in life... but wrestling a furious (and strong) two year old for hours does wear a mommy out.

She pulled it together long enough to wolf down a tangerine and a yogurt and that was good enough for the staff - they said she was stable enough to go home and we were out of there!

(this is a photo taken during one of her blessed, blessed moments of quietness)

Her hand is all bandaged up in a "tape cast" that they'll remove at her follow-up appointment on June 6th.  I'm not exactly sure how we're supposed to keep the cast clean and dry for four whole weeks, but we'll do our best.  It is admittedly nice that she has something she can't unravel herself because you know she'd be picking at it if she could.  Oh, and the funniest part of the cast is that they left her super pinky out!  So we get to enjoy pinky waves for just a little while longer :)

Hmm... she looks really content in all of these photos. That's completely unfair. I guess the ones where she was writhing and windmilling her arms and legs didn't scream "photo op" to Steve and me at the time. Or maybe there really were more happy moments than I remember - those angry-baby times do stick in a Mommy's memory.

We're home safe and sound now. WanYing has been (understandably) cranky, but the 1-2 punch of ibuprofen and Tylenol is keeping her pain manageable. She's a fighter, this one - and I mean that in all of the best ways :)

Can't wait to post photos of her new hand in June!