Choosing a Surgeon

Yesterday was a very big and stressful day for our family. Choosing a Surgeon is a very big and difficult decision. We wanted so much to get the best person we could find to work on our little girl. I know that this will impact her for the rest of her life, and I felt a lot of stress worrying that we were going to make the right decision. Over the past couple of months, I have been doing a lot of research into surgeons in our area. I created a spreadsheet (I know it sounds a little silly) where I had their names, information, number of surgeries in the past year, any awards or recognition, whether or not I had received any recommendations about that surgeon, and even looked at pictures from their surgeries to see who I thought was the best. I talked with many mothers here locally about their experiences with their surgeons, why they chose them, and even got to see a lot of pictures. After all of my research I cam to the conclusion that Dr. Morales here in Salt Lake was the best. I was aprehensive however, because many of the families and mentioned that his bedside manner wasn't very good. I knew that I needed to feel comfortable and trust my surgeon in every aspect before I would hand my little one over, so we decided to go and meet with Dr. Morales. We met with him yesterday and I was so impressed. He was very direct (which is good), but also very kind. We looked at a lot of results, went over the processes, and discussed plans, he looked at our ultrasound and gave us some insight and was just overall fantastic. I feel so much better knowing that my little girl will be in his hands. He did tell us that he thought based upon our pictures that the palate was most likely not affected, but he thought maybe she would have a little hitch on the the other side as well making it a bilateral cleft lip instead of unilateral. He did say that they look incomplete however. Obvioiusly we have to wait until she arrives to see all of it, and know for sure. Although I am still very nervous about the surgery and sending her off, I do feel much better knowing that we have made a decision and have a person that we trust to work on her. We will start 6-8 weeks after she arrives either with a surgery or with pre-surgery preparation depending on whether or not her palate is affected. What a big day for our family.