3 surgeries in 3 months

Yes, it's true.
March... 1st hand surgery
April... 2nd hand surgery
May 4... clubfoot corrective surgery
Enough already!

Abbey's clubfoot surgery was performed here at our local children's hospital. We met with the orthopedic surgeon shortly after returning from China. After reviewing her medical records (what little we had of them), he suggested we consider corrective surgery. Let me back up a bit---
Abbey had the Ponseti method of clubfoot correction done in China. The wonderful staff at the Hope Foundation was able to perform the serial casting and manipulation of her foot. The staff at Amazing Hands (the home where Abbey was placed in order for her to receive medical care) provided the care she needed and helped her adjust to her brace. After several months of wearing a brace to hold her foot in the correct position, she was finally able to wear it only at night. That is when we came into the picture.
On our Gotcha' Day, Abbey was placed in my arms and Tina (the house-mother who brought her to Zhengzhou) gave us her brace and instructions on how to put it on her feet at bedtime. She also mentioned the brace often came off during the night. We found that out during our stay in China that the brace did indeed work it's way off during the night and it did not seem to fit securely or comfortably on Abbey's feet.

Back to the present...
This led our surgeon to suggest a tendon transfer on Abbey's right clubfoot since the prior corrective measures had not maintained the proper alignment of her foot. Abbey's amniotic banding on her right foot also was a factor in proceeding with the surgery instead of repeating the Ponseti method again.
That being said... the surgery went well, but it was the 48 hrs after surgery that put me in tears. Abbey isn't able to tolerate any form of codeine/pain medication so that left us alternating ibuprofen and tylenol to help control her pain. She was hurting and my heart was breaking!
Pray, Pray, Pray and pray some more.

I think I have mentioned before that Abbey is one tough cookie! Her resilience and determined spirit rose to the occasion and we soon had our sweet and happy little girl up and going. Well, sort of up and going... she was either in the stroller or on my hip.

Guess which one she preferred the most??