So, Tell Me More About the Cleft

Here's a 3D ultrasound photo of baby Self! The line that goes from her nose to her lip is the cleft.

A cleft lip and/or palate is a condition that occurs when a baby's face doesn't fully come together when it is forming. It can be as minor as the skin above the lip not coming together or as major as the bone that makes up the roof of the mouth not coming together. A cleft usually happens within the first 7 or 8 weeks of the baby's life, often before mom even knows that she's pregnant!

As far as what causes a cleft, doctors tell me they aren't exactly sure. In some cases, there could be some genetic predisposition that leads to a cleft, but that doesn't seem to be the case with our baby. With our baby, it just happened to happen. It's not like I did a crazy workout or ate some crazy food that caused our daughter's face to not fully form the way it should. Like I already said, it just happened. And so, Jon and I are in for a little more excitement than we thought we were when we first found out we were expecting!

The good thing about our daughter having a cleft is that it isn't a life or death condition. In fact, if she merely has a cleft lip, she'll only need a small cosmetic surgery at 6 months and then she should be good to go! If she has a cleft palate as well, we're in for a bit more of a ride. If this is the case, she'll get a surgery around 12 months to fix the roof of her mouth, and then she could need additional surgeries to help with her hearing, speech, and/or teeth in the coming years because these things are often affected when the palate isn't formed properly. Though ultrasounds suggest that our daughter only has a cleft lip at this point, we can't be completely sure until she arrives.

When it comes down to it, our little girl will be just like every other little girl. She might look a little different to start out with, but that just gives us all the more reason to love her! Now if she would just come...my ribs can only take so much bruising!

For More Info on Clefts:

The Cleft Palate Foundation:
http://www.cleftline.org/

Seattle Children's Craniofacial Website:
This is the hospital where our baby will have her surgeries.
http://www.seattlechildrens.org/clinics-programs/craniofacial/

The Phone Call That Changed Our Pregnancy

Jon and I waiting to find out the gender of our baby!

Going to our 20 week ultrasound was super exciting. Jon took the morning off of work so that he could come see the baby and we got to find out the gender...a girl!

Five hours later, however, I got a phone call that changed the mood a bit.

We found some things in your ultrasound, they said.

She has a cleft lip and possibly a cleft palate.

There's signs that she could have Down Syndrome.

And your placenta is bleeding which means your baby may not even survive.

Oh.

I thanked the lady for the phone call and hung up.

You never really expect to get follow up phone calls like that one. Other people get phone calls like that, but not you. Not me. 

At first I didn't really know what to feel. Then, after ten minutes of shock the fear and anxiety started settling in. This isn't the way things were supposed to go. This isn't what I'd wanted. Selfishly, I started thinking about the future life I'd always pictured for myself and how different it was going to be if some of the things the lady on the phone said was true. With a forever dependent child, how was I going to go and do all the things I planned on doing once my kids were supposed to have left the house? And wouldn't it be very challenging taking care of a child with such special and different needs than most other children? I knew that many parents of children with disabilities regarded it as one of the biggest blessing in their lives, but I cowered with feelings of inadequacy at the thought of joining them.

And then as I sat there, I was quietly reminded of two beautiful gospel truths, the remembering of which changed everything. Those two truths are:

1. That God is in control, and
2. That God loves us and will help us through the challenges in this life if we come unto Him.

When I remembered these things, my heart began to change. I realized that regardless of the challenges our daughter would have, that she would be the daughter Heavenly Father wanted to send us. He knows Jon and myself, along with our daughter, He knows what we need, and He loves us all very much. He would not give us anything we couldn't handle, so that means that if He was giving us a daughter with some physical challenges He knew that we could handle it.

In addition, because He loves us, we wouldn't have to take on these challenges on our own. Along with whatever difficulties the future had in store, His helping hand would be there. Jon and I and our daughter weren't in this alone.

Yes, that phone call still changed what we expected our first pregnancy to be like, but remembering these eternal truths changed that phone call and everything that has come since then. We have been to specialists and I've had additional ultrasounds and the whole deal hasn't been smooth sailing. But from the moment I remembered these things, the future has no longer felt scary, but full of beauty and determination and brightness and hope.

Today, the majority of the doctors' concerns about our daughter's health have disappeared except for her cleft, which is so fixable in today's world that Jon and I consider it a blessing. But even if she is born with Down Syndrome, or if sad of sad days comes and we don't get to keep her in this life, I know that God's hand is involved in whatever happens to her--and all of us--in this life, and I'm grateful for the phone call that reminded me of that.

Click here if you want to read my explanation about clefts!