My son was born with a cleft

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So I'm going to share my son's story here and see how many mom's or even dad's out there may be able to relate in one way or another. I am the mother of a beautiful 2 yr old boy. He is your typical boy. He is healthy and sweet. He is the center of mine and his fathers world and he knows it. Anyway he was born with a cleft lip. I believe it was actually called a unilateral incomplete cleft lip. I didn't know about it until after he was born. Although afterwards I could see it on the ultrasound picture so I'm not sure how they missed it. I was told right after he was born that he has a "slight" cleft. I was afraid at first, but the wonderful doctors reassured me it wasn't bad, and it wasn't. I looked at him and all I could see was this amazingly beautiful little boy. I came to love his little cleft smile, because it was the first smile I saw and I couldn't imagine him with any other smile. I was never ashamed of him. I took him into public and didn't care what people thought. I had several people just stare at him. It's kind of hard in some ways because it's like they are looking at my amazing little boy as less than human. I could even hear little kids ask what was wrong with him. I didn't think too much of it though because they're just kids and curious. Sometimes the adults answers would annoy me a little, but I dealt. People fear what is different and to them my son was different. My son was 5 mos old when he had his cleft repaired and you honestly can barely tell he had a cleft unless you are familiar with what clefts look like after being repaired. We were fortunate in that all my son had was the lip and only need one surgery with a possible second one in the future to remove the extra skin on his lip. So many cleft kids also have the palate or have syndromes that go with it. So for that I'm blessed. I was fortunate in that I had someone talk to me about the surgery before hand. My cousin's daughter was born with the same type of cleft as my son and explained the surgery to me to put me at ease a little. Me and my boyfriend cried when they took our son back. He was crying and reaching his arms out for us wanting us to take him as they carried him back he was so scared. Then there was some insensitive doctor that told us that this was obviously his first surgery or we wouldn't be crying. Of course I would cry because my son was afraid. The surgery took about 2 hours maybe a little less. He looked so different when he came out, but he was still so adorable. He kind of reminded me of a kitten with the way they had the tape over his lip. He was the best baby he barely cried and the nurses just loved him. He was even trying to smile but it hurt him to. This was also the first time I ever heard him say mama. I was holding him after the surgery and he looked at me and he said "mama" and I had tears in my eyes. We stayed at the hospital over night with him. They showed us different ways to feed him because he couldn't have a bottle. We went with syringe feeding him since he was used to taking medicine because of ear infections and such. He also had splints on both arms. We had to keep the splints on and syringe feed him for 2 weeks. They were the longest 2 weeks of our lives. A week after the surgery his stitches came out. I remember being at my sisters shop and some guy looked at him and asked what happened. I remember telling him my son had a surgery because of his cleft lip. He said "Oh, I was asking because of the splints, I just thought maybe he fell and hurt his lip". I think that was when I first realized my son may stop getting stared at for being "different". Which is kind of a nice feeling in a way. I never thought of him so much as different. I just saw him as the amazing little boy he is. I however, don't want him being made fun of later because of his lip. My son is now 2 as I said before and he is advanced in speech and has all of his teeth. We were told because of his cleft lip even though he didn't have a cleft palate he may not get some teeth by where his cleft lip was, but he did. We were also told speech was the biggest issue with kids with cleft lips. He has been advanced in speech for quite some time now. So he has exceeded expectations. After having gone through all of this I feel like we are all stronger for it. I don't have an issue telling people about his cleft as I think it shapes who he is and who we are. I also think it is something more people should be aware of. So many people know so little about it. I didn't know much about it until after my son was born. I want to say this though, I know what my son went through is less than what other children go through which is why I feel so fortunate. I don't feel that whole "why me?" I feel like wow look how blessed I am that out of everything that my child could have been through this is all. Sure he has it worse than a lot, but we are all stronger for it. My over all question here I guess is is there anyone out there who has been in the same situation or a similar one? Do you have a child who was stared at because they were different? Do you feel like it has made you stronger? Each child is unique and special in their own way. This is just my son's story. I would love to hear others stories.