I had the opportunity to talk to another cleft mother at church

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I've mentioned before that my son was born with a cleft lip, something that was corrected with a surgery when he was 5 months old. He's currently 6 years old and entering first grade in the fall and we've been through a lot. It's cleft awareness month and while at church last week I saw someone who had a cleft baby who also had the cleft palate as well as a more serious cleft lip. My son was fortunate in that he only had a cleft lip that didn't even go into his nose. He had what was known as an incomplete unilateral cleft lip. I am not a very outgoing person and I wasn't sure whether or not to go up to this girl who looked young but I remember what it was like to not know many people who were facing a situation similar to my own. I remember being scared and I remember talking to my cousin who had a daughter with almost the exact same cleft lip as my son and it helped me tremendously. I remember seeing people staring and wondering if it was because they thought my son was cute or because he looked "weird". I took my son up and talked to her, my son told her that her daughter was cute, which I think she needed to hear especially from a child, most kids stare and ask questions, not my son. My son doesn't remember having a cleft lip and you can barely tell he had one but he honestly thought her baby was cute and kids are generally honest about things like that. It made her smile. I then told her about my son and let her look at his lip and she said it gave her hope that her daughter wouldn't be made fun of for how she looked later. I told her a little about the surgery. Her daughters will be a bit different because they'll more than likely fix or start to fix the palate before they do the lip, but the recovery should be somewhat similar, but recovery time may or may not be different. For my son, it was 2 weeks. He had to wear splints on his arms and be fed via a syringe for 2 weeks. It was torture but we got through it I was the main one responsible for taking care of my son as my boyfriend worked. I was just happy to help someone else the way my cousin helped me. Nothing puts you at ease more than talking to someone who has been through it. She mentioned she would be coming back to church more frequently. She felt more welcome. I think she felt like people were judging her and when she realized people weren't it made her feel good. I'm glad I could help a bit. I remember how that felt. My son's lip looks great now, his scar gets smaller and smaller day by day. I do remember all of the worries and fears I had like it was yesterday though, and I can safely put most of them to rest. My son's lip looks amazing now and believe it or not I still sometimes miss his wide smile. I told her she'll miss it too because it's the first smile you see and it's just part of them, but you do learn to love the new one just as much if not more. I wanted to tell someone who probably doesn't hear it as often as other mothers that her baby is beautiful too. I was happy to see others telling her too. The other people who were around when I told her about my son were in shock, none of them knew that about my son and that just tells you how great the doctor did on his lip. My son has always been and will always be beautiful no matter what others thought or think. I think that's what matters most.