My son Brandon

[Edith]

When I was about 4 or 5 months pregnant, I founf out my son had a cleft lip/ palate but did not know the severity of it. I was very frightened and sad because I had never really seen anyone with this. I read book and saw picture which prepared me to see my baby when born.
At first my husband had this confused look on his face and I didn't know what he was thinking which scared me. At 2 months og age my baby had his first surgery, it was very rough and heartbreaking to see him like that. His face was so swollen and he looked in pain. He looked like a different baby, not the one I was used to seeing, because after seeing your baby with a cleft lip/ palate you get used to there face being like that and it looks normal to you until people started staring. We managed to get through it with support and God's love. His next surgery was at 5 or 6 months and then at 10 months. By this time we were pros at feeding him with a syringe.
Now you would never know he had a cleft at all. He is the sweetest happiest kid I have.
After him we had another baby which is 10 1/2 months old and he was born perfectly normal. when I became pregnant with my last baby I was pretty comfortable with having another cleft baby. I would not let the hospital keep him as a newborn unless his cleft was bad because I already knew how to feed him and care for him. My cleft baby was taken away from me at birth and transfered to another hospital that could care for him because the birth hospital was not equipped for a cleft baby. I hated seeing needles in my baby and that why with my last pregnancy, I would not allow them to take him away from me but luckly my last baby was without a cleft. I was very greatlful to God that nothing really serious and life threatening was wrong with my baby and that it could be fixed. Enjoy you're baby while his little because they grow like weeds.