Darrell, my heart goes out to you. I have been there. Your
letter sounds so much like our story. First of all, don't beat
yourself up trying to figure out what you did wrong or why this
happened. In our case, there were so many things that "could
have" caused something to go wrong. It could have been
anything. I finally had to realize that I couldn't change the
past, but I could make the best decisions possible for my baby.
You are already doing something wonderful for your baby by
finding out everything you can about clefts NOW. Even in this day
of modern technology, many people still do not know about their
baby's cleft until delivery. You, like us, are fortunate enough
to be able to prepare yourself. Nursing is still possible, but
until the baby is born, it's hard to say exactly how feeding will
work. Sometimes if only the lip is cleft, the baby can still
nurse. Our baby had a severely cleft palate, so sucking was not
possible for him, but bless his heart, he tried. I pumped my milk
until he was 3 months old, and then we had to switch to formula.
I fed him through a squeeze bottle. It was hard sometimes, but we
got through it, and you'd never know now what he went through.
Keep finding out everything you can, but remember this - your
baby will have a personality and in many ways will be like any
other baby, even a baby without any problems. Our first child was
not cleft affected. She was a colicky baby. In ways, our son was
easier to deal with! He was hard to feed, but he was much more
content. Depending on the age of your first child, I would
encourage you to be open about the baby's cleft and related
problems. Our little girl was 2 1/2 when the baby came and she
understood quite a lot from what we told her. She was a real help
to me in those first few weeks. I could go on, but I won't...but
please e-mail me with any questions you might have. I hope that I
can help you.
RisaBush@aol.com