An update

As many of you know, River Gregory Thompson entered the world on January 18th 2012.  He was born with a unilateral cleft lip and palate.  He is healthy and happy and just like any other baby except that he has to drink from a special bottle.  He is 1 month old now and has just gotten above his birth weight!  Something that takes most cleft babies a little longer to do than most.  His sisters love an adore him and continue to fight over who gets to hold him and do other things for him.  Jayden is mastering the task of diaper changes, something Brooklyn has not yet attempted to do.
Things are moving quickly as far as his cleft repair goes.  A few weeks back we took him to the dentist to get his mouth molded for his oral device.  The device is called a Latham and will help close his cleft.  It is like a retainer on both sides of his mouth, attached by a bar.  The bar has a tiny screw on it that we will have to turn with a tiny screw driver each day.  This will bring the two sides closer together and make the surgery easier.  He will have the surgery to put this device in on March 7th.  They will have to put him under anesthesia for about 30 minutes.  He will wear the Latham for about a month or so, then they will take it out when they close his lip.

Our Journey begins.....3D ultrasound

        With this being our last baby, I really wanted to have a 3D ultrasound. I also wanted another peek to make sure it was for sure a BOY!  What a cool experience to see your baby before he is born!  Monday November 7th we picked the girls up from school early and headed out to the west side of town for our ultrasound.  The girls were very excited to see what their brother looked like.
          The baby was very low and had his back turned toward us.  We were a able to get a semi-profile shot with his ear and his hand which he kept putting over his face.  It was very frustrating, as we all wanted to see his face.  After about 45 minutes of me moving around and trying to get the baby to move in a different position, the ultrasound tech decided we should come back the next day and try again.
         The next day Justin & I headed out there again without the girls this time. Thankfully baby had moved and we were able to see his face. After a few minutes of watching our little guy on the screen, Justin said "It looks like he has a cleft lip" and asked if that was indeed what he was seeing.  The tech said she noticed that too, but she was not a doctor and couldn't be sure.  My heart sank.  I was hoping deep down that she was wrong and this could not be true.  We left with some photos and our ultrasound DVD.  The next step was to call my doctor.
           After speaking to my doctor, they had the films from our 20 week anatomy scan ultrasound pulled.  Ideally they should have noticed the cleft then.  The baby was low and had his head turned at that scan too, so it was not picked up.  Insurance was not going to pay for another ultrasound, so the radiologist at the hospital kindly agreed to look at our 3D ultrasound DVD and see if he could diagnosis it. Within 2 hours of me dropping the DVD off at the hospital, my doctor had to called to confirm that he did indeed have a unilateral (one side) cleft lip.  Thankfully it is only on one side, but we will not know if the palate is involved until he is born.
          Its been a long week to say the least.  Lots of crying and feelings of hopelessness and despair.  Thoughts going through my mind of why is this happening to us? How could this be?  After many google searches (probably too many) and reading other families blogs and what they have gone through, I don't feel so alone.  This is not the end of the world, and it can be fixed.  Our little man seems healthy otherwise, and we can be thankful for that! This is going to be long journey to say the least, but we will get through it, and love our little man just the same!

      It makes me feel better to talk about it, so I have created this blog to be open and honest about it, and share it with family and Friends.