20 + 3

10/1/24

I thought I was handling the news from our anatomy scan well, until the next morning came. Anthony and I had a lot of conversation the day before, we told our families what they found on our scans, and we were prepared to handle whatever came our way as far as surgeries, meetings and any other concerns arising. I went to bed thinking we were in a good place, so when I woke up on Tuesday after our appointment, I was a little taken aback by my overwhelming feelings of sadness. The only way I have been able to describe this feeling is that I found myself in an aggressive stage of mourning that I was not expecting.

I have waited my whole life to become a mom. I have known that I wanted kids for as long as I could comprehend the idea of motherhood. When we found out I was pregnant I had all of these ideas of what pregnancy, birth, and even our baby would look like. When I woke up the day after our anatomy scan I found myself feeling like everything I had always imagined was ruined. I had wanted a natural unmedicated birth, obviously as full term as possible; but with the amnion chorion separation that was unlikely now. I had imagined going to a few appointments a month, getting so excited to see our baby on the couple ultrasounds we had left, and getting more excited as the doctors appointments got closer together until we delivered. With the finding of the cleft and the introduction of a huge team of doctors and specialists, we now had so many additional appointments and important conversations that we were going to be having. Lastly, I pictured our perfect little baby. I couldn’t wait to give birth and hold our little nugget and just have a “normal” birth experience. We had picked out a cute take home outfit for a boy and one for a girl and thought we may be in the hospital for a day or so before our new family of three was heading home. Now I was envisioning not being able to breastfeed our baby, they may need feeding tubes, they may need oxygen, bringing our three month old baby back to the hospital for their first of many surgeries; all of these new concerns that came with the complication of the clefts had ruined my perfect plan, and I was not handling this realization very well.

I felt guilty about my feelings as I laid in bed for most of the day crying over the loss of what I had envisioned for my pregnancy and our baby. I started to journal a bit, and this blog became my outlet for all of my thoughts. As the day went on I googled some more, read through stories from other moms, spoke to a couple of our first specialists, and I began to create a new vision. The first change I accepted was that we were now going to do whatever our doctors suggested was the best move for the actual birth of our baby. The separation was a bit of an unknown and it may not have an effect, or it may cause issues. Ultimately we weren’t sure if this would cause problems and if I would need a c-section, or if it would not be a problem at all and I could still try the birth plan I was hoping for. I decided there was no reason to panic over an unknown and we would cross that bridge when we got there. So I began coping with the vision of a c-section, an early birth, a medicated birth, an unmedicated birth; every situation could be possible so I accepted that we would do what our doctors said was safest for baby and me when it came time to deliver.

The second thing I began coping with was the physical concerns that come with the clefts. I found out that babies with a cleft lip are often said to have a “wide smile,” and the more I pictured it the more I began to fall in love with our babies wide smile. One of our doctors I spoke to said it was very unlikely the palate would be so extreme that baby could not be tubed if needed, and they told me about special bottles used for feeding. I would not be able to physically breastfeed our baby but I got some recommendations on pumps that are great for strictly pumping, and I found the special bottle attachments and added them to our registry. I went and got a notebook and some little tabs to begin keeping track of all of our contact names, numbers, and information they were giving us. With each person I talked to, the more prepared I felt. 

By the end of the day I had a whole new vision of what my pregnancy, birth and baby could look like. I felt a sense of peace wash over me as I talked with Anthony that evening and we decided that we were just going to keep gathering information, and we were going to handle each obstacle as they came. Anthony has always been my constant, and this situation was no different. After every phone call with a new doctor, he was my first phone call to relay what I had learned. He absorbs everything like a sponge and reassures me that us and baby will be just fine, we may just need to handle a few extra hiccups we hadn’t originally planned for. We both tend to be fairly positive and optimistic people, so this decision to gather as much info as possible and take everything one day at a time, was not difficult for us. As the first few days passed we both felt more at ease and more prepared with every bit of information we were being given by our growing team of doctors. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning…