What I Learned When My Baby Was Born With a Cleft Lip
In our 20-week anatomy scan, my husband and I learned our baby had a cleft lip. While the scan could pick up the clean, dark line from lip to nostril, we wouldn't know if he would also have a cleft palate—a hole in the roof of his mouth—until he was born. Although we otherwise had a seemingly healthy baby boy, the news was a lot for us to take in.
When I told my mom, through tears, she asked, "But they can fix that, right?"
Her question was probably meant as much to reassure herself as it was to reassure me. And "at least it's fixable" was by far the most common response we heard when telling friends and family about the diagnosis. The response felt dismissive of the grief my husband and I felt and added a layer of guilt on top—after all, we had an otherwise healthy baby.