I will never forget the excitement Jason and I had when we found out we were finally going to have a baby after a year of trying! We had names picked, the nursery we wanted picked out, everything you could think of in the first 20 weeks. We entered our 20 week ultrasound and everything looked great, but my OB wanted me to come back in 3 weeks for one more! I was excited to see our little girl again. Never did I think I would get the news that my baby was going to be born with a cleft lip and palate. I immediately took to the internet, googling, looking at pictures, finding parent blogs, etc. That is when I found the support group that has changed my life forever. Never did I think I would have hundreds of parents in my same position living across the country or around the world become my best friends.
I found the page for Cleft Lip and Palate on the Baby Center Website. It was my go to page for information, and real life stories to help me make it through those last 16weeks of my pregnancy. One day we decided to start a Facebook Page for all of us moms on the forum, we figured we all spend plenty of time on Facebook let’s just combine Facebook and Cleft Support in one. That’s where my friends Melanie and Kari come in to the picture! We together spend time checking and monitoring the group we have on Facebook everyday. That includes mom’s around the world that have cleft babies. We share photos, we cry on each other, I have even shared a glass of wine via the internet with Kari before. It has been great, we continuously are bouncing ideas off of each other, sharing new strategies for us to try. We talk about the things that helped us with the NAM, things that we did to help with taping. We are also there for each other during surgery time. It’s something we can share together many miles away. These moms know what you’re going through, they know how scared and nervous you are. They know the feeling when you first meet your Cleftie, they also know the feeling you get the first time you see your baby’s new smile. That is why we created this. It helps to talk to someone who has been there, and done everything you are going through, or what you’re “fixin” to go through.
The group has created a cleft family that currently has over 450 members. You can find the page by simply typing in Baby Center Cleft Moms in the Search Bar on Facebook. It’s a private group so you will have to be added. (It is our way of keeping the Spam out). We want all the mom of cleft babies to have the support each of us had during every stage of having a cleft baby. We want other moms to know that they are not alone and that they will get through it too. It also is nice to see all these cute cleft babies all day long. We want it to continue to be a family of cleft strong parents and babies.