Well....That happened!

I'm not entirely sure where the last two weeks have gone, although most of it seems to have been spent holding a bottle.

Of milk that is. Not gin.

Ok, sometimes gin. Anyway...

Yes, two weeks ago baby H arrived on the scene in the early hours of the morning. A little smaller than we expected (although not small by any means; anyone who describes 7lb 9 as small has clearly never had to push something that size out of their foo). I had started the induction process 3 days earlier and had been on the drip for almost 11 hours by the time he finally decided to make a dramatic appearance.

I will spare you the details. The chances are that if you are reading this you or your partner have been through labour and so don't need reminding, or you will be going through it soon and will find out for yourself.

Anyway, he is here. He is safe, and healthy and my husband and I are happy (if perpetually tired).

So what happened before/after the birth? Instead of a confusing chronology, and as I am an avid fan a list, I will set things out by subject.

Before Delivery:

What was the plan?
As I was in hospital for nearly 4 days before H finally showed his face, there was plenty of time to come up with a plan. However, even if I had only been there for a few hours before delivery I am confident the plan would have been the same.

I have to say at this point that all of the staff at the hospital were wonderful, with a special mention to all of the midwives who dealt with me for the three days before labour started. I only had one sense of humor failure and it was pretty spectacular, but they were always kind, generous, funny and a credit to the NHS.

All the midwives knew the plan and handed over the following shift fully so everyone knew what was going on. The plan was that on delivery there would be two midwives in the room, which is normal, and two pediatricians to check the baby over when he arrived. The best laid plans however....

When H did decide to make an appearance it was very, VERY, quick. So the pediatricians weren't there but thankfully weren't needed.

Did you have pain relief?
Yes. I am neither mental nor a masochist!

After Delivery:

Was the cleft diagnosis correct?
Yes. H has a left side unilateral cleft lip, palate and gum. The cleft palate goes front to back on the left side as well as some missing at the back on the right.

Did the baby have to go to Special Care Baby Unit?
About an hour after delivery (or was it 10 minutes? or 3 hours? To be honest I wasn't in my right mind, it may have been weeks!) my husband took H to the SCBU. This wasn't done immediately so there was plenty of time official introductions. The SCBU staff put a small tube into his stomach to check for acidity levels, although this was more to do with the fact that there had been increased amniotic fluid than the cleft. Then the SCBU staff showed my husband how to feed him with the special squeezy bottles that Jo from BCH had given them, and that we had miraculously not lost AND remembered to pack! Star on the star chart for us.

H and husband then returned some time later and the three of us were transferred to postnatal ward.

The midwives had been able to arrange a side room for us in the postnatal ward which was an incredible help not only in my recovery, but in bonding time with H as well. I'm not sure what the rule is about side rooms across the NHS but I would definitely recommend asking.

How is he Feeding?
Well, actually. He likes his food but that is no suprise to anyone who has met his dad and brother - both gannets. At is 18days old H is regularly taking 90-120ml. He is taking on wind and we to spend a lot of time encouraging burping but he seems to be coping quite well. Sometimes we don't get it all and the wind 'goes south' and gets trapped in his lower stomach and which point we know about it!!!!

BCH Cleft Team visits. 
Jo visited us in hospital on the day that H was born and again 2 days after we came home. She was very happy with how H was getting on. We have been assigned a Consultant and our first appointment with BCH is at the end of next month. At that point we will get our date for the lip operation.

So, that's where we are now. I think I've covered the basics.

Apologies for the rambling, nonsensical nature of the above. There is a reason sleep depravation is covered by the Geneva Convention.

Meet & Greet

Sat here with cup of tea, flicking through my maternity notes, 'Show me, Show me' on in the background and it occurs to me that I haven't spoken on the blog about our 4d scan, and seeing our baby's face for the first time.

There are some very generous companies across the UK who offer free or discounted 3D/4D scans to parents in their area who have had a Cleft diagnosis. You can find a list of them on the CLAPA website here or ask your Cleft Nurse.

We visited Babyvision in Wolverhampton in mid June.

In the run up to the appointment, I was excited. I had never had one of these scans before and I was looking forward to seeing what our little boy looked like. This was coupled with a certain amount of fear. After all, we would see what see what our little boy looked like.

After the initial diagnosis and meeting with the cleft nurse, I didn't google. I didn't search out pictures, before and after photos or anything like that. I didn't want to build up an expectation as to the extent of the cleft. This turned out to have the opposite effect because I built a picture in my own mind that wasn't really based on any fact. I knew the cleft was 8mm unilateral but that didn't really mean a huge amount to me. So the prospect of seeing it was very daunting to both me and my husband.

We had talked about whether or not we were ready to face seeing the extent of the cleft, but it was an academic discussion really. We would have to face it at some point, and the earlier that could be done the longer we would have to get used to it in our own minds before seeing our son in the delivery room.

We had a bit of a drive from our home to Wolverhampton, and I was really apprehensive all the way. Part excited. Part terrified. In an odd way it reminded me of the feeling I had on the morning of my wedding, but far stronger.

We arrived in good time and were shown up to the waiting room. The building it was in had clearly once been a huge house, the kind that had 'staff', but now housed a doctors surgery as well as Babyvision.

The staff were lovely and put us completely at ease. The sonographer went through the notes and invited us through. It started off as looking like a 'normal' scan but she flicked a switch and like magic, there he was.

Our son.

The first thing we saw was his non-cleft side, and it was remarkable how much he looked like his older brother when he was a baby. I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise but I think I spent so much time focusing on the cleft that I hadn't stopped to think about what the rest of his face would look like.

The next job was trying to get him to move so we could see the cleft side. I turned over one way, then another, then stood up and jiggled about a bit and eventually he let us see all of his face...

The sonographer laughed and said he was the grumpiest looking baby she had ever scanned. I said he looked like my dad. I'm not saying there's a connection but.......

To be fair the little one had every reason to be grumpy. The poor thing had been poked and prodded and scanned as much as me and I know I was fed up with it. At least I knew why it was happening. He was just in there trying to grow, sleep and suck his thumb and people kept squashing him.

The grumpiness didn't last for long though and we got a good look at him. The technology is amazing, we could pick out bits of me and bits of my husband. We were free to ask any questions and they were honestly answered. My main one was that on some of the pictures there seemed to be a disfigurement higher up the face to the right of the bridge of the nose (as in the above 'grumpy' photo). The lady explained that where the scan couldn't reach the machine fills in the gaps, and with a twist of the wrist the probe was moved to the area in question and it all looked normal.

As a final hurrah, and in an early show of defiance, the baby stuck his tongue out and gave us the finger. Charming. Clearly has his mothers attitude.

We were given some printed photos to take away and a disc full of images.

We headed home, not sure what to say to each other. I made it half way home before I needed to pull over to have a 'moment.' I'm not sure why I was crying, maybe it was a release of pent up anxiety, maybe it was finally facing reality. The moment didn't last long and we were soon home showing our parents their Grandson.

In the few days following the scan, we played the pictures on a slideshow on the TV in our house, just looking at them. And smiling. He is our son. We love him and, short of wearing a Liverpool FC shirt, we would love him through anything.

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I want to take this opportunity to thank Babyvision and all of the other companies who offer a free or discounted service to parents with a cleft diagnosis. It is an amazing thing to do and helps parents through such an uncertain time. Thank you.