Cleft Lip and Palette

As I mentioned in my catching up about my next child. We have had a lot of ups and downs with this pregnancy, from my wife's health to the recent discovery that my son will have a Cleft lip and Palette. The cleft is a bi-lateral cleft which is the rarest form, and affect both sides of his lip, and with that there is about an 85% chance he has the palette as well. And one of the ultrasounds was pretty evident of that.

I'm a stats person so I live by numbers. The chance of getting the birth defect is .018% (no not 1.8% it's .018%). So the chances of a nurse having experience with it are minimal, but fortunately we have Primary Children's in Utah that are some of the best. With my wonderful wife, we've been studying what to expect.

1. 3.9 surgeries in the first 5 years. They will start at about 10 months
2. 66 Dr. appointments in the first 5 years.
3. 15% mortality rate in the first year because of other issues that might stem from this.

So what does it mean? Stress. Lots of it. The bottles cost $16 a piece and then last 15 feedings. Feeding the baby will be unique cause he won't be able to suckle.

But good news it's a boy, and yes we already have the name picked out :P