Primary Children's

So on Friday we went and met with the Cleft Repair director at Primary Childrens. It was very informative and she is fantastic! She is pretty much the parent's advocate when it comes to anything. She went over feeding and gave us the nipples and bottles we will need to use and explained how they work. She went over the basic anatomy of the mouth and palate and of course what to expect. She showed us pictures from the most minor cleft to the most serious, trying to prepare us for what we may see. Since we won't know what we are dealing with until the baby was born, it was good to see every possible scenario. She also gave us a basic timeline which is something like this:

Day one - 6 weeks: fitted for prosthetic palate

6-12 weeks: First surgery on the lip and nose, placement of prosthetic hard palate (The time of surgery depends on how well baby is gaining weight)

8-12 months: Surgery of the soft palate, Prosthetic is still left in

2-4 years: Surgery of hard palate (They wait this long because they want the palate to fuse together on its own as much as possible making it less of a hole to fix.)

There may possibly be another surgery between 6-7 years depending on whether or not there is bone in the gums. If not, they will do a bone graft.

We have another ultrasound tomorrow to make sure everything is still going good in there. Cross your fingers that baby will open it's mouth to get a better look.