Imperfect perfection

At our 20 week scan on Monday the sonographer detected a probable cleft lip, and on Thursday we were rescanned by a consultant, who confirmed that there was a cleft and that it looked to be unilateral (ie only on one side of the lip), although bubs was being very uncooperative and wriggling around too much to get a very clear view. Whether the palate is cleft as well probably won't be detected until after birth. Although the consultant had never seen a cleft inherited from a parent before, our own research had told us that the chances of having one go up from 1 in 700 for the general population to 7 in 100 if a parent also has a cleft. I don't think I'd thought about my lip in years, it's been such a non-issue for me, but suddenly I'm aware of it again.

Despite the fact that I don't particularly wish away my own cleft, the emotions I've felt about my baby's are a lot more conflicted. I feel guilty for passing on my faulty genes, and for not even considering that I might be doing so (although it could still be total coincidence as well.) I feel anxiety about the number of unknowns attendant on pregnancy, birth and child-rearing suddenly increasing in number. I feel irrational hope that the baby will have exactly the same sort of cleft experience as me rather than anything more traumatic. I feel a bit of anger that things will be difficult, and that I won't be able to have the home birth I was planning. And I feel sadness for the lost 'perfect' baby that never in truth existed, but in our imaginations was the only outcome we'd entertained. Websites about birth defects tell you that it's normal to go through a grieving process, however brief, for this imaginary perfection you've lost. But for me the grief is tempered by increased excitement, because where before there was only potential, now there is reality, a real human being. Because nothing makes us more human than our imperfections, after all. And the baby is otherwise healthy in every way as far as the scans can tell.

Many of our worries now are practical ones, about the surgery involved, the timescale and the recovery process, and the possible problems with feeding, breathing or speech. My parents must have experienced the same worries but they wisely and kindly never shared them with me. A child with a cleft doesn't need to know that it's a troublesome child.

We also found out that the baby is probably a girl, and again this knowledge closes off one avenue of imagination but makes the developing person more real and exciting at the same time. And cleft or no cleft, our baby WILL be perfect to us :)

Weeks: 21+3