Two weeks and four days

Well, Alice is now 18 days old, and since her dad went back to work it definitely feels like the 'babymoon' is over. I'm still smitten with her, but not so much with night feeds (especially when she's going through a phase of eating every two hours) or with the endless, mindless round of preparing formula and washing, sterilising, warming and cooling bottles and accessories.

I thought I was prepared for the consequences of her cleft, but now I realise that I was subconsciously expecting it to be like mine - a narrow cleft on one side of her lip, not the wide gap going through both lip and palate that she actually has. Aesthetically it didn't take long to get used to and she looks absolutely beautiful anyway, but I must admit to being deeply disappointed that I can't breastfeed her normally. I am expressing milk but we have to top her up with formula, something I never thought I would have to do. The ridiculous palaver of bottle-feeding doesn't help - I can't just stick her on a boob when she seems hungry, so it's a constant struggle to stay one step ahead with preparing feeds.

But she feeds very well (if a bit messily) from her squeezy bottle and at this point her cleft really doesn't make her different from any other baby, just more time-consuming. I don't know what the future will bring though, except that I'm already dreading the day we go for her lip surgery and her adorable face changes forever - even though I know I'll love her new smile just as much.