Growing, Growing, Done

 The creation of life.

Just wanted to shared the progress of how Aria came to be.

Our little bean at 9 weeks

 It's incredible that humans start off this small and tiny. And crazier to think that this was the time her face was forming and when the cleft appeared.

12 weeks

A person appears. Everything was going well at this point. We left our first prenatal scan knowing that our baby had a strong heart beat and the doctor was 70% sure we were having a girl.

19 weeks

This was the scan that changed everything. It's shocking how clearly define the cleft is at this point. We had to speak to a genetics counselor about our options. It felt like dream. We were told that a cleft could be a sign of more abnormalities. More testing had to be done; so an amniocentesis was scheduled. That was a freaky experience. Trying to lie still while a doctor inserted a long needle into my belly while trying to not stab the baby. As we waited for the test results to come back, we had to discuss the possibility of termination. After a couple of weeks the test results came back normal. Besides the cleft we were having a perfectly healthy baby girl. For me, this resulted in another round of frustration of wanting to know what causes a cleft.

30 week

We went back in for a couple more ultrasounds. These were enjoyable as long as we walked out with no more bad news. With my past pregnancy we did not get anymore ultrasounds after the 20 week check up, so to be able to see more images of the baby growing and to continue seeing that strong heart beat was exciting.

34 weeks

The overall pregnancy was as normal as it can be. My health was good. The baby's health was good. I was eager to be done with this pregnancy but I think that stemmed from also having to take care of an active toddler.


 A few days before her due date, Aria decided she was done with the womb too and emerged. The birth went quick and easy. Now we were finally able to see how bad the cleft was. It's not the worst case but definitely more than we would like it to be. 

The diagnosis...

A unilateral cleft lip and palate.