This is Rachel just days old, before we left the hospital. She has a unilateral cleft lip, palate, and aveolar ridge.
Unfortunately, the clefts were not detected during my pregnancy, and was a complete shock to us at birth.
I'm sure in the beginning it probably seemed pretty overwhelming for my parents. Daddy was deployed often - back then Marines deployed for two years at a time and families didn't travel with them. They stayed behind. Read The Rest »