Rachel was born August 31, 2004, with a unilateral cleft lip, palate, and aveolar ridge. I created this blog shortly after her birth to keep family, friends, and others to see and follow her progress in the journey to getting her clefts repaired.

Not only has it been a place of keeping others up to date on Rachel and her journey, it's become sort of an online scrapbook and journal of day to day happenings now that this stretch of the journey has slowed down a bit. To avoid all the posts of the day to day happenings, I have created categories, listed on the left side of the blog that take you directly to the cleft related stuff. I hope that the information and pictures and the sharing of Rachel's Journey will help others and be a source of encouragement to those who are also dealing with a child having been born with a cleft of some sort.