Meet Jake

Or rather meet Jake Thomas Henry Fernie. Our boy.

Jake because we've loved the name for a while and is a great for baby, toddler, boy and man. Not too common, not too unusual. It's a manly name; you don't get many ballet dancing Jakes, if you catch my drift. Thomas because it's nice and traditional and I like the idea of him using Jake T. Fernie when his charity and missionary work finally gets the recognition it deserves! And finally Henry after both of our grandfathers. Or as my best mate pointed out now unofficially after Thierry, Arsenal's greatest ever player. Well 2nd greatest ever player after Dennis Bergkamp! Obviously we would never, ever, EVER name a child after a footballer, just so long as that's clear!

Anyway here he is in all his amazingness.

I've just finished the night shift in the lounge which was very successful as it gave Clare 8 hours kip but I need a couple for me now so till later...zzzzzzzz

It's a boy!

Our son, who is remaining nameless overnight at least, was born 2 weeks early today at 13.50 weighing 6 pounds 14 ounces. The only way I can describe my feelings are that they are undescribable and moreso given that I haven't slept since the early hours of Sunday morning. Anyway it's not about me, it's about my amazing wife who huffed and puffed and pushed until our beautiful bouncing boy came flying through the air at me, having been propelled by a pair of forseps. The outpour of emotion, I'll remember forever yet forgot the details instantly. An hour went pass in a split second and we were back in the room with our son!

Anyway a full breakdown of the events of the last 48 hours will be posted soon, but for now I'm having a beer and going to sleep!

a waiting game

so we called the hospital at midnight and they asked us if clare could feel the baby and she couldn't remember so as a precaution they told up to come in. turns out she was 4 cm dilated and we were definitely in the right place. so I'm sat here at 4am waiting for chick pea to pop out! crikey! Clare's doing amazingly. hope to have more news soon.

it's happening!

well at least we think it is! either that or Clare's having gut wrenching indigestion every 5 minutes. typical for the little one to decide to start this at midnight! more later...

Dilema

While we waiting for one of our scans I read the Clapa newsletter and quarterly mag (last version Christmas 07!), neither of which are very well designed, but interesting all the same. There's a few articles about groups of 'affected' children going abseiling or horse riding or whatever and fund raising which is all quite uplifting. I do fancy doing something for charity for Clapa or the Smile Train and they do bring hope and information to people in the early stages but Clare and I have deliberately stayed away from any sort of parents groups or societies. Mainly because we don't feel that it's necessary going forward; people can't stop themselves telling you about people they know who are perfectly fine now, so why would we want to join a club for people with a birth defect? I think that these things are massively important for people with babies born with something that will affect them forever but a cleft, once sorted, will fade along with memory of it.

I don't want to belittle the 'condition' as it is a big deal and has spoiled the second part of the pregnancy but to me the worry and distress is nearly over, which is crazy when you think it hasn't even begun yet. I remember writing on the first or second blog entry about how weird it was to not be able to get over something which hasn't happened yet. It's actually been true; the last four month have been incredibly difficult and although the news obviously sunk in a long time ago the 'why us?' thought has mostly faded away, it's still there every day. The end I think is in sight and the end isn't the operation but the birth. I have a feeling that whatever the state of the cleft all this ridiculous rhetoric I've been spouting will seem totally unnecessary. I'll wonder why it ever bothered me and what the fuss was all about. Well I hope that's how I feel anyway; maybe a mix of how I feel now and how I want to feel will be more like it. Remember you never get a 100% result as my old man always tells me.

There is a tea party coming up which Ann is organising for parents in the area with kids ranging from not yet born to 2 or 3. Having said that we didn't want to get involved for all the reasons previously discussed, Piet mentioned that these events were the most important part of the whole process. Not for the people who had been going along for ages but for those who were going for the first time. Then the penny dropped. The idea of helping never actually occurred to me, more that I didn't want anymore help. Perhaps when the baby arrives and we've gone through it all we'll realise how important all the help we got was and then perhaps we'll muck in.

The last scan

Today we saw Ms Hutt for the last scan and there's still no build up of liquid which still points to potential good news in terms of the extent of the clefting of the palate, or at least the soft palate. Then we went to the orthodontics department where all the outpatients seem to know each other which might be because they spend a lot of time there. We've definitely seen a lot of that hospital over the last 4 months and for the sake of the car parking fees alone, I'll be glad when can stop going back for a while.

Anyway our original cleft specialist, who came to visit us the very next morning after the 20 week scan (but who hasn't been in touch since((despite having said that she would))) saw us first and then took us into see 'Team Cleft'. They all have their specialist roles, Ann, the community cleft woman, Sue, the orthodontist, Piet the saviour and three others who we didn't talk to but were there. One of them is a clinical psychologist which I believe is to help with the child's self image, bullying and well being etc. These others all looked a bit young to be of any use but what do I know.

Piet knows his onions that's for sure. He's done 140 of these ops, either cleft only, palate only or cleft and palate, every week for the last 5 years. He's definitely our man. There's only been 2 ops which went back for a second go and a lot has happened during his time in terms of how clefts are repaired. It used to be that a few hundred surgeons in the UK repaired cleft lips and palates up until just a few years ago, now there's 2 or 3. They also do other facial surgery as it's all related and staying on top of all areas of the face is good as they are all related and a breakthrough in one area could well affect another. The general feeling is that with only a small handful of very specialist surgeons handling the whole cleft remit for the entire country, the average results are getting better and better.

Babies used to come home with arm restraints to stop them pulling at their stitches a bit like the cliche sketch show with someone with both arms in plaster. Apparently it's no longer necessary for the lip repair which is a relief as I think it would be a bit heartbreaking to see a 3 month old baby restrained in such a way. After the palate repair they still put sock like gloves on (mittens, perhaps?!) just so they can't put their fingers through the newly repaired roof of their mouth.

So that's it, the last time we'll be back at a scheduled time (unless to be induced). The next time should be in rather a hurry to say hello to the one we've all been talking and worrying about for the last 18 weeks! Oblivious to all this, in blissful ignorance, I hope CP has been enjoying him or herself readying for a timely and pain free birth. The baby now weighs 7 pounds with 3 weeks to go so Clare's naturally wincing and hopefully the next growth spurt will be on the outside.

I saw a couple of brand new babies in their Maxi Cosies on the way out of hospital carried by knackered looking Dads ready for their journey to begin and realised that it'll be me next time I walk out. Can't wait!

It's getting exciting

So the first baby from within our particular chapter of the NCT sect has arrived! Admittedly it was unexpectedly early, six weeks early and pretty small, but in the 96hours which have passed since the last meeting, Duncan and Jodie have had a baby. So huge congratulations to them.

This brings it home quite quickly. On Saturday, Clare and I went to have our tour of the hospital and that also bought things into perspective. There were lots of excited soon-to-be mothers and lots more slightly worried looking soon-to-be fathers. It didn't have that typical hospital smell but you still know exactly where you are. I was pleased that the 'amenity' rooms seem in plentiful supply so Clare should hopefully not have to be in the ward after. Apart from anything else, it means you're not part of the expectant parents' parade which comes through everyday.

Clare temporarily gives up work this week and it really could come at any time soon without being an inconvenience. Clare has deliberately left buying the remaining hospital essentials and packing her bag until she has started her time off to give her something to do, but recent events have persuaded her to re prioritise.

The last few weeks have been a struggle; I spent the first however long trying to be positive and looking for silver linings and at the bright side and lots of other cliches but I also kind of forgot to realise how I was actually feeling. Without inviting violin strings, things have been quite tough of late and not just to do with the baby, other stuff which has happened and it's bound to have had an effect sooner or later. It's mainly all to do with the anticipation which I'm sure will be a million times worse than the reality but it's there. A for instance is when the NCT 'teacher' told us about the reunion meeting in November. Everyone else will be immediately excited by this but both Clare and I, separately, and then together considered what this means for us. It means that we will have to make an announcement to this group of people that we've had a baby and that the baby has a cleft lip and that, yes, we knew about it and that, yes we know you'll all know someone who's been affected by a cleft lip or palate and that you can't tell and also that, yes, they can do wonderful things these days etc, etc just so it's not a difficult situation when everyone brings their babies in. The reality is that Clare will almost certainly have been drinking hot chocolates with the others mums in Costa before the reunion but that's what went through our minds. It's just another example of why our experience is different, not bad just different.

As I've said before I live my life from mood to mood and today the mood is good. If the baby came today we'd be ready!

Almost there

I've been away from the blog for a while as I've really not felt any different for a while. The blog is a combination of how I / we feel and a diary or countdown to the main event. The due date is 2 days and one calendar month away and Clare has just one week of work left. Then the countdown is really on. The baby could in fact come any minute and wouldn't be considered premature, just early, and I for one would welcome that. As well as being eager to meet the little blighter, I'm also eager to get moving along this new path that our life is about to take. Kind of the sooner we start, the sooner we can get it all sorted. It's a bit sad in a way, I do feel that I'm wishing the first three months away before they've even started. And then when I think about that I feel a a mixture of sadness and being gutted that our experience of being parents for the first time is going to be a lot different to the text book version, a bit like how our experience of the last 4 months of being pregnant for the first time has been so different. And then when I start to wallow I try to remember that we're pretty lucky to have had so much more contact with our baby than most other expectant parents. They will have felt the kicks and responses to sound and light etc but they don't know half as much about their baby as we do about ours. We've had 7 scans with another one on the way, we know how much our baby weighs, we've seen its face, arms, hands, feet, everything in fact apart from its modesty.

A male friend of mine told me he took some time to feel the bond that everyone goes on about. He took longer than he wanted to the point where it bothered him, thought it was a reflection on him and that it made him a bad parent. He was the model Dad in the run up and attended the meetings, read the books, supported his missus and then cried his eyes out when the child was born but then nothing. Nothing for a few weeks. I say nothing, that's harsh, there was something just not this oak-like bond that either he expected or that he was expected to feel. Then all of a sudden it was there and he couldn't wait to get home from work to see the baby and ever since the bond just has kept getting stronger. I reckon that that could have been my reaction had it not been for our change of direction at 20 weeks.

I feel I'm already a Dad and that I'm already sticking up for our baby and I'm learning how to look after it, I'm, working harder, feeling more responsible (not necessarily acting it though!) and so I'd be gutted not to get 'the feeling' as soon and he or she pops into the world. So my bonding, or a lot of it at least, has happened during a pretty shitty time for us which has definitely changed me. Whether that's for the better or worse I'm pleased I've had the chance to bond where maybe some other Dads wouldn't have. That's my silver lining, I guess.

O.K I was wrong!

So I have to admit that I was completely wrong, they all seem normal and unboring with it. We sat next to a couple who's due date is the same as ours but ours is official the first of the group on alphabetical count back. There's 8 couples in the group and whilst we didn't chat to everyone, or even the majority, everyone seems 'nice'. There's a few in virtually the same postcode so Clare will be able to collect mums and babies en route to Costa without detouring at all. And as she does the route, she'll be proudly pushing.....THE QUINNY BUZZ! Courtesy of my very generous in laws, we now have the buggy I wanted all along. Result! We are very lucky that our parents have helped out so much and have some good kit to give junior the best start possible. My folks were also very kind and have supplied the cotbed and chest of drawers which will be constructed just as soon as we've painted the nursery baby's room.

Clare's folks are looking after the buggy until we need it as a) it's supposed to be bad luck to have it in the house before it's needed and b) we have nowhere to put it! We need to relocate the fridge which is in our dining room because it doesn't fit into our kitchen before we can comfortably accommodate the buggy. I feel sorry for the fridge in a way. It's natural domain is the kitchen, a place where it commands a position of authority; it has an important role and no other apparatus comes close in the keeping-things-cold department, like the oven and hob where nothing else is a patch on its warming-up-and-cooking skills, yet put it in the dining room and it becomes somewhere handy for drinks and bigger stuff. A bit like a race horse past its prime and no longer useful even out to stud, really just waiting to die. It's actually even a close call whether the fridge will get a new home in our home at all. Unless we get an urge to have a fridge in our bedroom, I fear that we may be forced to invoke the WEEE Directive.

Back to the NCT then. We had to introduce ourselves to the room and state one good thing and one bad thing about the pregnancy. Um, let me think about a bad thing then. In fact we had decided not to mention the situation and had emailed the teacher who had told us she'd take her lead from us should we decide to tell any/everyone. We decided not to for a number of reasons. Mainly we didn't want to turn the NCT into a 'Clare and James sympathy rally' but also because, actually none of the issues surrounding our situation affect what we're learning about, with perhaps the exception of feeding and we don't know how much, if at all that will be affected anyway. If we get close to anyone then I suppose it would come up but as of now we're happy to be like everyone else. Because we are!

We had a weekend filled with children. Friday night we baby sat for our God- daughters and on Saturday we went to the 4th birthday party of Noah, my very cool, surfer dude / Batman, Godson. There were seventeen children and almost twice as many adults and although Noah is lucky enough to live somewhere with a swimming pool, it did sound just like a leisure centre! The swimming was designed to knacker them out, however the sweets and cakes counter balanced this. Comment of the day went to one of Noah's female chums who announced 'Mummy, I'm getting a sugar rush!' Genius! Although I wish I saw Noah more, it's great to see how much he grows up and changes when we do see him. Each time he's into something different and always so enthusiastic. Last time it was Spiderman and this time Batman; he got the costume and retractable wings for one of his present and was running around with a huge smile on his face in the mask and pants until midnight. I can't wait for that.

NCT predictions

If I wasn't having a baby there's no way I'd be going to this. I know that's completely obvious so perhaps I should provide a better analogy to illustrate my point. Even if I was fanatical about painting warcraft fantasy figures, there's no way I'd go to a fantasy warcraft figure painting convention.

There are various reasons why I'm not into forced social situations.

Number 1, I hate small talk, banter with strangers about inanne crap just because everyone feels slightly uneasy. Why people insist in talking about the weather is beyond me especially in the UK. 'What about this rain!' they say...My God you've lived here forever, it rains, get over it.

Anyway, number 2, I've got enough friends and the friends I / we have were made casually, over time, without pressure; i.e we weren't sat in a room and told to bond.

Number 3, most people get a bad first impression of me. In my desire not to appear to be an arsehole, I normally come across as a bit of an arsehole or worse, an arrogant arsehole. I'm a great believer in the new boy being seen and not heard at first so that his personality can blend with the those of the incumbents slowly and gradually without imposing anything on the group. Why I don't listen to my own advice is beyond me.

Number 4, it's always slightly cringeworthy, everyone feels similar, apart from the overly loud person who seems ridiculously confident but you just know he was bullied terribly at school. Or worse, you have to put up with people who laugh after every sentence. That's everyone of their own sentences. Not jokes, just a regular sentence like '...oh and we had a lovely meal with our friends Steve and Rebecca' LAUGH....'Steve's an IT consultant so he travels a lot' LAUGH. WTF?>! I know it's a nervous thing but seriously, stop it people.

In context then, NCT or National Childbirth Trust is a charity which gets expectant parents together in a room for a few sessions before their babies are born. It's a kind of parenting night school designed to give everyone confidence and reassurance and more importantly, create a network for the mums (and modern stay-at-home dads) so they can all drink lattes together every day after the babies arrive. In principal it's a great idea. A great idea for non-sociopaths who don't do too much unnecessary thinking, that is.

I think we watch videos and assume various positions and chat about baby stuff and it does all sound rather cliche but I suppose that's because it's a formula that works. And I do genuinely think it's a good idea that we might make like-minded local friends (or at least, people we pretend to like). I do hope the woolen boob isn't a myth though, it should show up my immature side nicely. It's also 2 hours long so my, as yet undiagnosed ADHD is certain to play up!

You hear horror stories from guys where their NCT sessions have interfered with Champions Leagues' fixtures but ours are all on Thursdays so there is a silver lining.

I'd rather have a book and our own immediate company but we're going and that's that. I will report back tomorrow although I have a dilemma about what to report. I'm sure our 'situation' will come up at some stage and will have to remember not to mention this blog as I know most of the attendees will come in for unfavourable scrutiny even if I get to like them in the future.

Assume there's 5 couples, here are my predictions:

1. One couple will be really into it, embarrassingly so and will be all arm up and 'yes miss, me, miss, I know miss'. I instantly hate them
2. One couple will be slightly, erm, low rent, shall we say and they've already chosen the baby's first pair of earrings. Gold and hoopy. Lovely.
3. One couple will be super nervous and a bit young maybe. They're o.k but we'll probably not be at their BBQ because I think we're busy that day/week/month/year.
3. One couple will be normal, Steve and Rebecca, perhaps. Normal jobs, normal house, normal situation. Seem nice enough. Boring bastards.
4. One couple will be new age, having the baby at home, tofu, feng shui etc. Seriously, no comment, I'd be here all day.
5. One couple will be us.

How lucky all the others are that at least one of the couples won't be dull, pretentious, fretting, pikey or overly enthusiastic. Lucky, lucky them.

The last ten years and how I want the baby to change me

When you're 21 or 18 nothing matters and there's no such thing as a consequence. I'm close enough to that age to remember it without the rose tints and although I'm sure that there were day to day issues and the odd worry, for the most part it is a brilliant time when you can do what you want and forget about the future and simply concentrate on having fun without realising how good you've got it.

When I was that age the concerns were just how quickly the weekend would come around, how much to drink and smoke, pulling girls and driving fast cars. It sounds like a cliche but that's how it was. Didn't earn much but didn't pay rent either so all of our income was disposable and we had no problem disposing of it. There was a tight group of 7 or 8 of us and we just had fun. No worries, no bigger picture. I guess that's what being young is for, although it would be nice to appreciate the freedom of it all at the time, if that was even possible it wouldn't be as enjoyable.

Naturally a few years pass and one or two of the group fall in love and get married and then more and you grieve the loss of the situation and then you get over it as you fall in love and move on. I'm sure it happens to every group of 21 year olds up and down the country. I think it's called 'growing up'.

So that was me 10 years ago and things have obviously moved on since then. That was a brilliant time; brilliant then as we had so much fun and brilliant now because it's encapsulated in a 2 year bubble which you could never recreate if you tried. Perfect left as that. Of course we're all still friends and see each other relatively often given the logisitics but it's not quite the same but that's cool because as 31+ year olds we'd look pretty sad doing the things we did.

Since that carefree time I'm a lot different and without sounding too dramatic, I sometimes struggle with life as I worry a lot. Worry might not be the right word but I constantly have things on my mind which seem unecessary and stop me from enjoying the moment. I find it very difficult to be content and to a lesser extent so does Clare. This is not good and I think it stems from events in the past which haven't gone quite to plan. We found ourselves always saying '....it'll be o.k when the business is sold.' or '....it'll be fine once we've moved.' and always waiting impatiently for the holiday to arrive. We forget to enjoy the present and just enjoy life without planning the next move. From the outside as I've said before our life looks peachy. Good jobs, tick. Cars, house, nice things, tick. Great friends and family, tick. Etc, tick. We view other peoples' lives based on comparisons to our own and whilst it's important not to take the good stuff for granted it all takes a reasonable amount of effort. The one thing you can't change is the family you were born into and for that I am enormously grateful. If you break it down beyond the family you realise that all of the good stuff doesn't just happen. For example in order to get good friends in the first place you have to work at being a decent person and in order to keep your friends you have to work to stay in touch send birthday and Christmas cards, throw parties and make sure you don't turn into an arsehole. In order to keep your job you need to work hard and then you need to continue to do so in order to get a nice house, a car and a big tv etc. So when people look from the outside in and tell you how grateful you should be you can tell them that it's not luck or coincidence that the good stuff is good, it's actually hard work. The lucky bit was not being born to substance abusing violent parents in a Tower Hamlet's squat.

As you can tell I think too much about unconstructive things but nonetheless think about them I do and it bothers me. It takes up way too much time, effort and worry. I live my life from mood to mood, good or bad and I'm hoping upon all hope that the baby's arrival changes that and that I can stop fretting about the nonsense that has plagued me for the last ten years and focus my attention on something so much more important than me and my insignificant woes. I'm looking forward to our baby being a great leveller so instead of worrying about if our business is going to survive the credit crunch, or about dying young or about if people think I'm a joke or about drinking too much or not doing enough exercise or any of the other crap which fills my head every day, I can concentrate on the bigger picture, something to take my mind off of me.

Sorry if this is a depressing post, but as I've said before, this is my blog and if you're crazy enough to read it that's your problem!

NCT starts Thursday. Yikes!

Professor Piet Haers and the cotbed

Sounds like a fairytale that title. Maybe it could be about an evil professor who lies in wait under children's beds until they fall asleep so he can poison their tiny minds. Until one day he picks the wrong bed, a cotbed. A cotbed of a very special child who finds the professor's weakness and defeats him and lives happily ever after etc.

Too much wine last night. Back to sanity then.

We finally got the call from the main man, the guy who's going to fix the cleft(s). Well his PA called us as his hands are restricted to more important duties. Normally when secretaries or PAs call me only to put their boss through it makes me want to hang up or at least tell them I'm not prepared to talk to someone who feels they are so important that they cannot look up a number and push 11 buttons. It really winds me up when my solicitor's secretary calls me that way to announce who she's got on the line for me especially considering his bills. When you're paying someone by the nano-second, the last thing you want is to pay for the solicitor to press a button on the intercom to say 'er Jean, please could you get me Mr Fernie on the line' and for her to reply, '...no problem David, I'll patch you through' and for her to then look up my number and call me and subsequently put me through. Surely it takes less time to call me direct in the first place. Someone should buy him a Roladex for Christmas.

Anyway in this case I'm happy for him to preserve his prized assets so he can work his miracles on CP and I don't resent him at all. In fact after this experience I don't think I could resent any doctor or nurse or specialist regardless of what they'd done. Apart from Harold Shipman of course.

So we're going to see him next month (better late than never but he does come down to Guildford to see us which is a nice touch)to discuss the operation and add to our cleft knowledge (more of the Zulu principle). So then we'll know how the cleft is formed, what the initial consultation process is comprised of, how the lip is fixed, how the cleft is fixed, time periods and ongoing support and all in a period of just 3 months. It's amazing how much information you can take in when you have a genuine interest but we still won't know why and probably never will.

What's funny is that to help us they've put the appointment to see him an hour later than our next scan at Royal Surrey. As if we'll make it!

Separately we went to Mamas and Papas last Sunday in sunny Staines to look for a cotbed. Mamas and Papas is an aspirational brand for people who look down their noses at Mothercare and hand-me-downs but they do do some cool stuff and if you're a sucker for that stuff (as I am) then it's an o.k experience as shopping goes. Why they put it in Staines is beyond me; the majority of other shoppers were either pregnant teenagers or parents of babies with earrings. Nice.

So we choose the Horizons range cotbed which should see us o.k from newborn to 4 or 5. Thanks mum. The generosity starts to get embarrassing but is most welcome all the same.

I mentioned I'm a sucker for brands and nice designs, so naturally I have to have one of these for our baby. It's called 'The Loop' and it's basically a high chair but a very, very cool highchair. Totally ridiculous at £200 but it's lime green for goodness sake, how can I not have it!

You Tube rocks!

There's so much stuff about clefts covering everything from student theses to charity promotions but I like this guy. It's his 'fuck you' address to the nation and it's the type of video I'd post if I'd been in his situation. It's heartening to see adults and how they've got through life. O.K he could probably do with a nose job but doesn't seem to care and his operation was a long time ago. Anyway here it is;

Video

This is a reasonably good video which explains much of what I've already written about. Although it's 9mins 52s long it stops at 7 mins so don't sit there waiting for something to happen for 2 minutes and 52 seconds like I did.

Good News?

So the scan went well and we only had to wait 30 minutes. Still too long for an organisation entirely based around appointment setting but I can do half an hour if I must. Anyway chickpea was not in a cooperative mood and had HIS/her hands covering the main attraction and it was very difficult for Ms. Hutt to view the source of our worry without wobbling Clare's belly as if she were working a pneumatic drill. Eventually she did catch a glimpse of the cleft and reported that it hadn't grown in line with the rest of the baby, which is good news.

The baby's weight has doubled since the last scan to 4 pounds 2 ounces which is scarily close to the eventual likely birth weight. I was six pounds something so it hit home that this blighter is definitely on its way. Although I moan about all the scans we're having it is good to keep an eye on things and see how everything is developing. Clare went to her 'dunk your bump' swimming session last night and met a couple of other expectant mums and one had mentioned that she'd had a third scan as the second failed to spot everything and another mum had remarked how lucky she was to see everything again, not an apt moment to mention that we'd just had our 7th!

Back to the scan then. Clare asked Ms. Hutt (who, I'm relieved to say was wearing engagement and wedding rings this time) what the additional scan were for. We had previously assumed that it was just a routine thing for cleft babies, however we were told that she was looking for a build up of fluid in the mouth area which would suggest that the baby was having trouble swallowing. Trouble swallowing usually suggests that the cleft goes all the way from the gumline through the hard palate and onto the soft palate. Trouble swallowing also tends to suggest trouble feeding which has been Clare's major worry.

There is no fluid. Hooray!

We've long stopped counting our chickens but this does look like the potential for good news. If the soft palate has a cleft there are lots of other issues which could affect the child and early adult such as speech issues, a slightly enlarged upper jaw and more operations etc so fingers crossed that chickpea just has the lip and gum cleft and at worst a bit of the palate.

Good days and bad days

The blog it seems, has travelled much further than intended. Initially it was just a way for me to empty my head in the first few days after finding out about the cleft. Then it was a way of letting people know the news and to help friends and family understand the situation and raise awareness of the actual medical 'condition'. I hadn't expected it to travel to friends of friends or to complete strangers but it does seem that everyone I know and quite a few people I don't have read it and it's quite comforting that it's done its job. I don't know why it should surprise me that people want to know or care about the situation but it does a bit.

Anyway aside from comments I've had to date, my recent trip to Formentera for a fantastic wedding showed me that many more people were aware of the situation than I'd thought. People I hadn't seen for 10 years weren't surprised at the news and people I'd not met before had told me they'd read this blog. Weird.

Met a nice couple who'd been brave enough to bring along their 3 month old baby and managed to enjoy themselves despite all their friends telling them they were mad to travel with a baby so soon. I admired their attitude that life didn't stop because of a baby and if their friend was getting married, they were going. Good for them. And they had the Quinny Buzz. Obviously proper people. Also obviously, we still haven't ordered ours yet!

Another couple who have the Buzz invited us around to see their 3 month old baby last night. These are probably the only people who don't know the news and we debated on the way if we should tell them or not. We decided not to, not because we're ashamed or embarrassed but we were going there to see their baby and the evening wasn't about us and we didn't want to cause any sort of downer. It did have an effect of us afterwards though. This couple are lovely people and very successful and have, it has to be said, a beautiful baby. The birth was a breeze and life just looked so wonderful. I honestly don't feel anything but happiness for them but it made us reflect on our own first 3 month experience and we felt sad when we got into bed. It's totally ridiculous that we still have down days, I think we've coped remarkably well and definitely have at least 75% goods to bads but little things here and there spark a bit of worry, anticipation, sadness, whatever and it gets you down.

Since coming back from the wedding I've started a fitness plan and am trying to be a bit healthier. I've definitely let myself go this year and think that I've subconsciously allowed it to happen on account of the scary promotion at work and the problems with the pregnancy but I was determined that the 5 day break was a watershed between an unhealthy partying lifestyle and a more moderate and positive one. Anyway I'm only two days in so I won't get carried away!

We have yet another scan this afternoon and joy of joys it's the last one of the day so I'm sure we'll have a nice long wait. I suppose I'll get my fill of baby mags though and I'll try not to annoy Clare too much when I get bored!

It's all gone a bit quiet

After the initial shock of receiving the 20 week scan news, we were very impressed with how the NHS machine wound up into gear and we had some great support from some very nice people. The lady who visited us at home the next morning, Dr Hutt and the braces-wearing cleft specialist in Kent etc. However we find ourselves a bit unsupported now. With the exception of Dr Hutt, who as I've said before, is incredible and has an almost saintly bedside manner, all those who said they'd stay or at least be in touch, haven't.

Apparently the genius Dr. Hairs (unfortunate or perhaps ironic name for a cleft lip surgeon) would have been to see us or on the phone to talk about the procedures and operations but we've not heard anything. It would be nice to chat to another expert especially the guy who's going to put everything right. So far we've had diagnoses and reassurance, empathy even but I'd like to sound out the guy who's going to fix our babies lip and / or pallet if for nothing other than to make sure he's got a steady hand.

Likewise the lady who first visited us hasn't been back in touch. Our notes say in quotes that she will be 'staying in touch with Mr and Mrs Fernie' throughout the pregnancy. She'd better hurry up or they'll be no pregnancy left, we're half way through July already.

It's a good job we're who we are, we do tend to face things head on and we've never been mopers who sit around and wait for things to happen and so we've researched and talked to people and generally self-healed, if that doesn't sound too dramatic. Still it'd be nice to know that we haven't been forgotten.

Also there doesn't seem to be a priority system for getting a private room in the hospital. I really can't bear the thought of being in a ward with other brand new families and their visitors after our baby is born. Not just because of the cleft but more that I don't really like being surrounded by lots of other people I don't know. At the best of times crowds annoy me, I hate listening to other peoples' small talk, it really winds me up that they talk so freely in my earshot about the mundane things happening in their lives and I find it embarrassing even. But I am a bit different to a lot of people so it may be hard to understand. Anyway, babies are infectious and people can't help themselves looking or gawping rather and although I will be the proudest Dad on earth when the baby is born, I don't think I could cope with seeing the look on a stranger's face, be it horror, sympathy, whatever so I really do want a private room. You can't just pay the money, you have to wait and see what happens on the day and who gets what. I like everything sorted in advance but this bit will be down to luck.

This is a bit of a depressing blog entry so apologies and onto to happier stuff. It's our two year anniversary today and those 729 days have literally flown past; perhaps something to do with my having had 4 jobs and our having lived at three different addresses in that time! It's been the best time of my life and I'm so excited about the future growing our family and seeing what the future holds. We collected the chest of drawers for the baby's room (I refuse to say 'nursery') a week or so ago, courtesy of my parents and it fits perfectly in the alcove between chimney breast and window (we measured) and it's specifically designed to take a changing mat, so Clare will be pleased when she's changing Chickpea's nappies. Joke.

The weekend saw the 3rd birthday of my Goddaughter, Molly, my other beautiful niece. She's also amazing but in a different way to her sister Harriet. I know Harriet is not even a year old yet but she's very pensive and looks like she's thinking a lot, taking it all in, whereas Molly is a laugh-a-minute (my sister would probably disagree at times!), charging around, smiling, bundle of activity. She's so cool and never cries when she falls over, just gets up and on with it. It means that if she does cry she's really hurt herself...so many babies cry at nothing and I'm sure it stems from new parents rushing to help a baby for the slightest of knocks or bruises....anyway when I've got kids, I'm sure 'I'll understand'!

Me and the Missus are out for a posh meal at Cambios tonight which holds the distinction of being Guildford's most expensive restaurant. Smashing. And then a taxi is coming to pick me up at 3.30am tomorrow to go Formentera, off Ibiza for four days to celebrate the wedding of our mate Diego to Carmen. I can't wait although suspect I'll be feeling rather sorry for myself come Monday. Till then...

Christening

Just over a week ago was the Christening of my beautiful niece, Harriet. Clare is one of Harriet's new Godmothers so it was nice to be more involved and she looked gorgeous and quite pregnant at the front of the church with the other proud parents and godparents. I am not a religious person but found myself trying not to be a hypocrite by going along with the service and meaning it....we did go to the church we got married in a few times before getting married for the same reason; I didn't think it was right to use the place as a nice backdrop for the photographs without considering why we were getting married there and not at an alternative location. Whether you have any faith at all, if you're going to use a church then you ought to respect the place for its role in some people's lives or risk being branded ignorant or a hypocrite. By me at least anyway.

As I say, I am not religious but a lot of people are and all for different reasons. Some had it drummed into them, some found it by accident, some sought it directly and some just feel something. I do have a problem with cultures who favour religion over education and in my, ashamedly unresearched opinion I think this tends to cause wars. I think if the people who throw stones at soldiers with guns had spent more time in class than facing East they may realise the absurdity of what they were doing and why. As I said, an unresearched, slightly flippant opinion!

Anyway the church of West which seems a little more realistic and integrated and gives a lot of people something they wouldn't have without it and whilst you can choose to disagree, I think anyone with a basic education ought to respect them.

So I sang the hymns with respect and didn't even glance towards my Dad as '...purple headed mountain' came up in All things bright and beautiful' as I knew he'd be smirking. I shut my eyes and said a prayer or two for CP and it was a great service and who knows whether Harriet will find something from being Christened or not but I think it's as good a starting point as any.

Harriet's incredible, just over 9 months and almost walking. She a quick developer which I'm told is relatively common in second babies. I guess baby number one only has giants for inspiration and so their firsts evolve naturally, whereas baby number two sees toddler number one and thinks 'I can do that' and so they do so quicker. Perhaps this is reason that brothers and sisters are so competitive and squabble a lot. It did make me think how fast CP is going to develop and how much the cleft(s) may affect him or her. I know he or she won't be Christened at 9 or 10 months as this will be the time of the pallet operation (assuming the pallet is cleft) and the baby will come home from the operation with arm clamps to stop them playing with their stitches so dunking him or her in the altar would be tricky!

It was nice to see all of the young families with their kids at various ages from 9 months to 7 or 8 years old. There are so many new children in our extended group of friends. We counted them a year or so ago and there's around 25 in total over the last few years. I remember as part of our conversation, Clare and I had worried that we would have problems with the pregnancy or a problem with our baby as all the others had come out fine and the stats were mounting against us. I'm sure all people planning a family think the same but it's particularly poignant when your prophecies come true.

Buggies

It's been almost a week since we went to Mothercare. And we still haven't decided on the buggy / pushchair / travel system etc, etc, etc. Actually that's not true, I'd decided a month or two ago. I'm convinced that CP is a boy, mainly because of the 70% likely statistic and a gut feeling I have. So it's more than likely that we'll have a girl. Anyway because I think it's a boy I decided that we should have an urban, tech, rugged, three wheel style buggy and that was really all I cared about. I have found it's almost impossible to research what to get on the Internet alone which I find frustrating. As a web-person I'm normally able to go from rank amateur in any given subject to what Americans call 'pro-sumer' pretty quickly. A 'pro-sumer' is basically a polite term for dangerous-amount-of-knowledge type person. This is also the basis of the Zulu principle, which a guy in the US (Jim Slater, if you care) formed after his wife watched an hour long TV programme about Zulu people in Africa and subsequently wowed a dinner party by talking at length about the Zulus. His principle was that anyone could become more expert in any given subject or niche in a short amount of time than the vast majority of the population and also with only a little research. He then applied this to the money markets and made a fortune, wrote a best selling book etc. The book has now been largely discredited in money market terms, but I think the principle stands on its feet with regard to more general topics.

Well all subjects other than baby and child transportation that is.

Basically you can get a buggy, a pushchair (I think for older babies / small children), a pram (pramette??!) or a combination or travel system. Some are good from birth to toddler, some you can't use until the baby is six months and all cost more than you'd spend on a good suit.

Then you have to decide how cool you want to be and how much you want to show other young mums and dads that you (or rather your baby's generous grandparents) can afford the product they wanted. If a Bugaboo is good enough for Gweneth and Chris then it must be right (and therefore cool enough) for us. The fact is that that's total bollocks and what you want is something which doesn't break for 3 years and the main 'carer' (couldn't hate that term more - surely we're both main carers - does the minor carer not care as much?) can fold up and lift easily into the car.

A Bugaboo is around £700, the Quinny is around £500 and Mothercare's own brand is more like £380.

The summary is that the Bugaboo is the lightest and most expensive and does nowhere near enough more to justify a price tag of almost double the own-brand version and the Quinny Buzz is light enough, foldable enough, fits in the car and is perfect in every department other than cost.

This is tiring.

The conclusion is that I'd like the Quinny as it does everything we need and also looks the part. It also has proper pneumatic tyres which I think will be useful on the cobbles of Guildford high street. I think the fixed, hard plastic ones would jolt our bones to pieces just going to the supermarket. I wanted the Quinny in April and since have spent time online and inMothercare and I still want it. Clare needs to scour the market, read more, set focus groups and poll a few hundred more new mums before comitting but that's cool, because I know we'll end up with the Quinny. That's why I love my wife so much. She's the sensible, research-led, calculated one and I'm the impulsive, get-it-done-as-fast-as-possible, rash one, yet we normally reach the same conclusion in the end, albeit with me being bored waiting. You need some polar opposites in a relationship, I know what a frustrating pain in the arse I can be and Clare knows how difficult she finds making a decision. It's good to mix it up.

I'll update the blog when we finally reach our decision (it'll be the Quinny).

Scan

First up, the scan went well, everything is growing at the correct rate, internal organs developing nicely, heart going like the clappers (a good thing, we're told) and currently weighing in a respectable 2 pounds and 11 ounces.

The appointment was at 16.10 and we arrived early because, as well as being perhaps the world's worst designed car park where the majority of drivers are forced to get out of theirs cars to insert their exit ticket, there is also normally a twenty minute queue to get into it.

With all of our scans and visits to date I've been impressed with the efficiency of the service and we've only ever waited long enough to read one or two articles in Mother and Baby. Yesterday I was even a little disapointed to be called through as I was only half way through an interesting article on flat head syndrome, a remarkably common complaint caused by babies spending too much time on their backs. Apparently they should sleep on their backs and play on their tummies to avoid it - you have been warned.

To back up, Clare originally had an appointment for next Monday with our specialist obstetrician as well as our scan yesterday. She received a call to say that there was no point in coming in twice and we could do the two at once. What a good idea, I thought, almost business-like to be so efficient. I suppose it had to be too good to be true.

After the initial scan we were deposited back in the original waiting room and then ushered to another about 20 minutes later. I read the Guildford magazine from Winter and then Summer 08, more Mother and Baby and then Country Living before I realised that I'd past my patience threshold without noticing. Clare could see me twitching and looking around for somone to shout out - which is something I used to do a lot in such situations and placated me on a number of times during the next half an hour of no progress. Eventually after an hour of waiting we were asked to go into room to the side of the waiting area. We sat in there for another twenty minutes and I started to become a pain for Clare. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and I'd found the table goes up, table goes down foot pump and although I found it hilarious, Clare found it childish and before long I was even annoying myself.

As I've mentioned before on here, I am trying to be nicer, calmer and more patient but I'm really struggling with the last one so eventually I charged off looking for a row. I didn't have far to go. I found an officious lady who was happy to explain that they were very busy to which I replied 'me too, that's why I turn up to appointments on time'. I went on to explain that we only had enough money for the car park's lowest charge which would be doubling very soon and that we had to be elsewhere not long after, however in this environment there is no customer and therefore noone feels the need to salvage a relationship where the complainant is there because they have to be and would really rather be at home watching the semi-final. Weird how a hospital is the polar opposite of a business yet in the majority of cases manages to satisfy its audience in much the same way.

Anyway we finally got some attention in the large shape of Miss Hutt's locom, who was busily trying to ask questions that we hadn't already been asked in the hope of buying some time until Miss Hutt became free. Then she apologised again and disappeared. 10 minutes later Miss Hutt arrived. Hooray.

Her opening words were 'I'm a little confused, you're supposed to be here on Monday!'

If Miss Hutt wasn't one of earth's most wonderful humans with a bedside manner which would make Florence Nightingale seem like Charles Manson, I think my head would have imploded. Right there on the bouncy table. She has a way of explaining things to Clare with her Spanish accent in perfect English that makes everything o.k again. She talks very closely to Clare but not in a personal-space-invasion way and not in a patronising way; it's a skill which cannot be learnt and lots of people try hard but never acheive it like she does. I hope she has children of her own but her age combined with her 'Miss' status and her vocation could suggest otherwise which would be a shame.

Anyway it took the wind out of my sails and I walked away almost frustrated that I wasn't angry anymore! The clock was at 6pm as we approached the parking ticket machine and queued as the other one was out of order (natch) and I was half enjoying the prospect of having a row at the front desk if the machine told me we'd slipped into the £4 bracket by a few minutes. I was almost disappointed when I saw the £2 fee but glad to pay up and negotiate the exit barrier.

There we are then.

One week closer

You will have noticed that the blogs entries have become less frequent; this is because I find myself less frequently requiring the effect that writing them has. It's fully sunk in and yet I'm probably still in a certain amount of denial. We're three months away (yesterday) from the due date and I'm probably less freaked out than others in my situation who are expecting a perfectly normal (there's that word again) baby.

I have found that I've lost a bit of spark about my personality and have become a bit more serious. Maybe this has just made me grow up in a bit more of a hurry, and that's not a bad thing anyway!

I also have a desire to be a bit nicer. I'm not a bad person necessarily but I do like a rant and I'm probably too quick to judge. I cringe whenever think of when I've been outspoken, (albeit to carefully chosen ears) about other people's babies. All of my closest friends have genuinely lovely babies but I know of friends of friends who've had, er, less than beautiful babies and whilst by all accounts I was a really, scarily ugly baby (as my dad loves to remember!) I do feel bad. Or do I? Do I just feel bad because I think I've had a kick up the arse by karma or is it because I shouldn't have said it in the first place? Not sure, maybe a bit of both. I think it would be harsh of karma to manifest itself by way of a physical blemish in return for a bit of joke aimed at someone who was none the wiser. Either way I don't comment on other peoples babies in the pejorative anymore and that's a good thing. I'm also trying not to judge anyone negatively either. The point is that something's changed slightly and I'd rather it hadn't. Perhaps I just think too much. Actually there's no perhaps to it.

As I mentioned before, I have a chapter on karma and my thoughts about it all but I'm still saving it. Unlike Earl, I don't have a list and have no burning desire to put right any wrongs, mainly because there aren't that many wrongs which keep me up at night, but like him I do have a conscience, especially now. Anyway it's ironic that Joy (his ex-wife in the series) described a scenario where their wrongdoings would come back to haunt them and all their kids would be born with hair lips. I hate that expression but it's perfect for the trailer trash character she plays anyway Clare and I looked at each other and winced.

During the last few weeks we've only experienced positivity and kindness and this was the first time we heard anything negative. Yes it's a fictional TV show, yes it's supposed to funny and yes the vast majority of people wouldn't give it a second thought but you can't help but be just the slightest bit affected by it. It was a weird feeling and it made me think about how we'll feel if the little boy or girl comes home in tears after being teased or bullied. I suppose it's the same for all parents and at least we'll know what to expect, but this is my blog and I'll ruminate stupid stuff if I want!

Next scan is on Thursday, back at Royal Surrey so will write more then.

Reflection

So it's a been a while since the last post because Clare and I have been away. We spent a fantastic week emptying our minds in Egypt and it was just what we needed. Holidays are a great time to reflect and for introspection. I only ever really read books on holiday and always find them a good source of inspiration. I usually find myself making plans for when I get back but usually find that the inspiration gets stopped at customs and subjected to a full cavity body search.

I read a weird selection of books. First I red Slash's autobiography, one of my heroes, and it was a great book - he did a LOT of drugs but is clean and sober now. Earlier in the year I read Clapton's autobiography (another of my heroes) and he probably did twice as many drugs but the two books were surprisingly similar in terms of their respective journies. Next was a forgettable book based on an email thread and although it was reasonably amusing it was over before it began and not exactly thought provoking. Then I read Piers Morgan's book, a sort of diary / autobiography. My Dad, along with many others, thinks he's a tosser but I've always liked him and it was a really honest tale of his descent into the wilderness following his sacking from his editor post at the Daily Mirror. Despite having no money worries and lots of work he seemed to be struggling finding his new niche - an editor is an editor, liked and loathed in equal measures, but still respected as an editor. A sacked editor is merely an ex-editor and who wants to be one of them? The diary charts a year or two from sacking to being a major US star on America's Got Talent with Simon Cowell and he ends up having found what he was looking for. The book also serves as a splene vent and he describes Kate Moss as an 'ill tempered, foul mouthed, bad mannered little Cordon girl with a cocaine-desecrated hooter and spots!' which made me laugh out loud.

Lastly I read the Kite Runner. My mum had given it to me a Christmas or two ago and I'd never read it as I like to buy my books at the airport and always forgot to pack it. Anyway I'm glad it did pack it this time as it was excellent. One of the main characters in the book has a 'hairlip', which is the non-PC way of describing a cleft lip so it obviously resounded from page 1. The book is set in Afghanistan where such things are not treated as early, especialy not in the seventies where the story begins. I won't go in to the story other than to explain that the author spends his life in turmoil after having deceived /let down his best mate (with the hairlip) and the story finishes with his atonement, his redemption if you will. A great read and more inspiring than the bios I read.

A friend of a friend emailed me while we were away to explain that his boy is 18 months old and has just been through the cleft operations. It was so much more comforting to read his story than those online of complete strangers. He didn't find out about the clefts until the baby was born which is quite common and obviously a massive shock after the trauma of the birth. So much to take in when you least expect it. He said he felt a bit cheated that the special time was tainted as it was. He also talked about the 'why us?' feeling but actually, I feel that less now because I know him or I know of him via a mutual friend. The odds are around 1 in 600 and whilst our mutual friend is a very popular guy I doubt he's got 1,200 mates! I also think, as I've said before, that if you wallow in 'why us?' you also have to stop taking for granted all the other bad stuff that hasn't happened. We don't wake up everyday and feel glad for what hasn't affected us. Perhaps we should.

More pics

I noticed a poster at Guildford train station highlighting the plight of babies born in Africa with clefts. The poster has pictures of 6 kids born with clefts and the headline reads,

'If you think it's difficult to look at, try living with it'

I totally understand the reason behing the poster, it's intially intended to shock and then shame passers-by into making a donation. However I bet the artworker or account manager responsible for the ad doesn't have a kid born with a cleft! I found myself thinking 'Fuck you Mr. Ad man, my baby's going to be beautiful, how dare you etc, etc'.

The point is that babies born with a cleft are very different and yes, the first time to look, you will be shocked to a point. The you look again, then again, then you do a bit of research and eventually you see right past the cleft and then just as you're fully used to it, the baby has the cleft repaired and before you know it's a distant memory. I think I've written already that a lot of parents report back of being upset when they see their baby return from surgery. Although the birth defect has been corrected, their baby's face has been changed. In another context you can understand why they would be upset, but right now I can't see that. I'm sure I'll change but right now I just want a time machine which transports me to Summer 09 after the success of operation number 2. I am not the most patient of people.

When I read the book on fatherhood the writer wrote a chapter on 'competitive dad syndrome', the crux of which was about how we only see beauty and perfection in our own children, whilst everyone else's baby is a hideous monstrosity! I know that if our baby was born bright green with two heads, I'd love it but I'm still worried about the reaction of other people. That said, I walked down Guildford high street today and struggled to see an attractive adult; seriously most people are properly ugly in this town so I reckon that with Clare's looks and my, er, er, sense of humour (?) our kid should do just fine!

I've joined a group on Facebook for parents with or expecting babies with a cleft and thought it would be good to show some before and afters.

Jacob at 3 months

Looks alright to me!

A unilateral complete cleft lip

You wouldn't look twice

This boy was born with a particularly severe complete bilateral (both sides) cleft lip and palate.

Baby Pics

Here's a few pictures from the various scans we've had. The 3D ones are not very clear and there's loads of distortion, but the consultant managed to get a reasonable view of the cleft and area imediately above it. Where the nose looks deformed that's just more disortion unless our baby has the biggest nose of all time! Clefts don't actually affect the nose even though they look as though they do. The nose is actually always perfectly formed but where the lip line is broken the forces of the face splay one of the nostrils. When the lip is repaired the nose returns to normal. Clever eh?!

Here's the first scan. This was taken from the left which is why the cleft cannot be seen.

Here's a couple from the most recent 3D scan. The right side of this picture starts to distort at the nose but the cleft is pretty visible.

Chillin' like Dad!

Reflection

This has been the fastest I've known a week to pass in as long as I can remember. I can't believe it's been a week since the scan. Although it's probably been the hardest week of our lives and I'd like to think that that won't change, I'm happy to report that we're doing well. Especially now we've had the 3D scan.




We spent an hour with the cleft enthusiast as I call him and he's a Mr. not a Dr. which means he knows a thing or two. He was fully old school in a jet black and thick chalk pinstripe suit, the trousers being held up by comedy braces (which must have been a present from a child), striped shirt and non-matching tie. As soon as I saw how he was dressed I knew he was an expert. Only the fully qualified can pull off such a look. Either they don't care for fashion or this uniform is earned over a lifetime of study like how a soldier earns his stripes. I suspect the former is true but I like to think it's the latter. Anyway it gave me enormous faith in what he did and said.



He explained everything which we had heard already but went into much more detail about the various potential associated issues which can be included with a baby's cleft. They include various brain and heart related complications which are all very rare and none of them good news. I felt the same faint feeling all the way through the scan whilst Clare was cucumber-like. The 3D bit was not as successful as we'd have liked but there were two pics which I'll post here later which clearly show the cleft and it was good to get an idea of how it will be. The second picture is of the baby lying back (chilling) with its arm behind its head which is exactly how I sleep. I know because Clare wakes herself up by headbutting my elbow most nights! It's definitely my son. Or daughter. I'm not sure but I reckon it's a boy. We still don't know and don't want to. Couldn't care less either way, just want a healthy one.



This guy is amazing. The consultant not the baby. Well the baby too but anyway; the consultant left the NHS 2 years ago frustrated within the organisation which stiffled his research into his non-core duties, i.e clefts.....so he goes private and presumably makes a lot more money, yet he sees NHS patients and scans them on his very expensive equipment, gives them a dvd and large dollops of reassurance all for free. What a great bloke, it really restores my faith in the human spirit that I felt was beginning to wane. We'll definitely keep in touch and I'll send him some pictures after the baby is born. And a new tie perhaps.



It bugs me when people go on about how busy they are and how tough it is at work because they chose to do that type of job, it's definitely their fault. If you want an easy life then get an easy job; be a chilled out, worry free lifeguard on ten grand a year or work hard, push yourself, earn more and deal with being knackered at the end of the day. Anyway the point of all this is that hard physical or mental work makes you tired but emotional strain wears you out. The kind of strain which occupies your first and last thought of the day and most of the rest in between really takes its toll and I take my hat off to the people who have it far, far worse than we do.

Let's not forget that, whilst our situation is far from ideal, there are people out there, right now looking after severely mentally disabled relatives, coping with abuse or who are very sick themselves and that's not something that goes away after a couple of operations. There's a guy we know who's very sadly just lost his sister to Leukemia and it kind of makes me feel guilty to even be writing the blog but it has made me able to contextualise what we're going through. In the last week I've gone through the complete range of emotions. Jealousy, sadness, anger, relief, desperation and generally feeling sorry for myself but having done a shed load of research, talked until I'm hoarse and now been able to take stock, my overriding emotion is of gladness that it should all be alright. There's been a lot of people involved in the process from then to now and everyone's done their bit to help us out and we're really thankful that we have such excellent friends and family.

Here's some information on clefts and how they occur from the official website (http://www.clapa.com/)





What is Cleft Lip & Palate?



Cleft means 'split' or 'separation'. During early pregnancy separate areas of the face develop individually and then join together. If some parts do not join properly the result is a cleft, the type and severity of which can vary.



Cleft Lip



A cleft lip is a condition that creates an opening in the upper lip between the mouth and nose. It looks as though there is a split in the lip. It can range from a slight notch in the coloured portion of the lip to complete separation in one or both sides of the lip extending up and into the nose. A cleft on one side is called a unilateral cleft. If a cleft occurs on both sides it is called a bilateral cleft.



A cleft in the gum may occur in association with a cleft lip. This may range from a small notch in the gum to a complete division of the gum into separate parts.



Cleft Palate



A cleft palate occurs when the roof of the mouth has not joined completely. The back of the palate (towards the throat) is called the soft palate and the front (towards the mouth) is known as the hard palate. If you feel the inside of your mouth with your tonge, you will be able to notice the difference between the soft and the hard palate. A cleft palate can range from just an opening at the back of the soft palate to a nearly complete separation of the roof of the mouth (soft and hard palate).



Sometimes a baby with a cleft palate may have a small lower jaw (or mandible) and a few babies with this combination may have difficulties with breathing easily. This condition may be called Pierre Robin Sequence.



How does it happen?



The cause of clefts is not understood very well. Whilst we know what happens, we do not know why. Sometimes clefts run in families and sometimes a baby is born with a cleft without anyone else in the family having one.

Something different for a change

I think a spot of good news is in order. Our friends Paul and Kerrie had a beautiful bouncing baby girl last week and mother and baby are doing just fine. We've not been to see her yet but friends of ours have and report back sweet things. Paul is the model modern dad doing everything but the boob and loving it. This is the first girl in their family for something like 60 years so I'm sure granny is pleased to observe what a long overdue injection of oestrogen does to their testosterone fulled clan!

Have just returned from another checkup. Same hospital, different reason. I had an eye test last month before buying new glasses as Vision Express now take a 3D eye ball scan which revealed that two of the arteries going into my right eye (the one that can actually see) have no blood going through them. Given that I tend to suffer from hypochondria and am completely pathetic when it comes to anything to do with my own blood I went to see the doc the next day. The prognosis was aimed more at Vision Express and that they should stick to prescribing glasses than my actual eye but he referred me to Royal Surrey anyway.

The drops to dilate my pupils didn't work first time so they gave me a second dose to properly blind me. When the first guy went for a second opinion you can imagine my thought process. 'Brilliant, I'll be blind within the week, baby with a cleft, what next?!'

Second opinion man turned up and shone a light into my weeping eye and concurred that he didn't know what was happening either. This apparently happens to people in their seventies and neither of them had seen it in someone my age. The vision in that eye is virtually perfect with glasses so I must be getting blood from somewhere and they decided that they should take some pictures and see me in six months' time. It reminded me of the 'nurse' in our school sanitorium who sent a broken arm home with paracetamol. Anyway they don't seem worried so I'll forget it about for six months.

One of the presents Clare bought me for my birthday was a moleskin notebook of Van Gogh fame, which I'm using to make pre-blog notes and I have a few entries planned for slow news days. The one I'm working up to is on karma but I'll need to wait until I feel really shit to write it as it's a bit deep!

Had more really nice emails from some close friends who know who they are and today is defintely a good day. I'm beginning to feel a bit of a fraud as things return to normal. We're having a 3D scan on Thursday in Kent with a cleft enthusiast who does it free on the NHS (result) to help his research into the condition. I wouldn't ever consider this type of scan if nothing had come up on the last one as it kind of ruins the surprise but we're curious to see the extent of the cleft and this will give us a really clear picture of what's going on. It seems like we're going to meet our baby properly for the first time and we're a bit nervous!

Instant Bond

Clare says I get verbal diarrhoea whenever I start talking about our situation to anyone who cares to listen. It's true I suppose but I've always talked too much; it used to get me in trouble at school. I'm trying to get it all out which I suppose is why I'm writing this as well. On one hand the blog seems like a good idea but on the other it is a constant reminder of why I'm writing it. Distraction helps a lot but like with a bereavement or a break up, your mind wanders off but it always returns to the same place. Unlike a beareavement or break up though, where every day gets you further from the cause of what your mind returns to, every day for us gets us closer to it. That's weird isn't it. I feel guilty for writing it really but it's how I feel. The only person not affected by all this is our blissfully unaware beautiful little chickpea currently kicking and fidgeting in Clare's belly! It's important to remember that a baby with a cleft whatever feels no pain associated with the cleft, nothing's actually missing, it's just growing in the wrong direction.

Literally within the hour of our scan we felt a bond with our baby which I would reckon doesn't normally kick in until after the birth. I read a book given to me by my sister a few weeks ago which was written by a guy my age, 32, about his baby son's first year. It was a useful read although I found myself a bit freaked out after reading it and couldn't relate to the writer as he'd changed into one of those paranoid parents rushing his kid to A&E every time his boy caught a cold. I was convinced I'd be the calm, level headed practical one but now I'm not so sure. The news we got made everything so real, this is actually going to happen, a baby is on its way and cleft or not maybe I needed to realise that!

Our baby seems part of the family now, I can't believe women are still allowed to terminate at this stage of their pregnancy. I never really had a strong view on abortion until I felt the baby kick and wriggle to the point where you can see Clare's belly move. That was about 4 weeks ago when Clare was 19 weeks in and terminations can still happen up to 24 weeks. Last week a vote went against a new proposed law to shorten this to 20 weeks which seems insane as well as inhumane. I'm not really a soapbox person but this does seem like it needs addressing. I don't suppose I'll do anything about though.

As well as the bond between Chickpea and I and between Chickpea and the missus, my relationship with Clare has reached an adhesive peak and I reckon if you cut me right now her blood would come out. Talk about what doesn't kill you making you stronger, it's situations like this which can strain a relationship but it's done quite the reverse. Knowing that our baby is going to have some problems has turned us from a pregnant couple into a family overnight and there's an impenetrable forcefield around it. Don't mess with the Fernies!

We've had a good couple of days seeing both sets of expentant grandparents, taking them through the literature and subjecting them to my verbal diarrhoea. We cooked roast for 7 and spent some time in the pub yesterday and then spent today's wet bank holiday mooching and finished up by watching Walk the Line which we Sky plussed from last night. As fate would have it, the star is Joaquin Pheonix who was apparently born with a cleft lip and palate. He's a handsome devil isn't he?!

Work starts again tomorrow which will bring more welcome distraction and help me to settle back into normal life and I'm feeling pretty good about the week ahead.

Today, generally

Paintballing was a laugh. Just what I needed infact, complete distraction. I did find myself on a couple of occasions feeling a wave of sadness which is perhaps not the ideal emotion to experience as paintballs are fizzing past at 300 foot per second. The impacts brought me to my senses pretty quickly and I have some pretty funky bruises. I managed a 'hero' award for one of the games although it was ironic that it was the only game where I didn't hit anyone. I was pinned down with people shooting at me from three sides and I couldn't escape. I suspect not, but I wonder if there is some symbolism in that. More likely the Fosters kicking in!

Got home and called Clare. Then called her 3 times more as her f&*()^g iPhone, fantastic as it is as a wonderful piece of technology and advanced interface design, is actually shite as a phone. People slate Microsoft and regard Apple as the pinnacle of cutting edge cool but I'd take function over form any day.

Anyway I thought I'd review my mid night ramblings to see if any of it made sense and found a comment on the blog which did something funny to my eyes. The comment was from my mum, my wonderful mum. The comment itself was beautiful but what caused the irritation in my eyes was that I knew that she had signed up to a blogger.com account in order to make it. My mum is pretty advanced now in terms of computers and the web but she normally calls me to set stuff up and talk her though, but (and this is in no way meant to sound patronising) she did it all herself and she did it so I wouldn't know the comment was waiting and would find it in my own time and that means more than I can tell you.

Not long after I checked my work email account and found an email from my dad. My dad and me are close ('my Dad and I' - private joke) are close and we talk all the time but black and white does so much more and I had the same strange eye irritation. Amazing, heartfelt words. Reasonably embarrassing as Clare and her two mates were in the room. I took that as my cue to have a shower. I was pretty filthy to be fair.

Battery is at 10% and I should save my work, apparently. More tomorrow.

Before & After

Here's what our baby's cleft might be like. A complete right-sided unilateral cleft lip.


3 months old (1 week before surgery)

1 hour after surgery

All fixed

I can't wait to take photo like this one!

Peaks and troughs

4.30 am is a funny time of the day / night. I didn't think that the baby would have me up at this time before it was actually born! Once you're up though it's quite a nice time to be awake, I've always felt like I'm getting a headstart on everyone else and, if nothing else, it'll give me plenty of time to get ready for paintballing! Sleep deprivation was the one thing that worried most before we found out about the cleft(s) but now I realise how insignificant that's going to be in the grand scheme of things. It's always made me chuckle that even the toughest, hardened criminals get sleepy, even Phil Mitchell needs his sleep. The air at this time of the morning is lovely though, it has a different quality to it as if unpolluted by the day's activity. Also I can't believe how many cars I can hear on the road. Where is everyone going at this ungodly hour?

Yesterday afternoon we went back to Royal Surrey and had a second scan with another sonographer who was great and explained pretty much everything we'd already heard but she showed us in more detail on the scan. The cleft lip definitely goes through the gum but we won't know the extent of the cleft palate until the baby arrives. We do know that it's a right-sided complete unilateral cleft lip, not left-sided as the first lady reckoned. At the moment the cleft is 7.7mm and I love it to stay that size but it'll obviously get bigger. It's amazing what 24 hours does, I find myself looking at pictures of other peoples' kids, strangers' kids with clefts and I'm not wincing anymore, now I understand the condition. Ideally I'd like everyone I know (and everyone I don't but may come into contact with) to read up and do as much research so they're not shocked. I feel selfish that all I'm now really worried about is what other people with think, will they think our baby is a freak, will they stare and whisper, will I have to punch someone in the face? I'm sure that during the first few months there will certainly be some very tough times but I also know one look into our baby's eyes will put it right in a heartbeat. I think that the anticipation is likely to be much worse than the reality as we're only focussing on the negative right now and we seem to be forgetting that, despite the set back, we're having a gorgeous (natch) bundle of joy which is going to give us years of pleasure (and grief in all likelihood!).

We had a really nice evening, a few phone calls to various friends and family and yet more reassurance from the same website's gallery. We walked into town and had too much pizza, waddled home to watch Jonathan Ross and Clare fell asleep on the sofa; just like any normal Friday, but we went to sleep happy. As of now all is o.k with the world (apart from being awake at this ridiculous hour) and we're going to be fine.

Whirlwind

The last 24 hours has been a shock! My head is going at a million miles an hour and I don't really know where I am. This blog seems like a good idea.

Last September my wife had a miscarriage so at our three month scan we were obviously paranoid and expecting the worst; although we have an amazing set of family and friends, good jobs and a wonderful home, the events of the previous year had seem to conspire against us somewhat and although we try to make sure the glass is always half full, sometimes it's not that easy.

Anyway the scan went well, all looked normal and the sigh of relief was universal; things were slowly going for the better. Naturally, then, we walked up to the maternity unit at Royal Surrey with something of a swagger presuming that this would be routine and all would be well. Actually that's a lie, we did say a prayer the night before but assumed the same God would be listening!

Anyway the scan was going well, with the sonographer changing the 'not normal' buttons to 'normal' by right-clicking and progressing through the list. Clare finally asked 'So is everything O.K then?' to which the lady replied;

'Well...not everything'.

You never know how you'll react to bad news but when I heard her response my whole body stiffened and a wave of heat passed over me. Clare's grip tightened and we braced ourselves. We were told that our baby would be born with a cleft lip and probably a cleft palate. I say probably as a scan can't tell the true extent of a cleft lip, palate or what combination they come in, if at all.

The lady explained that, as bad news goes, this was pretty good. Apparently of all the things that could come up a cleft, regardless of size, type, seriousness etc is the one you want. It didn't feel like that at the time and whilst I'm relieved it's not more serious, I'm having difficulty giving small mercies any thanks.

I've only fainted once, when I had blood taken the time before last (I was lying down at the time, pathetic I know!) but I felt that without water and removing my jacket this would be the second time. I've always found it weird how the sight of blood or hearing bad news could provoke such strong physical reactions but I managed not to faint and we were ushered from the scan room to a cosy room which is obviously used for much worse news than ours.

Clare said 'I don't want to the people who come into this room' and we all knew what she meant. The symbology of the soft furnishings amongst the stark NHS decor and stop smoking posters was deafening in its silence. I was trying to stay as practical and blokish as possible as Clare and her mum sniffed through their tears while waiting for the next nurse.

I felt like a bit of a statistic as we were waiting. I really hope I never have to be in the comfortable room again in my life.

And so the reading began.

We started by looking through the paperwork the nurse gave us which explained everything we were going through and what to expect and also had a piece written by a mother who'd gone through it all and how we shouldn't worry too much. A before and after shot offered little comfort as even though the after was a miracle of science, up until that point we were going to have a 'perfect' baby which was going to be head boy / girl, happy, rich, famous and would probably do a lot of work for charity.

People with illnesses or disabilities gravitate towards the web and whilst this must be a pain for doctors who regularly have to deal with the self-diagnosed dying patient with a cold, it was of great comfort in the first few hours.

www.clapa.com is the official site of the official body and is probably the best place to start. It explains the procedures, time scales and has, more importantly, loads of before and afters. What I noticed (other than the obvious) was that the before shots were just as happy as the afters. It's important to know that the baby doesn't suffer as a result of having the cleft, it's not sore, nothing's missing, just that bits of its palate, lip, nose, gum etc have not quite grown together or have grown in a slightly different direction. IT CAN ALL BE SORTED. And the first op is at three months old....this is one which makes the baby's face look much more normal. Whatever 'normal' is. I'm not sure I'm normal!

So, we made a few important calls to key people who could spread the word. Explaining the same scenario hundreds of times is not we needed last night but we do want everyone to know so they don't feel uncomfortable later on. This worked well. The calls and texts started soon after and we explained it a few more times but in the main I would recommend using friends and family to do some of the hard work at least to start with.

I'm a typical bloke and I can fix everything but I can't fix this. Not yet, at least. Clare's mum was upset, as she to, cannot fix it. Clare's upset for the same reason but it's always harder on the woman; she thinks it's her fault, which of course it isn't. It's no one's fault, there's nothing which could or should have been done to avoid it. If there was, believe me Clare would have done it as she is the model expectant mum. It's one of those 1 in 600 things and we're number 600. Or 1 depending on how you look at it.

Anyway we flaked out around ten and woke up to reassess the situation. One thing is for sure and that's that the next 4 months until the baby arrives are going to be a series of peaks and troughs. I went to bed upbeat (2 beers / half a bottle wine) and Clare was teary whereas I woke up feeling blue and Clare was o.k. It changes throughout the day an we're not yet 24 hours into 'the news'. The one thing I can't get out of my head is this. We know time is a great healer but it's difficult to get used to something which hasn't happened yet and this situation is going to rule the next 4 months. I feel a bit cheated that our outlook on the whole situation has changed.

The specialist came at 10am this morning which is pretty impressive. In fact she knocked on the door at 10 seconds past ten, although my watch is fast. Anyway the NHS machine has kicked in and we went through a LOT with her and I'm going to write more on that tomorrow. But we feel a million times better having seen Ann(e), our angel, than we felt yesterday.

We're going to see Indiana Jones tonight for distraction and I'm going paintballing for a stag do in the morning and you can probably guess how much I'm looking forward to that.