I am writing this blog as a way to tell the story of my daughter Taylor Mae. Taylor was born with cleft lip and cleft palate, and throughout my pregnancy and the days since her birth it helped a lot to have other moms to ask questions to and get encouragement from. So if our experience can help even one other family it is worth telling!

Thankfully, we learned of Taylor's cleft early on at our 20 week ultrasound. We went thinking like most parents that we would find out the sex of our baby and it would be uneventful other than that. It's a girl! We were thrilled! We were sent back out to the waiting room to wait for our OB just to be called back into the exam room to be told our daughter has cleft lip and palate. It was like a punch in the face. We don't have any history of cleft in our families, and although there are a thousand worse things that could've been wrong it was the last thing we expected to hear.

So there began our wild adventure complete with doubts and fears, sadness and even a little anger. Being the planner that I am "why is this happening" changed to "Ok God, you're going to have to get us through this." Our next step was to go to another hospital for a 4D ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis. After that we scheduled a consult with the surgeon to find out about the surgeries our little one will need. The rest of my pregnancy was filled with lots of monitoring and doctors appointments, but on November 1, 2009 we welcomed the most beautiful little girl into the world!

When Taylor was 11 days old we had our first appointment at the children's hospital where Taylor got impressions taken for a Palate device (a retainer to bring her palate together) and we were taught how to tape her lip to prepare for her first surgery. In the days to come there would be a lot of tears and screams and scares. One day Taylor figured out how to get her palate device out so that was the end of that but we have had to tape the entire time.

So that brings us to today. Monday, February 15, 2010. Two days before her first surgery is to take place, and I am a ball of emotion! I am excited for how much easier all our lives will be after surgery, make that after recovery, but I am terrified and deeply sadened about seeing my baby girl go through this. The part we are most dredding is seeing her in arm restraints for nine days until her post op check up and having to put her through something she doesn't even understand. So, here goes nothing, or everything depending on how you look at it. God give us strength to make it through these hard days to come...