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Ashlie

Ashlie Tierra was born on September 14, 2000 with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. Ashlie's pictures are presented to you by her Mom, Alayna.

Ashlie's cleft is pretty severe. Right after she was born her PS said that on a severity scale of 1-10, Ashlie was a 9. She has partial upper lips on both sides and a little tiny piece of lip on her premaxilla that formed as a ball outside her mouth. She has absolutely no hard or soft palate, and no internal nasal structures. When you look into her mouth, it seems that you can see as far up as to what would be the bottom of her eyes.

Ashlie's mom, Alayna, was adopted and her biological mom had a unilateral cleft lip. Alayna is one of 4 kids. None of the 4 kids inherited it, and Alayna has an older brother and sister, who both have kids, and none of them inherited it either. We had 4 sonograms and it wasn't picked up in any of them.

Ashlie didn't have her lip adhesion surgery until she was 4 months old, because her cleft was so involved. Her PS wanted to do something to move the premaxilla into better alignment for surgery, so he and her oral surgeon designed a "bonnet" for her to wear. The bonnet has velcro strips along the bottom edge on both sides. The oral Dr. designed a retainer-like substance to fit over the premaxilla. The retainer has elastic on either side of it and we created tension to move it by pulling the elastic tighter on the right side to get it to move more towards the center of her mouth. In the end, the PS said that this "bonnet" did wonders for her and really helped in the surgery.

This pic is of Ashlie and mommy (Alayna) a few months after she started wearing the bonnet. You can already see how much it has helped to move the premaxilla over towards the center of her mouth.

Look at that beautiful "wide smile"!

Another look at that beautiful "wide smile".

This was taken just before lip adhesion surgery. Ashlie (4 months old) with her Aunt Cheryl. This was one of her last "wide smiles'.

Ashlie still sleeping, just out of surgery.

Syringe feeding after surgery.

Here's Ashlie's beautiful new lip!!! Ashlie had to wear the Logan's bow to relieve tension from the connection of the 3 parts of her lip.

Here we are going home from the hospital!!! Finally !!!!!!

Ashlie, 6 months old. (2 months after lip adhesion)

This was Ashlie's first Easter. We went to JC Penney's and they used real live bunnies as props for their Easter pics. She loved them, and had a blast. If you look closely, she was petting one of them as they took the pic.

This is a pic of Ashlie and me (mommy). What do ya think?? Do we look alike?? : ) This was at 6 months too.

Ashlie before lip revision surgery (8 months old).

The nurse drawing her blood before surgery...which surprisingly enough, she slept through. I told mom that people must have been praying : )

Post-op. You can't see it very clearly, but they had to put the iv in her jugular vein (in her neck)......oooohhhhh!!!

This is the rose I got her for being such a strong and brave little girl !!!!!!! : )

Ashlie at 9 months old.

Ashlie, Page 2

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