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Michele's Story
Hi everyone. My name is Michele and I was born in January 1969 with a unilateral cleft lip and palate. I had so many surgeries throughout my childhood years that I lost count. There were repairs to my lip, palate, and nose. I also had bone taken from my hip and grafted into "cheekbones" since my face had a flattened appearance. I also had oral surgery to pull my upper jaw forward and my jaws were wired shut for about 4-6 weeks. That surgery occurred when I was about 16 years old. I too was very shy and withdrawn in school while growing up. I went to a very small private school from the 3rd to the 11th grade and it really helped me to feel comfortable in that setting. But the outside world was a different story. Until even today I have a habit of not looking people in the eyes when I go shopping or out on social occasions. I went through so many years of getting stared at that I trained myself not to see it. I did not have a boyfriend until after I graduated from high school and even then I could tell that he was not really interested in me (my best friend had set me up with him). When I met my husband almost 3 years ago I could not believe that someone could really love me. My appearance has been such a burden to me. But he always tells me that he loves me and that I'm beautiful. I still don't think that I'm beautiful, but I'm happy that he does. He treats me wonderfully and I am amazed that the Lord has blessed me with him. Before I got pregnant with my son I researched the chances of my children inheriting my condition. The information I read said that there was a 2-5% chance that my children could be born with cleft. Being that there is no other trace of cleft in my family history I felt comfortable with getting pregnant. No way did I want a child of mine to go through what I did growing up. When I went in for my ultrasound at 4 and a half months of pregnancy the doctor that performed the procedure noticed that I am a cleft adult. He then told me that he would take an extra good look at my baby's face. I was alarmed when he told me that because I didn't know that they could get that kind of detail from such a fuzzy picture, and I didn't know that it was so common that they would make a special effort to look for the deformity. During the ultrasound the doctor did see a cleft on my child. I was so devestated I could not stop crying for a couple of days. I blamed myself solely for giving my innocent child this horrible legacy that I've lived with for all of my life. Tyler is now 8 1/2 months old. He was also born with a unilateral cleft lip and palate. He already had his surgery for the lip and he looks really good. I have hope that his doctor, who is an excellent plastic surgeon, can do more for him than my doctors did. We are waiting for him to grow a little bit more to do the palate surgery. I am a little anxious for that surgery because he is supposed to start talking soon and I want him to pronounce his words well. I needed speech therapy for a few years when I was young and I'm hoping he will not need it. I will say that I am planning on having another child even though the risks of having another cleft child has increased slightly now that I have one child with cleft. But I would not trade my little boy for anything else in this world.