Tagged with:Parent Stories

  • Joanne’s Story

    1 Aug 2014

    I'm Joanne Graham, married to Alex and have 2 beautiful sons; Noah, 2 and Isaac, who was born on 1st July 2014 with a unilateral cleft lip and gum notch. We live in South Shields, near Newcastle upon Tyne.

  • Maz and her two children

    Maz Poole’s Story

    9 Jul 2014

    Find out about Maz Poole's experiences as the Norfolk and Suffolk Happy Faces Coordinator and a CLAPA Parent Contact.

  • Lily’s Journey

    18 May 2014

    Over the next couple of weeks we learned more about the condition and how to handle our baby confidently and then the shock question came! Which one of us parents would insert the NPA tube and feeding tube when Lily goes home?

  • My Parent Contact

    6 Jun 2013

    "When I talked to Mel I didn't know [my daughter]. I didn't know how resilient she would prove to be and how much strength her smile would give me. I needed to feel that I could do this - and that is exactly what Mel made me believe."

  • The Hancock’s story

    17 Mar 2013

    "The operator told us that our baby had a cleft lip and that this maybe associated with some syndromes that may mean that the baby may not survive. The whole thing was handled rather badly. We left the hospital in a state of shock and little information."

  • Emily’s Story

    1 Mar 2013

    "We were delighted to discover we were expecting our second child in the summer of 2011. I had a fairly straightforward pregnancy and normal scans throughout. Our daughter Isabelle was born on 21st April 2012 at 00.52AM, coming quite unexpectedly on her due date. Her birth was very fast and when they handed her to me I couldn't believe how tiny she was at 5lb 9oz.

  • Jemma’s Story

    13 Feb 2012

    My pregnancy was being hijacked! It wasn't the enjoyable experience I would have liked in fact it made me feel very depressed and angry I often wondered ‘why me?’ but I had to pull myself together as it wasn't just the OC and cleft to worry about, I had my beautiful little girl to look after.

  • Jayne’s Story

    13 Dec 2011

    Jayne's dad was born with a cleft lip, but it didn't cross her mind that it might affect her own children until her son Charley was born and she discovered he had one too.

  • Jessica at 6 months old with mum Marianne

    Marianne Ryan’s Story

    18 Jun 2011

    These early days were incredibly difficult as my husband and I struggled with her condition. She couldn’t use many of the things we had bought for her, such as car seats, bouncers and baby slings. This sounds so trivial now but was heart-breaking at the time as we realised that we had a baby with special needs.

  • Sarah’s Story

    13 Mar 2011

    We fell in love with everything about Lucas, his cleft just made him more unique to us.