Baby Boy

Our baby boy is growing so fast! I am 22 weeks (about five and a half months) along right now and he is supposedly around 11 inches and one pound. 

We found out some hard news a couple of weeks ago when I had an ultrasound at our doctor's office. As far as they could see, everything was developing normally, except one thing. Our baby has a cleft lip and possibly a cleft palate as well. It was hard news to hear and think about for a couple of days while we waited for our appointment at a high risk maternal-fetal medicine clinic to find out more. The doctor and geneticist that we met with there were wonderful and said that as far as they could see, this is an isolated birth defect in our baby. There still could be other complications but until he is born there is really no way to tell the severity. We had a very thorough ultrasound at the clinic and we got some really good pictures. 

This is a left-side profile

This shot is of the right side of his body, you can see his head and ear and his hand is up by his face. 

This picture of his face shows the cleft lip the best. As far as we can tell, it is a unilateral cleft on his left side.

This face shot, where he is turned away a bit more, shows the other side of his face that appears to be normal so the cleft is just on one side. 

It has been so great the past couple of weeks to just mentally prepare and learn as much as we could. Stephen and I both feel a lot of peace about the whole situation and know that with so many things that can go wrong with a developing baby, we are lucky that this isn't more severe. He will need to get a couple of surgeries in his first year and maybe beyond that as well. They have a clinic at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake that is devoted just to working with cleft lips and palates, where we will take him to be evaluated within a week after he is born.

If you are interested in finding out more, we have really loved the websites for the Cleft Palate Foundation and the Craniofacial Clinic at Primary Children's.

We have appreciated all of the support from friends and family and are so excited for our baby boy to come!

Spring Break 2013

Last week Stephen and I were out of school for Spring Break so we made the most of it. We started off the week at Disneyland! It's my favorite place in the world. (warning, lots of pictures that we took of ourselves, which is great for me because I loved that it was just the two of us all week long)

We rode our favorite rides...lots of times

Stephen had some special needs but he did manage to beat me on the Toy Story ride, one time out of three that is. 

Cars land is adorable and wonderful.

We ate my favorite Disneyland food together.

Stephen ate his favorite Disneyland food...alone.

We got there early both days to beat the crowds and this was us on the Small World ride, just the two of us in our own boat and no one in front or behind us! We weren't this fortunate with short lines all day but the mornings were great. 

After Disneyland, We drove up the coast on the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco. It was one of the most beautiful drives we have ever taken! I don't know why this isn't WAY more popular, it was amazing. Big Sur was breathtaking and although you can't really capture it fully in pictures, we took lots. 

 

Our last day in California we did some quick sight seeing in the bay area before heading back home. 

It was such a fun trip and so nice to have some time off and spend the whole week just with each other!