Late Night Thoughts

 It’s late, and my mind keeps wandering back to conversations I’ve had recently with other cleft parents.

Connecting with them has been both healing and heavy in ways I didn’t expect. Healing, because there’s comfort in talking to someone who just knows. Someone who doesn’t need the backstory or the explanation. Someone who understands the bottles, the feeding schedules, the worry that hums quietly in the background of everyday life.

But also heavy, because it’s made me realize I didn’t have that when I was in the thick of it.

I didn’t have someone to tell me how the valve in the specialized bottle worked, or reassure me that yes, milk coming out of a baby’s nose can be normal. I didn’t have someone to ask which surgeon they trusted and why, or what random baby item unexpectedly made feeds easier. Those are the things you don’t think to Google, and even if you do, it’s not the same as hearing it from someone who’s lived it.

I had support, and I’m grateful for that. People showed kindness. They tried to understand. They gave grace where they could. And that mattered more than they probably realized.

Still, I wish clefts were talked about more.

Not in a way that lumps every story together, because no two clefts are the same. No two babies need identical care. Every journey looks a little different. But the knowledge can be shared. The empathy can be shared. The simple reassurance that you’re not alone can be shared.

I keep thinking about how different those early days might have felt if I’d known there were other parents lying awake at night with the same questions, the same fears, the same quiet hopes.