Dad's Corner
Kieran
 When my fiancée and I learned that our son
Kieran was going to be born with a unilateral cleft
lip and possibly a cleft palate we were initially,
to say the least, distraught. No parent wishes to
learn that their beautiful and perfect child would
enter
the world with a facial disorder. However, as the
shock wore off and we began to do our research on clefts,
their medical solutions and doctors specializing
in
this field we became grateful, in a way, that we
had time to plan and that the issue was more cosmetic
than
life threatening.
To be honest I believe the process
was harder on my fiancée than me. I
mean this in no way to say that I cared less, but simply that I was perhaps less
attached, as she was the one with the life growing inside of her. Feeling Kieran
kick or talking and reading stories to him in no way compares to carrying him
around for nine months. Needless to say I am eternally grateful for her strength
and calm demeanor during this period.
 On the day that our son was born we learned
that Kieran had not only the cleft lip but the cleft
palate as well and that both were fairly extensive.
I felt
an initial sadness as perhaps unrealistically I hoped that all the doctors and
all of the test results had been mistaken. However, this was quickly replaced
by a determination to do everything in my power to ensure he received the best
care in the world and from the best professionals in the world. More importantly
I was determined to show him the love I felt. I can honestly say that no other
event in my life can compare to the birth of my son. He completed something in
me that I had never known I was missing.
Between the weekly, and sometimes bi-weekly,
doctors visits for the cleft, the normal doctors visit
for any newborn, and the midwife visits, it felt like
we
practically lived in a doctors office for the first few months of Kieran’s
life. The constant flux of doctor’s appointment times and location, as
well as the need to be places made us feel like we never had an opportunity to
be home with our son laying the foundation for a loving atmosphere. Perhaps this
was a bit more in our heads as I now realize that the loving foundation was already
being laid.
Let me be clear in saying that keeping diligent with
the constant tapings and re-tapings is a trying process.
Even Kieran began to get disgruntled
with the
whole affair as he grew and learned how to pull the NAM device out of his mouth.
One look at his toothless grin at the moment of his brief accomplishment is
all that is needed to understand how he felt about
the whole process. I would like
to take the opportunity at this point to reemphasize the gratitude I feel towards
my fiancée as she bore the brunt of this burden and my eternal respect
for her diligence in something some people may have let slide.
As our first
milestone is now over and his lip and nose are now repaired my fiancée
and I know that we have other mountains to climb with the palate surgery
in October.
I can assure you that nothing in the world compares
to the joy I feel when
I see Kieran smile when he sees me. As I am sure my fiancée will reaffirm
I often and perhaps selfishly insist on putting Kieran to bed at night, claiming
that she needs to relax and should let me help out as much as possible, when
the truth is this is my favorite part of the day for the simple reason that
he always, without fail, looks up and smiles one last time before drifting
off into
baby dreams.
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