"Littlebean" as I have taken to calling him (due to the fact that all early foetus pictures somewhat resemble a baked bean) will be here imminently, and there absolutely naff all I can do to slow it down.
I mean don't get me wrong, I can't wait for the little bugger to make an appearance, but that due date has seemed to exceed all modern understanding of space and time in the last eight months.
Eight months! It surely can't of been eight months because it genuinely feels like only a few moments ago that my wife was looking at me whilst holding a piss covered stick, with a face like she had won the lottery, but had to walk through London in the nuddy to claim the money.
This 8 months has been the fastest of my life no two-ways about it. The time frame is stuttered, like a dodgy DVD, there are huge swathes of it missing, with just a few important moments left as memories in my simple man brain. All of those are related to Littlebean in someway.
My theory on that is simple, basically everything except Littlebean ceased to be anywhere near as important the second I knew he existed. At that precise moment my lovely wife was explaining she was pregnant, with that odd happy-oh-so-terrified look on her Chevy, my life changed. It genuinely shifted on its axis.
I should first share with you that I have always felt I was placed on this mortal coil to do something special. Like I dunno, save the world, or become insanely rich and powerful, rescue cats from trees or some other such balls. To be fair as a 31 year old bloke with an ordinary desk job, newly thinning, graying hair and a rapidly growing beer belly, my feeling on this matter was starting to waiver.
At the 12 week scan I saw with my eyes the special reason I was here. This tiny miniature, stunning little human being, that seemed to kick about and turn his back on the scanner at every opportunity filled me with awe. Honestly blew my mind. I spent the next 8 weeks showing off the scan pictures of this special thing me and the wife had created to anyone that would look, like I was the first man to conceive a baby. Like god before me I had created man! See, told you. Special.
It was at the 20 week scan I was to find out just how special. You see, Littlebean, as I had suspected already, given the fact he will one day rule over you all, is no normal baby. He is one out of every 700, or as I prefer the 0.14%
Littlebean has a unilateral right sided complete cleft of the lip and probable pallet. If that last sentence has made about as much sense to you as a drunken man's 11pm ramblings, fear not. I had no idea what it meant either.
But as the most common facial abnormality in the world, we should know really. All it essentially means is Littlebeans mouth didn't come together completely from the two vertical halves that everybody else's does in the womb at 7-10 weeks in.
He has a gap separating the two halves of his top lip, which goes into the right nostril and probably separates the roof of his mouth too.
Its entirely operable, and operations will indeed be a regular part of his life up until the age of 21. He will certainly have at least two of these operations before he is 1 year old. Probably before he is 6 months old. The first to repair the lip, the second to repair the pallet (roof of the mouth). He will probably need several revisions throughout his childhood. At 10 he may need a bone graft from his hip, to repair his gumline too.
When I first heard this I was devastated, terrified and totally confused. But we all need to calm down. Its only a cleft!
This blog will serve as my ramblings about parenthood as I see it and experience it. Most importantly it will also chart Littlebeans progress through his cleft journey. If even one parent in a similar situation finds it even vaguely useful, the blog will have been worthwhile.
Oh, and his actual name isn't Littlebean. It's Joshua, and this is his tale....
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