Before I can begin Wesley's Story there are some things you need to know. In August of 1995 I was the mother of 3 girls. I was thrilled to learn that I was pregnant again. I hoped against hope that this time it would be a boy. The one my husband always wanted, but was considerate enough to say didn't matter, as long as they were healthy.

My first few appointments went well. They were having a problem hearing the baby's heart, but I was reassured that this was just because it was still early and there could be many reasons why it couldn't be heard. Besides, since my husband had congenital birth defects, including a cleft lip and palate, we always had a more thourough ultralsound at 5 months. (Just to be sure. None of our girls had ever had a problem.) Everyone was sure that this second test would alleviate any concerns. But then, late in the evening on the seventh of December, 3 weeks before the second ultrasound, I began to have contractions. Our son, Kevin, was delivered stillborn the next morning. His heart had not formed properly.

Our family went through a very long and difficult recovery period. When I found out that I was pregnant again in May of 1996. It was not excitement that I felt, but fear! I knew in my heart that our family could not survive another tradgedy like Kevin. Most of our extended family felt this way also, and no one was thrilled by the news of another pregnancy. As you can see, Wesley's beginnings were less than joyous!

Even though no one was thrilled at first, eventually as my pregnancy progressed and all seemed well, we began to relax and enjoy the prospect of another child in the house. This time neither my husband nor I hoped for a specific sex, we just hoped for a healthy baby.

The first OB appointment was terrifying. I was scared of the moment when she would put her scope to my stomach. Finally it was time, and I held my breath as I listened for any sound. And then, after several minutes of anxious waiting, there it was, not loud or very distinct, but a beautiful heartbeat all the same. Everyone felt better after this but there were still moments of doubt.

At three months I went for the normal ultrasound. After an hour of image taking in the same room where I had learned that Kevin had died, we finally heard glorious news. The heart was perfect in everyway! We went home that night celebrating our good fortune! I felt the briefest moment of disappointment that the doctor was sure our new baby was a girl. Then I felt guilty for having the thought. Then I was happy that I had the chance to feel guilty because it meant that things were normal. It was a very emotional evening!

At the end of August my best friend, Michele, drove me to a hospital in Philadelphia, for my second more intense ultrasound. As usual, my husband and I felt that it was just an extra reassurance, because our girls were fine and we knew the baby's heart was healthy. We were so certain it was routine that I didn't even ask him to take off from work.

The test itself was actually being done a few weeks early. Michele was getting married the week I should of had the procedure done. Since my entire family was in the wedding, including myself as the neon blue "whale" of honor, I opted to have it done early and avoid any scheduling problems.

While they performed the tests, Michele took my two youngest daughters for a snack. I layed on the table, watching fuzzy images of my baby flash across the screen, smiling, especially when I would see the little heart beat. It seemed to me that the procedure was taking longer than normal, but I assumed that all hospitals were different. Holding on to one last small hope, I waited until the technician was done and asked if my doctor was right, that the baby was a girl? Her answer took my breath away for it's simplicity. "No, it's a boy." As a hundred different ideas ran through my head of how to tell my husband he was having a boy, I ran back to the waiting room to tell Michele.

Unfortunately, Michele had not returned from the snack bar yet. So I sat in that small crowded room, literally bouncing in my seat, smiling like a cheshire cat. Michele came back just as the doctor came to get me. I quickly blurtted out the news and watched her smile grow as large as mine. This is what I tell people were my ten seconds of joy.

When the doctor came I immediately became concerned. Instead of leading me to a consultation room for a followup, as was normal, she was leading me back to the procedure room. After scanning the babies face for over another hour she told me to follow her to her office. Once there she announced that my baby was, in her opinion, grossly defigured. She was sure he would be born with only half a face at best. There would definately be no top lip or roof of the mouth and she doubted whether he would have a nose. She felt the only "kind" thing to do would to be to abort immediately, because our child would never have a decent quality of life.

I did the same thing that any mother hearing this news alone would do, I burst into hysterical tears and ran from her office, almost forgetting about Michele and my other children. Fortunately, Michele had the keen eyesight needed to realize the blur that had just passed was her friend and the sense to follow that blur. We only stopped long enough to call my husband at work and tell him he had to come home, and then she drove while I cried and shook and felt our son kicking inside of me.
The Decisions

My husband had more than 20 surgeries when he was young, because of his birth defects. We visited a geneticist who assured us that the more severe defects only had a 1 in 400 chance of being passed on, but the chances of a cleft were more like 1 in 25. A great deal of soul searching had led us to the conclusion that a cleft we could handle, but it would not be fair to put another child through what he had expierienced as a result of his other defects. That was the decision we had made before we had children. Now it just didn't apply, atleast not for me.

When I got home, my husband was already there. At first we just sat on the couch and held each other. The grieving process had begun. He brought up our decision. I tearfully explained that waiting this long for a son, and feeling him alive inside of me I just couldn't give him up. No matter what this one doctor believed, I had to find a way to fix it.

We started making phone calls. The first was to our doctor. Which is where another wonderful friend enters the story. Sue, our doctor's office nurse and a saint in street clothes. Within a half hour of calling the office, Sue was at my home, holding my hand and giving me a well needed hug. In the meantime our doctor had given us the names of two of the most excellent cleft palate teams in our area and the names of their co-ordinators. Our first choice was DuPont in Willmington, Deleware. Before Sue ever arrived, we had spoken to both facilities and the head doctor of the DuPont team had called us back. He was kind, comforting and reassuring. He even gave us his home phone number and told us to call at anytime with questions.

We had an appointment at Christiana Hospital, a partner of DuPont within 3 days. The longest three days of our lives. But every dark day has some small light. The day after we found out as I sat at home alone, staring at the list of phone numbers from the day before and feeling sorry for myself and our unborn son, there was a knock at the door. A stranger handed me a bouquet of red roses and I told him he must have the wrong address. He reassured me he was at the right place and told me to read the card. It was a simple note from my husband. "Thank you for our son. I Love You." At that moment, I knew it would be alright.

Our first appointment at Christiana, on a cloudy,ugly day, was with a the head of the team. He was also the geneticist. He did a profile of our case and set up an ultrasound for a week later. At that appointment several doctors watched our son's image on the screen. After three hours they delivered their verdict. Yes, he would be a cleft baby, but also he would have a face, just not a perfect one. They were also adamant about the fact that anything that was wrong could be repaired. Joy is a funny thing. You can feel it at the strangest times. Someone had just told me my son would be born imperfect, and I was still grieving for the loss of the perfect child I would not have, but I still felt joy, just because he would be born.

We returned to Christiana every 6 weeks after that, until he was born, for more ultrasounds. Some of the trips were good and some were bad. Sometimes they couldn't tell much or see if there was any improvement, and never could they tell if his palate was there or not. They guessed it wasn't. The best was the day my husband saw for the first time, that it was definately a boy.

Meanwhile we prepared. We read vorasiously. Sue found the phone numbers of atleast 20 different organizations that could help with everything from breastpumps to part time help for the other children. We contacted cleft support groups and learned how to give tube feedings incase of a worst case scenario. We also asked different groups for pictures of cleft babies, before and after surgery, so that we could prepare our family, children and friends. We didn't want our daughters to expect the Pampers' baby.

Wesley was born on January 30, 1997. It was a normal birth as far as mine go. I went so quickly that when he made his arrival, the doctor wasn't even there, only the nurse. Who, thanks to Sue, had already been notified along with the rest of the maternity ward nurses, that this would be a cleft birth. Even so, she was not thrilled by the fact that she was going to deliver a baby by herself. That fact was apparent when my husband told her the baby's head was crowning and she ran down the hall, yelling, "Is there a doctor on the floor?"

We had a tense moment when she and my husband realized that the cord was knotted around his neck. My knight in shining armour, after yelling "Oh my God!", covered my eyes while I kept demanding to know why he was not crying? But our nurse was a professional, and that first wonderful cry was only a heartbeat behind my demands.

That was when we got our second gift. As Wesley cried, my husband was able to see that his palate was intact. He told me and I called him a liar. The nurse had to bring Wesley to me before I would believe either of them.

Yes my first sight of my son was a shock, even to his mother and yes I had to go through part of the grieving process again. Some family members had a hard time accepting his imperfections and people kept giving us their condolenses instead of congragulations. But our son was alive and healthy and we have learned to overcome the problems.

Now Wesley is seven years old. The scar is hardly even visible. People used to stare at him and us with pity. Now they tell us how cute he is. Funny, I always thought he was.