Whilst we have reported in earlier posts that I was a voice of calmness and optimism in all of the various processes that we have gone through and are about to go through, I think it is reasonable to say that this has been anything but calm and stress-free. Of course it is bound to be stressful!
Some of our doctors have reported that we are very calm, but I think that is mostly a fact of being third time parents. I have to admit to feeling very stressed with all of this journey, as it sometimes feels like a huge burden to do the best thing for your child; to choose the best surgeon and care you can for your child; but to also balance that with the anxious knowledge that, by undertaking the surgeries he will experience pain. I think all those anxious thoughts and feeling stressed are very natural. For many of them, we can hopefully rationalize them that we have very little control over their outcome, but on others, we have choices to make and concerted effort to be put in with his feeding schedule and overall health before he goes in for that first surgery.
I must say Eimhear has been amazing at this, even though as parents to a newborn again, a few years older this time, we have been - what do I mean, we are - pretty tired, all the time. I am lucky that she is such an amazing mother and dedicated to all our children in the way she is, and has taken on so much of this herself, both prior to birth and after. Eimhear fore-armed us with so much information and preparedness that the process has been manageable, but of course, it would never be stress-free. But we have tried our best to keep communicating with each other, with new snippets of information we get and information people shared with us, while trying not to let it be all-encompassing and the sole topic of conversation between us as a couple and between us and our friends.
An additional part of the puzzle is trying to have Ultan blend into our family as seamlessly as possible, so that no one member of the family suffers or is in anyway forgotten while he goes through his journey. Eimhear is still healing physically following the birth and we all have her sanity in mind as a mother to three boys! Seán is on his own journey in his first year at school and is a big brother again. While Kai is looking to transition this year from kindergarten to school and has to negotiate school interviews, as well as deal with the fact that he is no longer the baby of the family; he too is a big brother, but also still a little bother, meaning, of course he is a middle child. As a middle child myself, I can identify with his special place in the family tree!
Life goes on too, with school, homework, activities and fun, friendships and family time to be fitted in to all of our lives.
I think us also having dealt with so many miscarriages has given us some perspective on matters. Us having already had the knowledge of what Ultan will need to go through for a quite significant time has probably allowed us to gradually come to terms with it. So perhaps getting this diagnosis at 20 weeks is so much better, even in Hong Kong where pre-natal care and attention for clefts is nothing like what some other countries can provide, than the shock one would get if this only presented itself at birth. I imagine that would be quite difficult, as everything would be so raw, with a newborn, as well as somewhat rushed as you try and get as much information as possible before he heads for his first surgery. So perhaps so much of the stress for us has already passed. But those levels are bound to be elevated again as he heads to his surgery next week.
We certainly hope that this blog will help anyone who goes through a similar journey. There is so much you cannot actually control and my philosophy is that there is absolutely no point stressing over anything you cannot control.
And, please take courage from our journey - things are working out for us. Ultan is getting bigger and stronger daily. His doctors are happy with him, as of course, are we. Extremely so. His brothers have been great.
There is so much of what happens after birth which is just a phase (we keep telling ourselves that: “just a phase, just a phase…” like some tantric mantra, at the end of which we will awake from a long night’s sleep, fully refreshed and no longer knackered!) and it will, in time, pass. That is the same for every baby. The next phase will be post-cleft lip surgery. It is almost upon us and I know we will all rally together as a family and we will move on from that too.
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