May 9 was a Sun­day and Mot­hers’ Day this ye­ar. Nine ye­ars ago it was a Tu­es­day. On that day we had a baby boy with lo­ve­ly ey­es and long ey­e­las­hes. Throug­hout the preg­nan­cy I had gone for re­gu­lar ap­point­ments at the an­te­na­tal cli­nic, as all ex­pec­ting mot­hers do in Fin­land.

I felt a bit ner­vous about the se­cond tri­mes­ter so­nog­rap­hy. I was ho­ping to find out if we were ha­ving a boy or a girl and if the baby was he­alt­hy. I thought about the he­alth prob­lems in our ex­ten­ded fa­mi­lies, awa­re that so­met­hing might go wrong with the baby. But eve­ryt­hing see­med to be al­right. I saw we were ex­pec­ting a baby boy. The lit­t­le one was mo­ving ac­ti­ve­ly but in such a way that he ne­ver sho­wed his face to us. It see­med amu­sing, but the doc­tor sug­ges­ted anot­her ap­point­ment for fa­ci­al so­nog­rap­hy wit­hin a coup­le of weeks. I felt frust­ra­ted. What could be wrong with his face, I won­de­red. The cont­rol vi­sit did not take long. The doc­tor did fa­ci­al so­nog­rap­hy and said eve­ryt­hing was fine.

On that Tu­es­day nine ye­ars ago I had a quick de­li­ve­ry. The baby had to be ta­ken in­to an in­cu­ba­tor soon af­ter birth, but they let me hold him for a short while, so that I saw his face. The baby was sweet, but his lip was a bit stran­ge. “What’s wrong with his lip?” I stam­me­red. “It seems he has a cleft lip,” the mid­wi­fe said and took him away.

I shi­ve­red with cold un­der my he­a­ting blan­ket, my mind in tur­moil with wor­ry. I was lo­ne­so­me for my baby. I on­ly wis­hed to be ab­le to hold him. I was up­set about the mid­wi­fe’s de­ci­si­on to take him away, though I un­ders­tood it was all for his be­ne­fit.

I was qui­te con­fu­sed. I was won­de­ring what a cleft lip me­ant. I had ne­ver even he­ard about it. Why did the doc­tor not see it in that fa­ci­al so­nog­rap­hy? Over the next few days, I got some more in­for­ma­ti­on and gra­du­al­ly be­gan to un­ders­tand what was wrong. Our baby was born in Raa­he, but the very next day I got a phone call from a spe­ci­a­list nur­se in Ou­lu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal. I felt safe in the care of the me­di­cal pro­fes­si­o­nals. The obs­tet­ric de­part­ment in Raa­he was due to be clo­sed a month af­ter my de­li­ve­ry, and one of the nur­ses gave me the spe­ci­al­ly de­sig­ned fee­ding bot­t­les me­ant for ba­bies with a cleft lip or pa­la­te. “You take these,” she said. “No-one will need them here any­mo­re.”

At home my hus­band calm­ly said that we will ac­cept wha­te­ver we are gi­ven by God. To us, our lit­t­le boy was be­au­ti­ful. God had cre­a­ted him in His own ima­ge, and he was per­fect.

I re­mem­ber a mo­ment when we were fil­ling our baby’s data on some of­fi­ci­al form. His cleft lip was en­te­red as ”mal­for­ma­ti­on”. That word made me shud­der. It see­med ter­rib­le to think that my lo­ve­ly baby was so­me­how mal­for­med. The nur­se al­so as­ked me if I found it dif­fi­cult to care for him. The qu­es­ti­on see­med stran­ge, and I even felt a bit of­fen­ded. I told her my ma­ter­nal love and ca­ring ins­tinct were all the stron­ger now that I knew my baby nee­ded spe­ci­al help and care.

As re­com­men­ded by the plas­tic and ma­xil­lo­fa­ci­al sur­ge­ons of the uni­ver­si­ty hos­pi­tal, our baby had two ope­ra­ti­ons du­ring the first ye­ar. The plas­tic sur­ge­on was a Ca­na­di­an who un­ders­tood Fin­nish, but spoke most­ly Eng­lish. He loo­ked at our baby’s ey­es and said, ”be­au­ti­ful sil­mät”. I re­mem­ber very cle­ar­ly that small com­ment he made while exp­lai­ning the tre­at­ment plan. Two small words that were ext­re­me­ly sig­ni­fi­cant to me.

Du­ring the weeks we spent in hos­pi­tal my fee­lings fluc­tu­a­ted bet­ween fear and re­lief, an­xie­ty and calm­ness. I knew what would be done to our baby and why. I was exp­lai­ned eve­ryt­hing in de­tail and shown a draft of the sur­gi­cal pro­ce­du­re. Alt­hough I trus­ted in those pro­fes­si­o­nals, I felt my he­art squ­ee­zed by an­xie­ty when the doors of the ope­ra­ting room clo­sed. At the time of the first ope­ra­ti­on our baby was on­ly three months old.

For all that dif­fi­cult time we were sur­roun­ded by a so­lid sa­fe­ty net­work. Fa­mi­ly mem­bers and friends hel­ped us in many ways, and we ex­pe­rien­ced care and love that car­ried us through the har­dest part of the pro­cess. While I was still on the obs­tet­ric ward, I got a phone call from a per­son I had on­ly met on­ce. I mar­ve­led at the warm and gent­le words of that ne­ar­ly unk­nown per­son who cal­led me when I was fa­cing a new life si­tu­a­ti­on. Her kind­ness and en­cou­ra­ge­ment were very im­por­tant to me. She re­min­ded me that cleft lip was so­met­hing that could be tre­a­ted. ”You will ma­na­ge,” she said. She has sin­ce be­co­me a dear friend over the ye­ars.

Now we ce­leb­ra­ted our son’s ninth birth­day. Un­til now, eve­ryt­hing has gone well. He will have anot­her ope­ra­ti­on in a few ye­ars’ time, but I try not to wor­ry about it too much yet.

I wor­ry about many dif­fe­rent things, but in the case of this baby boy we ex­pe­rien­ced so­met­hing we had not even known exis­ted. We can­not know what our He­a­ven­ly Fat­her has in store for us. But I have full con­fi­den­ce in the com­pe­ten­ce of Fin­nish he­alth care staff. We are in good hands in that way, too.

Text: Suvi Myl­ly­mä­ki

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen