Microtia - Latin meaning; small or underdeveloped ear

This forum is aimed at a friendly, educative, peer supportive enviroment for anyone affected by Microtia in any way. Be it Parents, Grandparents, Friends, Siblings or yourself.
I remember when my son was born, I felt so lost and uninformed thinking that, because I hadn't seen or heard of it before, my son was the only one!!
Of course this is not true. The stats in Australia for this is 1 in 20,000. From birth I tried to hide it, I had lots of questions and kept going over and over my pregnancy to find a reason why. (There is still no sure reason as to why.) When he was 5 months old, I stumbled across the name and felt so much better knowing it. But I still yearned to meet others. When I finally did get to talk to someone else, I felt less alone and a lot more educated.

Instead of trying to find a reason, I decided to make the most of it and concentrate on helping my son and others overcome the hurdles that we have and will face, and enjoy their lives fully, just like everybody else. This is the reason for this forum. I don't want others to go through the pain and guilt on their own like I did. I want to help support and educate others and I want to make sure no one ever again has to go through this alone.
Exchange ideas, personal experiences, thoughts, friendly support and make new friends. Peer support is a wonderful help to all and together we can all make a huge difference.

This is a friendly group which I had started on another site (but unfortunately closed). It has been running since 2001 when my son was born with Grade III Unilateral Microtia Atresia.'
We have all ages of people who are born with this condition and at the time of the site closing had 200 members.

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have and I look forward to seeing you around the group.

Regards,
Bec & Lachie 8yrs (Unilateral(left) Grade III Microtia Atresia, 2nd stage completed)