Hi. My name is Ernesto. My wife Barbara and I are
expecting a baby girl (Marissa) who has been diagnosed as
cleft lip/cleft palate. Needless to say we were
devastated by the news. This was two months ago. Since then,
I have spent lots of time on the net looking for
info, and BArb has talked to many people and doctors.
Unfortunately, most of what we found was negative until I logged
on to a wonderful web site for a group that deals
with craneofacial deformities. The group is called
Operation Smile, and their web address is
www.cleft.org<br>Look them up and get positive info on clefts. Look up
a doctor by the name of William Magee. He has been
doing cleft repairs for over 14 years now and has
performed over 40,000 repairs. Over 10,000 of these have
been in the babies' first days of life. The results
are amazing!! But don't take my word for it. Please
log onto their website and read up on it. All I can
tell you is that Barb and I went to see Dr. Magee in
Norfolk last month, and we came away thoroughly impresed
with him and with his work. We got to see two babies
who had just had surgery, and they look great!! We
got to see some of his patients who were in his
office for the 1 year follow-up, and WOW!!!<br>We are
obviously still troubled about what we will face with our
little baby girl, but we are really conforted with what
we found out about early cleft repairs. Please feel
free to contact me for whatever info I can provide you
on this topic. You can reach me at my e-mail:
Lucius2313@AOL .com Do not attempt to reach me at my
ernpor@... address, please, as I only use it for business
purposes.