Joy after baby son beamed following cleft palate surgery
A Rutherglen couple have spoken of their joy of seeing their four-month old baby’s heart-melting“forever smile” after he underwent gruelling surgery to correct a bilateral cleft palate.
While she was carrying their second son, doctors told Courtney Gorman and her partner Connor Torley that a 12-week scan had revealed that their baby had a slight hairline gap or split on his lip.
But nothing prepared the couple for the shock of seeing the extent of the newborn’s facial defect.
“While I was expecting Leo, doctors told me there was no need to worry, but I got myself so worked up all the way through my pregnancy. I didn’t enjoy my pregnancy at all,” admits Courtney, 21.
“I didn’t know what he was going to look like. I was terrified people would pick on him and call him ugly. The idea of taking him outside gave me the fear.”
When Leo was delivered into the safe hands of the midwife at the Princess Royal Hospital on September 29 last year, Courtney instantly saw the look of alarm on her face.
“When he was handed to me, I got a big, big shock. They’d said it was going to be a wee hairline. I passed him straight to Connor,” said Courtney.
Midwives gave them formula milk in a 15ml cup – but baby Leo refused to take it.
Attempts to feed him with a bottle and a syringe also failed.
A specialist team was dispatched from the Royal Hospital for Children and a hungry Leo, 17 hours after his birth, finally accepted a feed from a Dr Brown’s bottle, whose internal vent system aids feeding problems.
Doctors told Courtney on the day she and Leo were discharged from hospital that the little one would need surgery – a prospect the young mum admits terrified her.
Leo weighed a healthy 8lbs 2oz at birth. But when he and mum Courtney went home, feeding continued to prove tricky and he began to lose weight.
“He was terrible, crying all the time. I think it was because he could not get a good sook from the bottle,” explained Courtney.
“Because he was trying hard to get it, it was exhausting for him so he’d eventually just give up and wouldn’t feed any more.
“It could take up to an hour and a half to get 3oz into him. I had days when I thought, ‘I can’t do this any more.’ It was so hard. I was really emotional, tearful.”
Members of the cleft lip team visited the family at their Springhall home weekly to lend their support.
As well as taking Leo to hospital for monthly check-ups, the couple also had to take him to the dental hospital where one of the two teeth he was born with was extracted.
When Courtney took Leo out in his pram, he would instinctively press his favourite comfort teddy against his mouth to protect the opening in his face from the cold air.
The young mum said: “People would peer into the pram and say: ‘Aw, he is beautiful’. But when they reached in to take the teddy away to see his wee face, they’d gasp and scurry away. I didn’t know how to take that.”
On January 6, little Leo was admitted to the Royal Hospital for Children for the start of the journey to correct his bilateral cleft palate.
At the age of only three months, he was in theatre for three-and-a-half hours and in recovery for 30 minutes. The couple then received a call, asking them to take a bottle to Leo’s bedside.
Courtney said: “We went down and his curtain was open. I took one look at him and said: ‘This is not my baby. That is not him,’ and I took a step back.
“Then, I went back in and I looked at his eyes and knew then that he was mine. He was like a completely different baby. It came as a big shock.
“Before he went for surgery, I expected his face to be a mess, with stitches everywhere. That’s how I’d pictured him in my head. When I saw him, I just couldn’t believe it. It was amazing!” It was then that the young parents and their three-year-old son
Aaron caught a glimpse of what they described as “Leo’s forever smile.”
The day following the surgery, however, there was a set-back.
“The swelling just doubled in size,” said Courtney, a care worker at Dunvegan Care Home in Cambuslang.
“I could see there was a big dent in his chest as he was breathing in.
“I was telling the nurses he was struggling. They said that is what happens because he’d never known tiny wee nostrils like that before.
“I was sitting on the side of the bed, counting how many breaths he was doing. My head was just not there at all.
It was just so horrible to watch.” When he was examined at 1am, a doctor insisted he be put on oxygen.
The oxygen was removed after 24 hours, and baby Leo was able to breathe unaided with ease.
Leo was discharged from hospital on January 11 and is now thriving at home as he becomes more comfortable with sucking.
Hundreds of people posted their delight on a Facebook page the couple set up to let family, friends and well wishers follow Leo’s progress.
The photographs the proud couple posted of their blue-eyed baby boy show his smiling face both before and after the surgery, and illustrate how “the doctors with magic hands,” as his great gran Karen Torley called them, have given him his forever smile. This is only the first leg of his journey. Although the operation to correct Leo’s lip was successful, he still has no roof over his mouth and faces further surgery three months from now.
Now that Leo’s features are no longer unusual, big brother Aaron – who previously showered Leo with attention and smothered him in kisses and cuddles – now just treats him as his plain and simple baby brother.
Courtney plans to return to work next week while Aaron attends Cairns Nursery in Halfway as the family try to establish a normal routine.
It has been a journey for her and 20-year-old Connor, too, and has taught the couple many lessons along the way.
To other parents-to-be who may be preparing to welcome a baby with a cleft lip or bilateral cleft palate into the world, Courtney has this advice: “Don’t be scared, and don’t care about anybody else’s opinion.
“I was so worked up throughout my pregnancy and had so many fears that all disappeared. Now, Connor and I couldn’t be more proud of our beautiful son.”