Even teams

Two girls! Two boys!

Two clefts!

Found this and making it my heart cry 

Oh, the anatomy sonogram. I never used to think of it as anything but a gender reveal, but Ben taught me different. I was pretty nervous. I was mostly nervous because of the anything these people can tell you and I know some people who have personally been told some very troubling things in an anatomy sonogram. Things that don't let you keep your baby on the outside. Clefts can't hold a candle to that.

Boy was pretty obvious right away - I've had some experience in looking at these things. Not to mention I don't think I'm fat enough to be having a girl, ha. She counted out two kidneys and Matt and I gave a little cheer. Then she spent a long time looking at the face. At the end she left to get the Dr in case "they would want some more pictures of the face." While they walked out I told Matt "they don't usually do this - leave you all jelled up waiting for the Dr." When they came back the Dr took a look and then the sonographer and Dr kind of looked at each other with a "who is going to tell them?" kind of look - and then they said "So it looks like this baby has a cleft too..."

Baby love hung up by my bed

I can not began to explain to you how apologetic they were. As if it were their fault. And after the Ben saga I probably won't be able to convince you just how much it didn't phase me. "But that's it? Brain/Heart/everything else look good?" They said everything else looked great - even two kidneys this time - just an isolated cleft. I think I fall back onto the sonogram table in relief at this point. I'm not joking - those people can tell you -anything- and I'll take my cleft baby gladly.

I think Matt was in total shock. I was surprised, for sure - because in all my worrying I never worried that baby might have another cleft. Is that dumb? Something that "fixable" just never crossed my mind. But now that it's happening - it is happening. Matt and I spent the day at home and just kept remembering different horribly hard parts of the first year and laughing. I just found myself shaking my head and saying, "Oh gosh - Oh gosh" over and over throughout the day. Oh the tape. Oh the NAM. Oh the PUMP. Me and that pump! Good lord. Should have bought it and not rented. I could have saved my future self $1,000.  Zoe asked, "Do all boys have that?" Ha, no honey. But ours do!

I've already been to the my good old friend the specialist Dr (who was sorry to see me back he said) where they do the crazy hour long sonogram and still just a cleft. This baby however, has a bilateral lip cleft as well. Ben's was bilateral palate and unilateral lip. In Matt's words, #4 "out clefted" Ben. In the 3D image they got it was pretty clear that both sides of the lip were involved. No one needs to tell me how to read the image of a cleft on a 3D sonogram.

But this time in the waiting I have my first baby boy to watch and to marvel at how something that seems so huge in the first year melts away over time to reveal a little son man who I wouldn't trade for anything:

Chubbs covered in cheese dust from eating a whole bag of goldfish while I  Christmas shopped

And in a really, really sweet way - these cleft brothers have each other and share their stories so they'll never have to feel alone or different. I guess they just feel the need to make up for all the drama coming at us from those two big sisters. Man. Daily EMOTIONS are happening in our house - probably not going to stop any time soon!