I spent weeks preparing for Christmas. There was putting up the tree, setting the Christmas candles out, hanging the stockings, making the gingerbread house, baking the cookies, making our Christmas card, continually washing the tree skirt because the freaking cats kept peeing on it (bleeping cats), shopping and more. It seems like I spent a full month preparing for the holiday.

All that preparation for just a couple hours of family time while we eat dinner and open presents. By Christmas Eve I’m usually so exhausted it takes everything I’ve got not to fall asleep in the car while we are driving around looking at lights. By Christmas morning, when the kids are waking me up at the buttcrack of dawn, I have to force myself to get out of bed and put on a smile while I watch the kids open all the presents Santa brought them.

But it’s still all worth it. It’s still worth it to have the whole family together on Christmas Eve, eating soup, laughing and getting caught up. It’s worth it to see the kids excitement when we run in to Santa Claus on our trip to look at lights. [There's this house near my Grandma's house that has every inch of the yard decorated and Santa Claus stands in the driveway handing out candy canes.] It’s worth it to see the kids jumping up and down when they see that Santa came and brought them tons of presents. It’s worth it to see how thrilled they are when they open a gift to find exactly what they’ve been begging for for the last two months. It’s worth it to watch them dump out their stockings and squeal in delight.

Normally we’d take the decorations down around the first of the year. But this year we wanted to keep it all up until Justis got home and was able to open his presents.

He got home late Wednesday and opened his presents after school on Thursday. And then I got lazy and waited until today to finally take down the tree and put everything away.

What took a month of preparation was shoved in a big tub for next year in just twenty minutes. Our Christmas ended with just twenty minutes of cleanup. It’s kind of sad that all the fun of the holiday season, all of the baking, all of the family time, all of the time off work, all of the presents, ends in just a matter of minutes.

But it’s time to get back to old routines. I’m back to work. The kids are back to school. Sunday school has started again. Skyler’s dance and gymnastics classes are back on. Lee starts his classes this week. There are dentist appointments to be made (and hopefully I’ll remember to tell Lee about them). Doctor appointments to get to. It’s time to step out of the fairy tale the Christmas holiday brought us and step back in to reality. Even if reality isn’t quite as fun.

When I was a little girl I remember going through the drive-thru at a Roy Rogers. My mom ordered one of the chicken strip meals with all dark meat like she had many times before. But this time they wouldn’t let her get all dark meat. This time it was only white meat or something. [The details are a little sketchy since I was like 12 years old at the time.] My mom was pretty upset by that. She began yelling at the poor girl on the other end of the speaker, telling her she’s always gotten it that way before. I don’t remember if Mom changed her order or what, but I know we ended up at the drive-thru window where my mom then continued to berate the young drive-up girl. I was so embarrassed I wanted to hide under my seat.

Since then, over the last twenty-some years, I’ve seen my mom bring several more waiters and waitresses to tears. She’s a very good tipper when the service is good. But when the service is bad, there is hell to pay. When she’s mad you know about it. In fact people ten tables over know about it. It’s just something I’ve learned to live with. Now that I’m no longer a teenager worrying about what every single person on this Earth thinks of me, I’m not as easily embarrassed by it.

Fast forward to tonight.

We have season tickets to our local community theatre. And tonight there was a show. It was me, my mom, my grandma, Keaton and Justis. We got there early [like usual] and nestled in to our row E seats to peruse the program.

Then an usher came down the aisle with two people trailing. She looked at me. She checked the tickets again. Then she looked at me again. Finally she asked me what seat my ticket had. I said, “We have E-2, E-4, E-6, E-8, and E-10.” She looked confused and then walked away.

A few minutes later a different usher came down the other aisle with a different couple and he also looked confused. He asked my mom if he could see our tickets. She handed them to him. He looked them over. We did indeed have those seats. But then he looked closer. We were at the 7:30 performance, but our tickets were for the 10:30 performance. My mom was livid and she let the usher know.

I remember when we ordered the tickets. Back in June. We talked about the two performances. My mom and I said if it was just the two of us we would probably go to the 10:30 performance, but with Grandma and the kids we thought the 7:30 performance would be best. So we were pretty confident she did not order tickets for the 10:30 performance.

A couple minutes later a woman came over to talk to my mom. My mom forcefully told her she did not order 10:30 tickets. The woman said she would go look at the order, but we have tickets for the 10:30 show and we would have to give up our seats to the people who had 7:30 tickets.

Grandma and I got up and followed the lady to check the order. Turns out my mom did not circle 10:30. But she also didn’t circle 7:30. She had left it blank. So the blame lied equally on my mom for not picking a time and the theater for just assuming 10:30 rather than calling to confirm.

The show was sold out so our only option was to come back at 10:30. My grandma told the woman she wanted the Director [who Grandma knows] to call her first thing Monday because we would not be at the 10:30 show and she wanted a full refund. The woman said she was sure there wouldn’t be a problem with that.

Then the woman checked one more time and was able to find five seats; three together and two singles that were one right in front of the other. She was able to get these seats because the people who work there graciously gave up their seats [including this woman] to accommodate us. The seats weren’t as good as our ticketed seats, but at least we would be able to see the show.

So we walked back to give mom the news. My mom was furious. She was screaming at this woman. “I drove all the way from Chicago for this. I’ve had season tickets for four years. I’ve given a lot of money to this theater.” And on and on.

Like I said, I’ve just gotten used to these displays so I just walked off to find our new seats. The three seats together were in the back row [it's a small theater though so you can still see well from there]. I turned to Keaton and asked him if he’d like to sit there. I could see he was on the verge of tears as he said, “I just want to go home.”

And that’s when it hit me. I felt like I was teenage girl again. I immediately remembered what it felt like to be in the middle of one of my mom’s temper tantrums. It was torture. And there was Keaton feeling exactly what I felt twenty years ago at Roy Rogers. And I wasn’t doing anything to protect him. My heart was breaking for him. I wanted to leave too. But in the end we decided to stay and watch the show.

However, I think the spectacle that happened prior to the show put a big damper on it for Keaton.

I can easily lose my temper when I feel I’m being wronged. I guess it’s a trait I inherited from my mother. But, especially after tonight, I’ve realized it’s something I definitely have to learn to control.

Yes the theater was wrong. But we were partially to blame as well. And nothing was gained by abusing this woman at the theater. In fact I think my grandma’s calm demeanor was what helped get us the five seats we did get. And I have a feeling the woman wanted to rescind that offer as soon as we made it back to my mom.

Honestly it’s easier to lose your temper and cuss somebody out when you’re mad. But that doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

I ran across an article today that was quite disturbing to me. Apparently a woman in China blogged about having an abortion because her unborn child had a cleft lip. She says she discussed it with her spouse, her parents and her siblings and they all agreed an abortion was the right thing to do.

I can’t believe this. I’m flabbergasted. In fact I’m fighting back tears.

I don’t know if this was a planned pregnancy or not, but it appears she actually wanted this baby; at lest until she found out the baby had a cleft lip. She was six months along when she aborted her baby boy. More than half way to a birth. After an ultrasound she wrote:

It was the first time I had ever seen the lovely creature who has accompanied me for six months as I lay on a hospital bed for a check up. He is so cute. Sometimes he stretches, sometimes he gapes, and sometimes he sucks his little fingers. However it makes me shiver to see a cleft, ranging from 3 to 7 millimeters in his upper lip.

Let me paraphrase that for you. Basically she said “I have this beautiful little boy inside me, but he’s not like everybody else and that makes me shiver.”

More than four years ago, I met my baby, Caleb, for the very first time. My whole pregnancy I was convinced Caleb was a Chloe. But as the doctor pulled Caleb out he said, “It’s a girl. Oops, nope it’s a boy.” [That was a little doctor humor because I had told the doctor I thought I was having a girl even though we never had an ultrasound to find out.]

But Caleb’s gender wasn’t the only surprise we got. Caleb was born with a cleft lip. As far as cleft lips go, Caleb’s was very, very minor. He had a 3/4 inch unilateral cleft. This means it only went 3/4 of the way to his nose and was only on one side of his face.

That’s Caleb when he was eleven days old. Look at how handsome he is. Do you give a shit that his lip isn’t fused together in one spot? ‘Cause I don’t even notice it anymore when I look back at these old photos.

In the scope of all things that can go wrong in a pregnancy, a cleft lip is nothing. Yes, there are hardships. It’s more difficult to feed a baby with a cleft lip. Breast feeding is difficult if not impossible for some kids. Cleft kids are more suseptible to ear infections. Cleft kids may have dental problems and trouble chewing [although this is more in kids with cleft palates, not cleft lips]. But none of these are life threatening. None of these things stop a child from leading a very normal life.

I am pro-choice. I would prefer that a woman not have an abortion. I would preach about keeping your child. But it’s not my body and it’s not my decision. I believe every woman needs to make that decision for herself.

That being said, having an abortion in your sixth month because the baby has a cleft lip is ludacris. That is the most ridiculous reason I have ever heard. I can understand chosing an abortion if your child has a debilitating disease and will lead a painful life, but because of a cleft lip. You’ve got to be kidding me.

Here is Caleb on October 6, 2002. He is almost five months old in this picture. This is just a little over a month after his first surgery. Look at how good he looks. You can barely tell he ever had a cleft lip.

Caleb has had two surgeries. He probably won’t have another unless we need to do another retouch as his head grows. Those surgeries were very difficult; emotionally I mean. Caleb was in a lot of pain after his first surgery. His face was swollen. His throat was scratchy. He was restrained with arm bands for quite some time. And he had to wear a bar across his face so he didn’t bump his incision. It was heartbreaking to watch my baby in pain and uncomfortable. But Caleb bounced back pretty quickly. In fact his second surgery was an outpatient surgery and he was running around the next day.

We did have our share of problems with Caleb’s cleft lip.

We had problems with breastfeeding, even when I used the nipple shield. I had really wanted to breast feed, but it just wasn’t meant to be. But Caleb had no problem learning to eat from the specialized bottles they have for cleft babies.

He has an extra front tooth. Most people have two big front teeth in the top of their mouth. Caleb has three, one of which is turned sideways. If that third big tooth returns after he loses his baby teeth, an orthodondist will remove it.

His teeth are a little off-centered, but you can’t really tell unless you’re looking for it. Caleb has been going to a pediatric dentist since he was very young and the dentist thinks Caleb’s teeth look good otherwise.

You can see a small scar on his lip and he has a little extra flap of skin on the inside part of his lip. But I’ll take all of that over not having him in my life any day.

Was it a shock to have a baby with a cleft lip? You bet it was. I’d even go so far as to say it was devasting. It was devasting because I assumed he would be perfect. And I was thrown off guard by his cleft lip.

But you know what I learned? He is perfect. He just has a cleft lip. And that was just a minor inconvenience. Not something that would make me want to miss out on Caleb’s whole life.

It’s terrifying to think of all I would have missed if I had made the same decision this woman in China made. I would have missed the excitment in the other kids’ faces when they met their baby brother for the first time. I would have missed cradling Caleb in the middle of the night as I rocked him back to sleep. I would have missed his first smile with and without the cleft lip. I would have missed the little wobbley first steps he took on his first birthday. I would have missed his big sloppy kisses. I would have missed the first time he told me he loved me. I would have missed good night hugs and kisses. I would have missed the first day of preschool. I would have missed everything that has been my world for the last five years.

I can’t believe anybody would want to throw all of that away because of a cleft lip.

I got a response back from Denise regarding my comment on her blog. She wrote:

Christine,

Thank you so very much for your comment! I hope you can discern from my blog that I would never intentionally inflict offense on an innocent person (indeed, I try to avoid offense even on guilty persons!).

My use of the word “hair lip” was completely misplaced. It is a word I remember from my youth — and to be honest I didn’t know it was the same as a cleft palate, nor did I know it was derogatory. My deepest apologies.

As to my reference to a cleft palate, I think you’ve helped me to make my point. A cleft palate *IS* so much more than psychological. So is transsexualism. Indeed, as you clearly point out, both can be life-threatening. But, in the majority of cases, in both instances, the patient can arguably survive in society without surgery. But why should we make them? We have the tools to correct this so-called defect (assuming, of course, that nature (or God) makes defects), so we should use our nature (or God) given talents to make the world a more manageable place for people so afflicted.

I wish you and your child the very best and I extend, again, my deepest apologies for any offense I’ve caused.

Denise

P.S. I also posted this response on my blog.

I still don’t really see the coorelation between transsexual surgery and cleft lip and palate. To me it’s a little like comparing cancer and heart disease. You can die from both, but that’s about where the similiarities end. However, I do see her point. There is so much more to both of these “defects” than lies on the surface. And only those who have been affected by either of these will fully understand the reasons behind the choice for surgery or even the effects of the ailments.