When a mother gives birth to her baby, everything changes for her at that moment.
The love, responsibility she feels towards her baby can’t feel it towards anyone else. During her pregnancy, she prays that her baby will be born healthy and that everything works as it should.
Sara Heller was more than thrilled when she welcomed her baby – a sweet little boy named Brody – She was thankful and happy that her baby was okay, but she was worried at the same time.
When she was 24 weeks pregnant, Sara and her partner Chris Eidam received some disturbing news about Brody.
Warning: strong images ahead.
The ultrasound revealed baby Brody had an especially severe lip and cleft palate. In some children it’s a small hole in the lip, but in Brody’s case the gap went all the way from the lip to the nose.That made Brody’s parents very anxious when the doctors showed them the scan pictures, but they decided to not give up and do something completely different about their son’s diagnosis.
Brody’s condition is very rare as there were only 9 cases like his in the entire world.
“They asked us if we wanted to keep the pregnancy,” dad Chris Eidam tells Omaha News.
Of course, Sara and Chris didn’t give up on their baby son so they decided to have him.
Sara loves her baby the way he is and is determined to change the way people look at children with lip and cleft palates.
“It is OK to be proud of your baby no matter the circumstances. We wanted to change what ultrasound/newborn/first year pictures on our Facebook/Instagram accounts looked like. We wanted to spread awareness of cleft lips and palates,” the mom tells Today.com.
Generally, it’s during the second and third month that we can distinct the fetus’s face and other facial parts grow together
Research show that approximately 2,650 babies per year are born with some kind of lip-, jaw- or cleft palates in the US. Experts are still working to discover the reason behind this condition, but it is known that family genetics play a role in about one-fifth of the children affected.
Children born with cleft palates often undergo multiple surgeries and treatments to learn to eat and talk.
Sara and Chris, who couldn’t afford an operation, were determined to change people’s perceptions of lip and cleft palates.
Sara has received many insensitive comments on Instagram after uploading pictures of her son.
One person wrote:
”What’s wrong with his face?”
Sara says that she wasn’t just shocked about the comment, but she also wasn’t prepared to have to defend her son’s appearance while he was just a newborn baby.
Sara explainsr:
“I decided to educate rather than create a confrontation because that is what I want Brody to do in the future, I will want him to educate, to be an advocate for younger cleft kids who don’t have their own voice yet,” Sara tells Today.com.
One evening not so long ago, Sara was out for dinner with Brody and some of her friends.
When everyone had eaten, Sara’s server snuck something onto the table that looked like a napkin. However, Sara soon discovered that it was a folded up check. The mom could hardly take in what she saw. There was a check for USD $1,000 along with a note; ‘For your beautiful baby.’
“Tears fell from my eyes immediately and the happiness my heart felt is indescribable,” Sara says.
The generous and surprising gift helped Sara and Chris pay for some of Brody’s healthcare costs.
Brody’s latest operation helped repair his lip.
Brody is healing well and has more operations ahead of him when he is between 9 and 12 months old.
Thanks to skilled doctors and surgeons, Brody will be able to eat and talk in the future. Meanwhile, until the next surgery, both parents are very grateful for the kind gesture they received.
A surprising gesture from a stranger made a big difference to this family, who needs all the support they can get!
And your heart just melts seeing this wonderful and happy baby! I’m sure the future looks bright for this little boy. With such loving and wise parents, Brody will go a long way!
Sometimes the world is a very nice place and a stranger’s act of kindness can make a very big difference!
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