Baby Joshua's Journey
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On October 5th, 2016, my husband Alex and I were blessed with baby Joshua ('Bear'). Joshua was born with several complications one of which is a bilateral cleft lip and palette. Due to his palette being separated in 2 places, Joshua will have several surgeries to repair his mouth, teeth and gum structures. He will also most likely require speech therapy. His first week of birth, Joshua was hand fed with the Modela Specialty Feeder bottle. It required us squeezing his milk into his mouth with each swallow. Doing this every 2-3 hours was exhausting for both us and him.
Later, we had the privelege of meeting Dr. Kim at Eastman Dentistry (graduate of NYU), who designed a special mouth piece for Joshua to prep him for surgery. Using the 'tape method', Joshua's nose, lip and gums have been slowly moving into correct place without any pain. Dr. Kim treats thousands of cleft kids and babies.
Despite not being able to make the normal sounds like most newborns, Joshua makes his own unique noises and sounds. And even though his mouth appears to have serious issues, he now eats very well with the Dr. Brown Specialty Bottles. Above allllllllllllllll else, he has a smile and laugh that is out of this world.
He is such a happy baby always and only cries when he wakes up hungry. His nickname is 'Bear' because when he is hungry he 'growls' as he tries to bite onto his bottle.
As a mother who cannot breast feed, I have resorted to breast pumping every 3-4 hours a day in order to give our baby the antibodies needed to help his immune system. This will allow his body to heal quickly as he undergoes multiple surgeries. He is being exclusively fed breast milk and has had serious reactions to several different supplemental formulas. Feeding him via pumping is exhausting but worth it.
We have govt insurance to cover Joshua's first surgery. We also had purchased private insurance, but that insurance will not cover major surgeries until we have paid into the policy for a few years thus the reason for this fund.
Any and all contributions and/or prayers are greatly, greatly appreciated. We have a long, tough road ahead of us...but we are going to make it one day at a time.
Thank you for your love and support. Please feel free to share our page.
On October 5th, 2016, my husband Alex and I were blessed with baby Joshua ('Bear'). Joshua was born with several complications one of which is a bilateral cleft lip and palette. Due to his palette being separated in 2 places, Joshua will have several surgeries to repair his mouth, teeth and gum structures. He will also most likely require speech therapy. His first week of birth, Joshua was hand fed with the Modela Specialty Feeder bottle. It required us squeezing his milk into his mouth with each swallow. Doing this every 2-3 hours was exhausting for both us and him.
Later, we had the privelege of meeting Dr. Kim at Eastman Dentistry (graduate of NYU), who designed a special mouth piece for Joshua to prep him for surgery. Using the 'tape method', Joshua's nose, lip and gums have been slowly moving into correct place without any pain. Dr. Kim treats thousands of cleft kids and babies.
Despite not being able to make the normal sounds like most newborns, Joshua makes his own unique noises and sounds. And even though his mouth appears to have serious issues, he now eats very well with the Dr. Brown Specialty Bottles. Above allllllllllllllll else, he has a smile and laugh that is out of this world.
He is such a happy baby always and only cries when he wakes up hungry. His nickname is 'Bear' because when he is hungry he 'growls' as he tries to bite onto his bottle.
As a mother who cannot breast feed, I have resorted to breast pumping every 3-4 hours a day in order to give our baby the antibodies needed to help his immune system. This will allow his body to heal quickly as he undergoes multiple surgeries. He is being exclusively fed breast milk and has had serious reactions to several different supplemental formulas. Feeding him via pumping is exhausting but worth it.
We have govt insurance to cover Joshua's first surgery. We also had purchased private insurance, but that insurance will not cover major surgeries until we have paid into the policy for a few years thus the reason for this fund.
Any and all contributions and/or prayers are greatly, greatly appreciated. We have a long, tough road ahead of us...but we are going to make it one day at a time.
Thank you for your love and support. Please feel free to share our page.
Organizer
Krissi Faith
Organizer
Sanford, FL
