Rebecca, Darren and Mason’s story
Throughout their son’s cleft journey so far, Rebecca and Darren have received support from CLAPA, as well as healthcare professionals and their family and friends. They wanted to give back and recently set up a Facebook Fundraiser to support our work, raising a phenomenal £1035! Here’s their story.
We received Mason’s cleft lip diagnosis at our 20-week scan and, as you can imagine, as first time parents this wasn’t what we wanted to hear. Our world felt like it had crumbled, and a mixture of feelings and thoughts overcame us. We just wanted our growing bundle of joy to be “perfect” and questioned ourselves “why us? What did we do wrong to cause our baby boy to have this condition?”
We had a lot to take in and the next 16 weeks went by in a blur with visits from the cleft team and spending hours on end trawling through the internet, reading information about clefts and what we would be up against. Many tears were shed and we felt guilty, alone and worried about what the future would hold for our boy, what would people think, comments that would be made all because our baby would look “different” and “not fit in”. We didn’t tell many people about our road ahead except our immediate family and close friends and it took us a long time to adjust. We didn’t know the extent of Mason’s cleft lip because every scan we attended he would hide his little face but we were lucky to get a sneak peek when we attended a 4D scan. This is where we were told that his cleft lip was a unilateral cleft lip.
Many tears were shed and we felt guilty, alone and worried about what the future would hold for our boy, what would people think, comments that would be made all because our baby would look “different” and “not fit in”.
Mason made his appearance in July 2020 and the minute he was placed into our arms we could not be have been more proud. To us, he was our bundle of pure perfection and our handsome baby boy. It took us a couple of weeks to announce his arrival to the world as we were we were worried what people would comment or say. We were truly overwhelmed with the comments we got from people, the support and help we received along the way from professionals, support groups, and our own family and friends was amazing. All of our worries and thoughts slowly disappeared, we knew that he would be perfect in every way. Mason has been a trooper from day one and continues to make us proud every single day.
All of our worries and thoughts slowly disappeared, we knew that he would be perfect in every way. Mason has been a trooper from day one and continues to make us proud every single day.
We wanted to give something back in return for the support we received, so we set up a fundraising page on Facebook which told our story. This was then shared by ourselves, friends and family. We originally set a goal for £500 but this quickly increased and we were taken aback by the generosity of people who made a donation. Before we knew it, we had raised £1035 and we still have plenty of time for people to donate if they would like to! We have loved every second of this experience and it really has made a difference from the comments we have received to the donations that have been made even by total strangers!
Before we knew it, we had raised £1035 and we still have plenty of time for people to donate if they would like to! We have loved every second of this experience and it really has made a difference from the comments we have received to the donations that have been made even by total strangers!
To other fundraisers, literally no matter what you decide to do to raise money, do it! Every penny helps towards such a fantastic charity! We honestly didn’t think we would raise that much money just by setting up a fundraising page on Facebook, but little did we know this reached out to lots of people.
Mason is due to have his cleft lip repaired soon and we for sure will miss his big smiles. Every smile has a story and he is 1 in 700 but most certainly Mummy and Daddy’s favourite!
Thank you for supporting CLAPA, Rebecca, Darren and Mason!
To find out how you can make a difference to our work with a Facebook Fundraiser, click here.
