Even without any medical background, my husband and I could tell that something was wrong

As told to Musia Slavin by Shoshana Green 

After ten long years of waiting, our baby was finally on the way.

My husband and I peered at the screen, eager to see our child’s form on the ultrasound. The images flickered: A strong heartbeat. Ten tiny toes. Perfect fingers. His head.

The probe slowed, then stopped. The screen showed our baby’s face, but was that… a duck bill?

Even without any medical background, my husband and I could tell that something was wrong.

The doctor went out to the hall, returning with a huddle of colleagues. They gathered around the machine.

“Yes, definitely a cleft lip,” we heard one say.

That’s when my heart dropped. A cleft lip — after all this?

Ten years of infertility treatments and a string of disappointments. Ten years filled with hurtful comments and time that trickles, oh, so slowly. Ten years of constant aching and draining longing for something that felt so distant.

Then, within a day, the ten years were over. We went from anxious to excited, from a barren couple to expectant parents.

How could a child with a disability be the gift we’d waited a decade for?

I looked at the ultrasound again, my eyes running over the outline of my child’s form. Was this the child I prayed for? Was he to be born with lips and palate split in two? Would he be able to eat properly? Speak clearly? Would he spend his life looking different?

We trudged back to our small Yerushalayim apartment, where I collapsed in tears. My father, across the ocean, left his meeting at work when he saw me calling again and again.

“Is everything okay?” His voice was rusty with concern. Later, he told me that he was cold when he dialed, thinking about all the things that could be so horribly wrong.

“Ultrasound… bad… cleft,” I hiccuped between sobs.