[Skyflower]

Hello,
This is my first post so hopefully I'm doing this correctly.

I was born with a cleft palate and I work in the Cleft Palate Center at my local Children's Hospital so even though my bio DD was perfectly healthy I think I can give some insight.

Since you are requesting a child over 18 months, more than likely their lip and/or palate will have been repaired in China but will probably require a few more surgeries. (We see a lot of children from China in my clinic who have to have additional surgeries, however a lot of children need additional surgeries for this condition.)

The surgeries are long (anywhere from 6-12 hours - a long hard day for parents) but you usually don't have to stay in the hospital much longer than a few days.

Almost all cleft children are going to require extensive orthodontist work (not just braces, but expanders and possible bone grafts). A lot of the children will not get all of their adult teeth so you may have to get partials if you don't want to deal with implants.

Speech therapy is common too but to what extent depends on the child. We have some children who only get checked once a year and others who come in twice a week. (Myself I just had to go once a week from 1st grade to 3rd grade and it was done in my elementary school).

Hearing problems are common but not universal as are other Ear Nose and Throat issues.

There are a lot of organizations out there to help; ie Faces, and cleftline.org. You might want to check with your local children's hospital as well. At our center we have social workers on staff to help with resources and to provide general support.

I hope this helps. As an aside, I must say that despite everything all of the adopted parents of cleft children that I've talked to are thrilled and so are the children! Good luck.