A baby girl who was born with a cleft lip and palate has captured the hearts of thousands after her cherubic portraits went viral.
Courtney and Gavin Gardner, from Texas, welcomed their nine-week-old daughter, Sutton, in mid-December and enlisted photographer Shannon Morton to take the newborn’s first professional photos.
‘We didn’t do maternity or newborn photos with our son and really regretted not having that done,’ Courtney, 35, told DailyMail.com. ‘So when we got pregnant with Sutton, I knew from the very beginning that I didn’t want to have that experience with this pregnancy.’
Morton shared an angelic photo of a sleeping Sutton curled up in a cream sash and a matching flower headband on her business’s Facebook page after the shoot.
Nine-week-old Sutton Gardner’s portraits went viral after photographer Shannon Morton shared the heartwarming shots on her business’s Facebook page last month
Courtney and Gavin Gardner, from Texas, told DailyMail.com that they were ‘absolutely thrilled’ by the positive reaction to their baby girl’s photos
The Gardners, who also have a three-year-old son, Asher, were told their daughter had a right-sided unilateral cleft lip and palate at their 20-week ultrasound
‘So. Many. Smiley babies in the studio recently! This is sweet Sutton, the cutest little redhead!’ she captioned the image.
The next day, she shared another sweet portrait of baby Sutton wearing a flower crown on her head while sleeping with her chin in her hands.
Courtney was initially apprehensive about how people would react to her daughter’s photos, knowing how cruel strangers can be online, but they received nothing but love and support from commenters.
‘They were all just really kind and thoughtful, sweet messages, just saying how beautiful she was,’ the mom shared. ‘Some people started posting about [how] they had relatives or friends who had cleft-affected children.’
Since Morton’s first post was shared on January 26, it has received more than 728,000 likes and nearly 7,000 comments.
The Gardners, who also have a three-year-old son, Asher, were admittedly not expecting their daughter’s portrait to go viral, but they were ‘absolutely thrilled’ by the positive reaction.
Courtney and Gavin told DailyMail.com they didn’t know what to expect when Sutton was diagnosed with a right-sided unilateral cleft lip and palate at their 20-week ultrasound.
A cleft lip and cleft palate are openings or splits in the upper lip and the roof of the mouth that occur during pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Baby Sutton’s cleft palate initially made bottle feeding difficult, and she spent 18 days in the NICU at Texas Children’s Hospital, where her parents played her music
‘She’s just strong-willed and a little bit stubborn,’ Courtney said. ‘But you can tell she’s gonna be a really social baby. She just loves being held. She loves any type of attention’
Sutton’s viral photo has inspired them to share her story on their Facebook page, My Cleft Cutie, in the hopes of offering comfort to other parents facing similar diagnoses
Courtney was worried about their daughter having other health issues and spent the night before their appointment praying her heart would be healthy. She recalled letting out a sigh of relief when they were told her heart screening looked normal.
‘The last part that they did was the ultrasound of her face, and that’s when the ultrasonographer basically said, “Oh, she does have a cleft lip,”‘ she explained. ‘I remember being completely blindsided and shocked by that because it wasn’t even on my radar of a possibility that could happen.’
Courtney had assumed that a cleft lip and palate were genetic, but the causes of the birth defects in most infants are unknown. About 1 in every 1,600 babies is born with a cleft lip and palate in the U.S. each year.
She was so caught off guard, she burst into tears as questions and concerns raced through her mind. The doctor wasn’t able to give them many answers, and their fears about their unborn daughter’s condition only increased.
‘We didn’t feel like it was handled that well,’ Gavin, 30, said of his daughter’s initial diagnosis. ‘It was kind of like, “Okay, this is what it is.”‘
The Gardners were referred to specialists at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women in Houston, which is about an hour and a half away from their home.
‘They were able to let us know how treatable it actually is, and how these kids can have amazing lives and are able to overcome this through their support,’ she said.
Courtney started seeing an obstetrician at the hospital about 36 weeks into her pregnancy and joined the Cleft Mom Support group on Facebook, where she was able to interact with other parents who understood what she was going through.
‘To be able to ask those moms those questions and just follow their children’s journey was a thing that brought me so much comfort and encouragement,’ she recalled.
After Sutton was born, she had to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for 18 days because her cleft palate made bottle feeding difficult.
Gavin said the comments they received on Facebook after their baby girl’s photos went viral were a ‘big encouragement’ to them following their time in the NICU.
Sutton is scheduled for her first surgery to repair her lip in March, and she will have a second surgery to close her palate when she is closer to her first birthday.
‘She’s just strong-willed and a little bit stubborn,’ Courtney said. ‘But you can tell she’s gonna be a really social baby. She just loves being held. She loves any type of attention. Whenever her brother’s around, she loves it when he comes over and brings her stuff, and she starts to smile every time he comes near her.’
Gavin added that their baby girl also loves to listen to music, which they started playing for her in the NICU.
The Gardners are both grateful for the care Sutton has received at Texas Children’s Hospital and the online community that has supported them since her diagnosis.
Their daughter’s viral photo has inspired them to share her story on their Facebook page, My Cleft Cutie, in the hopes of offering comfort to others in similar situations.
The couple agreed that they want parents whose children are diagnosed with cleft lips or palates to know that ‘it’s all going to be OK.’
‘Even though things are scary, and they may seem dark in that initial fresh period of diagnosis, it’s actually a beautiful thing that is 100 percent able to be treated and managed,’ Courtney said. ‘These kids are just phenomenal, strong children that overcome so much at a young age.’
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