When Debbie Ford's 20-week pregnancy scan seemed to be taking longer than usual, she began to worry.

But when the doctor summoned a colleague to take a look, Mrs Ford knew something was definitely wrong.

The scan, which shows many parents the sex of their baby, had shown Mrs Ford and her husband Simon that their unborn child had a cleft lip - and possibly a cleft palate, too.

Mrs Ford, of Derwent Road, Bicester, said: "We felt our world had been turned upside down and asked 'why us?'."

Not knowing much about the condition - which is a birth defect involving the separation of two sides of the lip - the couple read as much information as they could.

Mrs Ford said: "We opted to have an MRI scan at 34 weeks to detect if the gum and palate were affected - the results came back saying they could only detect the lip.

"This was a huge weight off our shoulders, as we were worrying how Amber would feed if the palate and gum were affected.

But when Amber was born at the Horton Hospital, in Banbury, her parents were relieved to see she had a very small cleft lip with no further complications.

Mrs Ford said: "The first words Simon and I said , 'The lip is hardly noticeable', not 'We have a daughter'.

"Amber would be able to feed normally, no special bottles or teats."

At nine weeks old, Amber was taken to Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary for an operation to reconstruct her top lip.

Mrs Ford said: "I was very tearful. The walk to recovery seemed like forever - we were trying to picture what she would look like now, as we were so used to the cleft.

"Our little girl looked so different - the clever hands of a surgeon had done the work nature had failed to do."

Now five months old, and back at home with her parents and two-year-old brother Connor, Amber is making a good recovery and her parents hope she won't need any more operations.

Mrs Ford said: "Hopefully, in a few years' time the swelling will have all gone down and it won't be noticeable at all, unless she tells someone."

The family were so impressed with the support they received that they decided to raise funds for further research into the condition - and raised a total of £1,288.

Amber's godfather-to-be, Alan Philbey, from Buckinghamshire, raised £745 with a tandem sky dive at RAF Weston-on-the-Green.

And £543 was raised when Mrs Ford's colleagues at QEK, in Upper Heyford, held a casual dress and cakes day. The amount raised was then matched by the the company's managing director.

Mrs Ford said the money would go to the Radcliffe Infirmary's cleft lip and palate research fund.

She said: "They have been brilliant, so we just wanted to say thank you."