Ethan and Lauren

2008-12-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

Time for a new blog... since it is no longer just Ethan and Lauren. I'm trying to figure out how to move everything over to the other one (any ideas anyone?). I tried moving one post and it got a new date. I wish I was more computer literate.

Anyhoo... here's the link to the new one, which I am calling A Journey of a Lifetime, because it certainly has been.

A Journey of a Lifetime

And the journey continues...

2008-11-30T06:42:00.000-08:00

It's a boy!!!!

It is with tremendous joy and gratitude that our prayers have finally been answered that I'd like to announce the referral of our beautiful baby boy! He was born May 20, 2008 in South Korea. We got the call on October 29th, much to our suprise (I honestly was thinking we wouldn't get a call until late November or December though Mark was convinced all along it would be sometime in October). We plan on naming him David, which means "beloved." His Korean name is Jin Woo, which means "treasure of the house" according to our paperwork. His full name will be David Jin Woo, the beloved treasure of our house. We are over the moon with happiness! I finally feel like we are complete.

2008-10-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

...and then there were three!

2008-10-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

I'm here.

It has been awhile, my poor, neglected blog. I've been so completely consumed with our adoption in any spare time that I have that I haven't had the energy to write. I'm still here though, fully aware of how I've left you, my blog, out to dry so-to-speak.

We started the process (again!) to adopt. Yeah, we're still in the never-ending line for China but are a lot more optimistic about things this time around. I surely hope that doesn't come back to bite me. At any rate, as of January 4th of this year (yes, I've been sitting on this for some time, at least in the blogosphere anyway), we started the process to adopt a baby from South Korea. There was a lot of tension, dancing the "what-if" and "oh, should we?" dance that led up to that decision but it finally came down to a leap of faith. That, and watching a very dear friend get a referral (matched with a baby) from South Korea in less time than it took for us to complete our China dossier (mountain of paperwork that has to be obtained, notarized, certified and authenticated prior to your name being even added to a list of waiting parents).

The feeling of relief that washed over me as soon as we submitted our online initial application to our agency was tremendous, and unanticipated. You see, I've never been the most decisive person. I vacillate back and forth, especially when it comes to major decisions, until my head is about ready to spin and I'm usually still left perplexed as to what to do. I think this my attempt at trying to anticpate every possible outcome so as to avert diaster. Okay, so I have control issues. This was a big one though. A big decision. We're pretty sure this is it for us. 3 kids will likely complete our little family (not-so-little if you ask my husband). To consider that our child maybe would come from somewhere other than China, what I had ingrained in my mind for such a very long time, took a lot of soul-searching, quite a bit of faith and boiling it all down to what fundamentally mattered.

We want a baby. At the end of the day, that is what matters. China, Korea, Timbuktoo, it doesn't really matter. Another little person to love. A baby brother or sister for our kids. More toys at Christmas! I digress...

So, on a wing and a prayer, here we sit. We finished up our homestudy for Korea (infinitely easier, I might add, with a lot more education involved- I actually feel like we are prepared and ready this time around) April 15th and are currently waiting for a referral any day now. Unless the sky falls or something, which could happen of course.

It all just feels right, if that makes any sense at all. Our paperwork is still in China too. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it (i.e. decide what we're doing when our baby from Korea is home). If (we likely will) we pull our dossier from China, it will be when our baby from Korea is home. I know, in my heart, that doing so will feel like a miscarriage to me so I'm trying not to think too hard about that right now.

That's all for now. I'll try not to be so neglectful but no promises.

2008-10-27T08:26:00.000-07:00

2008-04-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

A must read

I've been trying to find time to sit down and write a review worthy of this book amidst the chaos that is my life, the whirlwind that goes along with having small children. It is difficult to find the right words to express the gratitude I feel for Jennifer Graf Groneberg's book.

Shortly after our daughter, Lauren, who has Down Syndrome was born, our pediatrician gave us the name and phone number of a woman who had a 3 year old daughter with Down Syndrome. I waited a couple of months to call her. I was completely entrenched in my own grief and inability to get my hands around my life as it now existed. Then there was the intimidation factor of calling a complete stranger, especially given my state of mind at the time. I finally mustered up the courage to shakily dial the numbers and, choking back tears, introduce myself.

What ensued was a 2 hour conversation during which Andrea, the woman to whom I will be forever grateful, laid it all out there for me. Her own story, the good, the bad and the ugly, unabashed and unfiltered. What she gave me was a gift. It was the gift of forgiveness. What had been eating away at me was my own guilt, in addition to everything else. In telling her story, laying herself bare like that, I felt like I was suddenly not alone, that I wasn't the only person who had felt these things, who had gone through this before. It was a healing kinship.

Road Map to Holland by Jennifer Graf Groneberg is just this sort of gift. In sharing her story, with all the painful, self-incriminating truths, she provides salve for the souls of all of us who have been there before or are going through it now. This book is a quiet hand-holding, a gentle whisper of "I've been there and it's okay." With incredible introspect and a deep spirituality, Jennifer shows us with a sometimes self-deprecating sense of humor and prose-like writing what a journey it was, having premature twins, one of which has Down Syndrome. What emerges is a portrait of love, motherhood and the power of the human spirit.

This was one of those life-changing books for me, of which I can only count a few. I encourage everyone to read it, whether you have had a child with special needs or not. It is a beautiful story in its entirety, a testament that sorrow indeed carves out a greater space for happiness.

2008-03-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

I was shocked to see them. These small emblems of spring. I'd spent some time last fall planting bulbs, my first attempt, only to find them dug up and half-eaten by some vagrant animal poaching on my work. I'd honestly thought they were all gone.

We had a blizzard a week ago. 20 inches of crazy snowfall in the middle of March. It was gone nearly as soon as it came, melting, the only remnants left behind are soggy muck and a few brown snow piles. This kind of dreary weather can certainly damper the spirits. Its stuff like this though, these signs of spring popping up, lending some hope that sunshine and warmer weather is right around the corner that keeps me going.

2008-03-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

2008-01-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

Contemplation

2008-01-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

2007-12-31T11:10:00.000-08:00

Resolve

Okay, so I don't usually do this. I don't make New Year's resolutions. I think you set yourself up for failure when you sit down and write out some list of what you resolve to do in the coming year. There is enough evidence of my shortcomings in my daily life. I needn't look further than the laundry pile, clutter, stack of pictures waiting to be put into some form of organization, extra 10 pounds of "baby weight" that I've never managed to shake, etc. etc. etc. Why, oh why, would I ever make list for myself?

The other problem I have with these so-called resolutions is that, in making them, you forget about all of the unexpecteds that occur in life. Mine is FULL of them. If I ever had a "plan" for what my life would be, I have certainly been steered off course- thankfully so. These diversions to the plan are what keep things interesting, keep us living.

We used to burn them. Yep, that's right, set 'em on fire! My mom, my sister and I and whoever else ventured to join us for New Year's Eve would sit down, make a list of our New Year's "resolutions", put them in an envelope then set fire to them. We never read them to each other, just wrote them out and set fire. I can't quite remember what the significance of the burning was. Maybe it was that we were leaving it up to the universe, our plans, our intentions. Think about them for a minute then let them go, hoping for the best.

At any rate, I'll admit that I do sometimes think about the coming year and what I'd like to happen. I have enough insight into things after having "plans" be derailed, being shifted onto new tracks that are far better than I could ever have dreamt, to know that life is more about the living than the plans.

With that in mind, here I go with some, well, we'll call them hopes- yeah, I like that better- hopes for the new year.

1. Worry less
2. Run a couple of races (stress reliever- helps with #1)
3. Move our 3-year old into a big girl bed because it is just time
4. Stop worrying about time
5. Figure out how do use Photoshop to its full capabilities, as well as my camera- this laissez faire attitude when it comes to owner's manual doesn't always work to one's benefit
6. Schedule more date nights because they are good for our marriage
7. Come to grips with the wait for our referral from China (I don't know how possible this one is but hey, that's why they are called hopes-right?
8. Spend time with our family, extended family and friends. Our lives are so rich and blessed because of them.

Eight sounds like about enough. I made sure not to include the lose 10 pounds thing in there as I think they are here to stay, at least they aren't going anywhere without some painful separation between myself and good food. After two half-marathons, the fact that they haven't left me lends me to believe they just maybe want to be here. Ah- to be in your 30s!

Happy New Year!

2007-12-28T14:01:00.000-08:00

2007-12-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

The Stuff of Dreams

One thing I am certain of is that I was born to be a mom. It is intrinsic to my soul, woven into the framework of every fiber that is me. I used to wish for it, dream about it from a very young age. I'd find something, someone to mother be it my dolls for whom I spent my car washing money or allowance on -real life baby "accessories"- the teething rings, bottles, etc. or my sister whose own mother, mine as well was, while physically there, was often absent, tending to her own issues. Maybe partly attributed to birth order, circumstances in childhood, I believe that fundamentally, it is just me.

Throughout my rocky beginnings, I knew that someday I'd have my own chance for life to be different. Tabula Rosa. A clean slate. I held onto this with the fiercest of grips. A lifeline as I spun through the tumult that was beyond the control of even the most mothering of children.

I wouldn't change it. Somebody told me once that sorrow and pain carve out a greater space for happiness to exist. When you've experienced darkness of any sort, it makes it next to impossible to take the light for granted. My eyes are still adjusting.

I hope they always are.

---------------------

Taking stock. I've done quite a bit this December. We've slowed it down this year, tried to simplify and avoid the pitfalls of previous years' holiday seasons. We're guilty of it too. The mad rush, the overbooked leading to the overlooked spirit of Christmas. I used to have near panic attacks as we got closer and closer to December. I'd look at our calendar, jam packed with various commitments and wonder how we'd do it all, how we'd fit in any time for us, this nuclear family we've created. The stress just kept piling on and piling on until it got to the point where I just was ready for Christmas to be over.

This year was different. We made a decision, a commitment to our little family that we'd slow it down this year, take some time to just be. We decorated the tree at a leisurely pace, I actually managed to get Christmas cards out with a picture of the kids no less, we baked a little, visited Santa, spent time together as a family. It was beautiful. There was peace.

You miss it all if you don't slow down sometimes.

-----

We took the kids sledding one of the first weekends in December. It was the first real snowfall we had this winter. Unfettered by a schedule, we were able to do it, able to just pick up, throw on some snow pants and boots and go play in the snow.

Rosy cheeks, giggles, screams of delight. My sweet babies. Their father, my amazing husband. Togetherness. A realized dream.

My cup runneth over.

2007-11-10T17:24:00.000-08:00

You Turn your Back for a Second...

2007-11-10T12:37:00.000-08:00

Halloween

2007-11-10T10:21:00.001-08:00

Misconceptions

Ironically, we had just left speech therapy. It was a Friday, a Mommy-Lauren day. Lauren doesn't have school on Fridays while our kindergartner does. We spend the morning at speech therapy then off to run errands together. While they are busy days, it is still nice to have that time where it is just us girls.

A crisp fall day, the sun shining, I was feeling pretty good about life as we walked into the general store that I frequent for groceries and other odds and ends. The cart valet or whatever it is you call that job smiles at my familiar face, looks to Lauren then proceeds to talk to me. "Did you take her trick-or-treating?" he asks. I'm sure he's asking me this as Lauren is looking extra cute today in her ballerina outfit. He's probably wondering what my little princess went as for Halloween. "Oh, of course!" I say. "She was Cinderella."

He leans in conspiratorially, looking at me as if he is one of the few people that knows my plight. "I'm still harassing my wife about this," he says. "We had this little girl come to our door, trick-or treating. My wife says to her, "Say Trick-or-Treat!" She doesn't respond. My wife keeps telling her, "Say Trick-or-Treat!"

He pauses for emphatic knowing.

"She was mute!" he says.

"Oh, okay, huh" I say, unsure how to respond to this bizarre story he is relaying to a woman in a grocery store whom he doesn't know.

He looks at Lauren and nods. I walk away, moving on to the locally grown apples I've come to retrieve. Then it dawns on me. He thinks my Lauren is mute! I am stunned. Now this is a new one. As a parent of a child with a disability, I'm painfully aware of the multitude of misinformed, misguided misconceptions out there. But, mute? Never that one. I'm turning it over in my mind, this new stone that has been cast at me to handle as we finish our shopping.

I know I should go back to him and clear it up. Sometimes it is so exhausting though, having to educate others about Down Syndrome, what it is and isn't. Sometimes you just want to go to the market with your daughter and enjoy the day.

I forget quite a bit that it is visible. Her facial features, I forget that others can sometimes tell. She's just Lauren to me, my sweet, beautiful, ballerina princess Lauren. I wish the public were a bit more desensitized about it, that seeing a child with Down Syndrome was not such a rarity. I wish we could just be sometimes without the intrusive assumptions.

We finish our shopping. Lauren is anything but quiet throughout the store. Mute! Ha! The man is at the checkout by the time we are ready to go. I walk through his lane, at which point I should have corrected him but I'm too tired and just ready to leave. We don't exchange any words beyond the cashier/customer ones. Lauren, having finished her cookie is saying, "Up! Up! Up!" while I'm trying to pay. She wants up and out of the grocery cart. I smile at her. Today she's doing the educating for me.

2007-09-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

Elusive Virtue

Patience is not a virtue I've been known to possess. I'm one of those stubborn, dig your heels in, I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now sort of people. I think the big man upstairs has been continually putting opportunities in my life for me to develop this. I envision him up there, shaking his head, chuckling at my bull-headed lack of it saying, "try this on for size, Cathy. Maybe you'll get it now."

Absent a modicum of patience, raising children, a child with special needs no less and pursuing an adoption with all of its unknowns can be a challenge. My impatience tends to manifest itself in extreme worry. Some degree of worrying is par for the course of motherhood, I know. Mine tends to border on the out of hand, obsessive kind though.

Front and center on the impatient, worry channels of my brain these days is our adoption. Maybe it's that several of my friends have just had new babies, though I don't walk away after holding them with that "I want one!" itch. They are newborns. Our plans are to adopt an older baby. I think what has really done it, what has really wreaked havoc on me has been that my babies have started school. We've officially started the busyness of school, the schedules, the extracurriculars. I feel like we've closed a chapter in our lives. It has left me wistful, a little sad and with a spinning head as I try to juggle all the stuff we've got crammed into our lives, which I swore I'd never do but find myself doing anyway because, after all, this is Suburbiaville. It must be catching.

Of course, there is the ever-increasing wait time for a referral from China too. There are always unknowns with international adoption, or any adoption for that matter. You don't have much control over the process other than the gather-your-paperwork stage, which I was completely militant about. That part felt like we were waiting to wait, if that makes any sense. We couldn't even get in line, if you will, until we had all that paperwork (our "dossier") together. We're there now though, waiting with what seems like a zillion other families. At this point we're being optimistic to say it will hopefully happen in 2009.

2009

We started this process, officially anyway in fall of 2006. It had been in the works for over a year at that point, at least in the thought process. The wait, the possibility, which is there of our adoption not even happening until 2010 is deeply disheartening.

There are two ways of looking at this wait. The positive side of me, when I'm trying my best not to retreat into my typical, impatient, I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now state says, you know what, this allows you time to do lots of stuff, to focus on the two kids you have, to get things in order for the new baby, to figure out a name, decorate her room (which I am currently typing in and is no way started), etc. The other side doesn't like things being on hold, doesn't like unknowns (get used to it- I know), wants another baby, want our family to be complete so we can move forward without being in a state of flux.

We chose China for a variety of reasons. We knew going into it that it could be a long wait for a referral of a baby. I don't think we really fathomed just how long it could be. I have found myself, on days were I'm feeling particularly frustrated with the lack of an end in site to this adoption road, looking into other countries. They all seem so foreign to me, ironically. It is like my heart has settled in China, has familiarized itself with all that it entails. I have this picture in my mind of a baby girl from China that I can't seem to replace with another face from say, Uzbekistan or someplace like that. We've done this dance of "well, maybe someplace else" before but we always, always come back to China.

Maybe it is my stubbornness. Maybe I'm digging in my heels again. I feel in my heart that our baby will be there though, in China. I may later come to eat these words. I hope not. I don't know the rhyme or reason to why it is taking so long. I believe that someday I'll know, when I look into our child's eyes.

2007-09-05T17:41:00.000-07:00

And so it begins...

Breathe, just breathe

2007-08-10T11:05:00.001-07:00

It's Christmas at our house. Christmas in August. We're in the dog days of summer, the heat oppressive and sticky. "Have a holly, jolly Christmas" plays on. Ethan has decided it is time to listen to his Christmas cd on his little $30 stereo we bought for the kids. It is uplifting and fitting. It feels a bit like Christmas. We got to bring her home.

It has been go, go, go for us for the past 6 weeks as we've crammed in visits with various family members and friends. Homebodies and creatures of routine that we are, it is never easy. Our kids have never travelled well, largely in part due to the fact that we just don't do it frequently enough for them to get used to it. They are little still though.

It had to catch up with us eventually, the constant flitting around from here to there, hours spent in the car every weekend. Drive-through meals of greasy chicken nuggets and fries, missing naps, late bedtimes. I've watched it happen before all too often to know what follows. They get sick.

This time it was bad.

Lauren woke up in the middle of the night Monday crying and yelling, "Momma, momma, momma!" Easy, even tempered child that she is it was very unlike her to be inconsolable like that. We figured she maybe had an ear infection, rocked her for an hour and finally got her back to sleep. She started vomiting at 10:30 a.m. the next day and it went downhill from there.

We finally called the pediatrician around dinner time as she was dry-heaving and sometimes bringing up dark green vomit that I'd never seen before. She was listless. Her lips were dry. They directed us to head to the hospital because she sounded dehydrated and the dark green vomit was of concern. The nurse didn't tell us why though.

Mark took her downtown to Children's Hospital while I stayed with Ethan. We figured she'd get 4 hours of IV fluids and be sent home.

Apparently, bilious vomit, which was what she was puking up, is often a sign of some kind of blockage, requiring emergency surgery. After multiple tests, one in which involved her swallowing some nasty barium solution which she promptly threw up all over herself and her hair, a meeting with a surgical team who told Mark they were really concerned (of course immediate panic ensues after a doctor- a surgeon nonetheless- tells you they are really concerned), it was finally ruled out. Lauren was just so sick that her little body had nothing left in its stomach so this other stuff was coming out.

I got a call at midnight from Mark (whose cell phone happened to die while he was down there with her!). "Looks good" he tells me after explaining all of the previous concern. "We'll be out of here in an hour and a half or so."

That never happened. They ended up admitting her as she wasn't turning the corner fast enough.

Mark came home around 3:00, empty handed.

I couldn't get there fast enough. I drove in silence the whole way. The eerie darkness of the wee hours of the morning, the empty streets, were reminiscent of some kind of bad dream I expected to wake up from any minute.

Children's Hospital is just not a place you want to be. You don't want to have to ever need it. There is just something inherently wrong with children being that sick. It shouldn't be.

I found myself looking around as I made my way up to the "infectious disease" floor which she was on, wondering what everyone else was there for. Illness far worse than what we were dealing with in a lot of cases. The worry-ravaged faces of the parents as they waited. You can't help but look at them and think, "that could be me."

I told myself to hold it together as I walked down the hall to her room. She looked awful. Her right hand was all bandaged up with a splint, in an effort to hold the IV in. Vomit-matted hair and a blue pint-sized hospital gown, gaping at the back, she looked cold, exhausted and scared as she lay in a crib with tall metal sides, plastic flaps at the top that looked like a cage. The nurse had been trying to entertain her with blaring cartoons. It was 4 a.m. Cartoons? She calmed as soon as she saw me. I fought back the tears, not believing that we were there, thanking God that she didn't need surgery and cursing myself for not preventing her from getting this sick. My sweet baby girl.

I turned off the tv, flipped off the glaring overhead fluorescent lights so that we could quietly listen to the hum and whir of the pump as it replaced her fluids. She settled to sleep, finally, as I sat there in the darkness and watched her.

There isn't much sleep to be had while in the hospital. Vital checks every hour, sometimes more frequent than that. Just as she drifted off, they'd be in for something else, waking her up and we'd start all over again with trying to settle down. The hours all start to run together.

"We will probably have to keep her another night" the attending physician tells me as the multitude of other doctors on the "team" look on. "Kids can sometimes turn the corner in the afternoon but from the way she looks now, she'll need to stay." I look at her, as she lay there trying to suck her thumb, the bandaged up one, with quiet, sad resignation. I know this is what she needs but every pore in my body is screaming to grab her up and cart her out of there, back to her own bed, her pajamas, her brother, her life.

Funny how losing it for a bit makes you appreciate the life that you have, with all of its petty annoyances and frustrations. The beauty of normalcy. I couldn't wait to have it back.

A nurse finally suggested an anti-vomit medicine that did the trick with helping to break the cycle and allow Lauren to keep down a Popsicle and some pedialyte. Things started to look up. Mark took the afternoon shift so I could go home to shower and check on our son, whom our neighbor to whom I will be forever grateful, had taken for the day.

He called in the afternoon. "They've taken the IV out and it looks like we might be able to go home tonight if she can keep some applesauce down, " he told me. Thank God.

Hours later, she was discharged. I sat with her in the car, the sweet heat of summer air surrounding us, as we waited for her father to pull his car around so we could drive back together. I caught her smile in the review mirror as she listened to the new Paul Simon song on the radio, "Father and Daughter."

"I believe the light that shines on you
Will shine on you forever
And though I can't guarantee
There's nothing scary hiding under your bed
I’m gonna stand guard
Like a postcard of a Golden Retriever
And never leave till I leave you
With a sweet dream in your head"

2007-07-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

A Day at the Park

Photos taken by my dear friend Kristin- edited by myself w/ Photoshop Elements

2007-07-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

There are no words...

2007-07-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

Relief

I have this plaque on the wall, visible right when you walk inside our house. It hangs above a sweet picture of our two children. It reads, "To have a child is to have your heart walk about outside of your body." Vulnerability in its truest form.

I don't see very well. I'm nearsighted. Without my glasses or contacts, I can't read my alarm clock next to my bed.

I have this recurring nightmare that I'm driving really fast, with my children in the car and I don't have my contacts in. I can't see. I'm petrified that we'll hit something, go careening into a ditch, or get lost. I can't anticipate, can't plan, can't navigate as I'm nearly blind. I always wake in a cold sweat, never knowing how it turns out.

I know what it means to be blindsided, how it feels. A sudden turn of events and we were on a new path. A path filled with never-before seen radiant beauty. Unexpected joy. It took me a moment to regain my footing though, to let go of what I thought my life would be before I realized the luminous daughter before me.

Lauren is loved with the same ferocity that her brother is. A protective mama bear is what I am, holding them close to my heart, as they are my heart. Even though I know it will be a reality in their lives, as it is for every living, breathing soul, I want to shield them from pain in all of its forms.

Read, read, read is what I do when faced with unknowns. Knowledge is power. At one point or another, I could cite exact incidences of various health problems that can go along with Down Syndrome. Heart defects, GI blockages, thyroid problems, vision and hearing deficits, autism, leukemia, atlanto-axial instability, celiac disease...they all start to blur together into one giant FEAR.

Maybe it sounds paranoid, to be constantly afraid that one of these will befall your child. The thing is, something already did. Your naive, "it won't happen to me" is replaced with a "what else is going to come my way?" You know what it means to have been going along in your life with a comfortable inability to expect the unexpected. When it does, all you can do is wait. You wait for the other shoe to drop.

Lauren gets tests. There is a schedule our doctor follows for said tests which were, at first every 6 months and now, mercifully, are every year. I remember that first one, when she was in the height of her chubby baby glory. Blood test. Mark had to hold her. I just couldn't do it. I watched and tried to comfort her, ultimately having to look away as I couldn't contain my tears while they poked her arm repeatedly, unable to find a vein in her sweet chubby baby arm. They ended up squeezing it out of her finger as she screamed. Not only is it awful to go through in the immediate sense, you also find yourself wondering what they'll find. Is that rash on her back petichiae associated with leukemia? Is there something we missed?

We're down to once a year now. She gets a thyroid screen, celiac disease test, cbc to make sure there isn't something awry with her blood counts, vision and hearing screens which are cake-walks compared with the others and now an x-ray of her cervical vertebrae to check for something called atlanto-axial instability.

This is the second year she's had to be strapped to a table while they attempt to get some still pictures of Lauren's spine. The second year we've had to consult with a pediatric neurosurgeon as the results came back potentially indicative of aai. We usually have to wait a week or two after the x-ray before we can get in with the neurosurgeon. In the meantime, I talk to various friends who of course know of somebody's kid who had to have surgery to fuse the C1-C2 vertebrae because of this. Panic and fear lie much below the surface this year, to the point that I forget they're there, as we've been down this road before and it was okay. We'll watch it and see is what he told us last year. I'd like us to never have to go back.

I'm calm the night before. Outside talking with the neighbors about the benign stuff of life like ground-cover plants and watering the lawn. The fear doesn't start to creep in, to grip me by the throat until we're there, in the waiting room. I watch her running around the tiny room, a whirl of constant motion. She trips over her own feet and falls. I find myself wondering if this is some kind of symptom that I somehow missed, a change in gait?

The doctor finally sees us. He watches her for a few moments, asks us if we have any questions then shows us her x-ray. A small gap here, as he points to the spaces in her spine, right below her skull. How strange to see your child in x-ray form. He thinks its physiological, he tells us, due to her trisomy 21, not something else. No limitations. We'll repeat in a year.

Hallelujia! We can set aside the worry for another year, at least the worry about that anyway. We leave, load the kids up in the car. We're only down the street, away from the hospital for a few minutes before I'm choking back the sobs, not wanting to scare the kids. I didn't realize how scared I was until I feel the relief flooding over me.

2007-07-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

Our Girl

Sun Drenched Beauty

Daddy and Lauren

Mommy Love

Fun in the Sun

2007-07-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

Sepia Sandbox Photo

2007-07-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

Sweet Pea