Unexpected Life

This is part two of a three-part foundation to my blog. Click to read part one.

My daughter has never had a day of life where she was unloved by her parents.

This is not always a reality for children with special needs.  It hurts to know that, but I am eternally grateful for the grace God gave us in preparing our hearts for our child.  No child becomes the person we expect; my husband and I had to realize this sooner than others.

I had been on bed rest for 6 weeks prior to my daughter's birth.  The blood flow through my placenta was restricted and this caused my daughter to be very small.  We were allowing her to bake in the oven a little longer before delivery.  So, we waited.  She was 10th percentile.... then 7th percentile.... then on our final growth scan at 36 weeks gestation, my daughter had fallen to the 3rd percentile in size for her age.  An hour later, we were told we were going to deliver that morning. 

I called my husband.  He was an hour away getting ready for class at the university where he was studying.  He rushed down and made it in the nick of time to be ready for her arrival. 

Now, I hate blood. I don't care how many times people say, "just wait until you have your baby."  As if having your health providers take blood from you regularly, give you shots and ultimately stab you with as many needles as possible during delivery somehow magically takes your uneasiness about foreign objects inserted into your body away.  It doesn't always get easier. I simply learned to get through it.  But, when you are having a C-section (or probably any type of surgery) they bring out all the guns.  My first IV, my first catheter, my first anesthesia (aside from getting teeth pulled), my first MAJOR SURGERY-- I am pregnant again and I still cringe at the thought of all of this.

*note: C-sections aren't the worst thing in the world.  In fact, some people had described their C-sections being far worse than my experience was.  I actually thought recovery would be worse.  Overall, I was not suffering much and my daughter was in the NICU for a month of my recovery anyway, so I had a pretty ideal situation.  However, major surgery is major surgery and I'd rather my body recover over a couple days instead of a couple months post-partum.*

As I was lying on the table waiting to meet my sweet daughter, I tried to keep my mind off of what was going happening on the other side of the curtain. I stared at my husband.  When she was born, he stood up to see her and quickly sat back down-- he had seen a little too much and was afraid to look any longer.  my daughter was placed on my shoulder for a minute before being taken to the NICU.  I kissed her sweet forehead.  I still love to do that. I said goodbye for now and I was wheeled back to recovery. 

Later, I told my husband that I thought my daughter looked like she had down syndrome.  He said, "no, I'm pretty sure she just looks like a newborn."  He really should trust my vast wisdom and intuition more :)  Kidding of course, because he frequently does trust my instincts.

I got to see her a few hours later.  She was beautiful!  My husband and I often joke that she looked like an alien or a really small old man-- which she did.  However, that does not mean she wasn't beautiful... just a little funny looking.  This child was ours and we were honored to be her parents.

We were told that the hospital was going to do some genetic testing on Evelyn, but no one said what they were all suspecting.  We were ok with that.  We were wise enough to know that something was not as expected, but were patient with the staff to wait for their wisdom in timing to tell us.  We asked every day if the results were back.  I think it was about 3 days after our sweet daughter's birth that we found out she had a little something extra.

Our daughter had down syndrome.  We were at a point where we had to evaluate expectations we had for our child's life.  Not that you can plan their life for them, but we had begun to dream of the things that she might do in her life.  We subconsciously pictured our child doing all sorts of things that we realized may not be in her future anymore. She may very well still be able to do many of those things, but we were mourning a loss of our expectations on her life.  We all have expectations-- ALL of us, whether we care to admit it.  My husband and I were at a place where we confronted the ones we had for our daughter earlier in her life than most other parents.

We sat with each other and cried as we looked at our sweet daughter.  We took turns feeding her and loving her.  She was ours to take care of.  She was ours to love.  We were getting used to this new life we were leading.  A life that was going to be different than expected, but so much better too.  As a friend once told me as I was finishing my senior year of college, "It's ok to mourn the passing of one stage of life as we enter another, but don't let it keep you from living it."  This is similar to what my husband and I were going through.  Life was different.  It's ok to mourn that; fellow mom with a new diagnosis--cry over it, sister! However, our daughter was precious, beautiful and darling.  We needed to mourn the expectations we had and take them off of our backs in order to love her better. 

We still have high expectations for her life and we still believe she will live a meaningful, productive, adventurous life-- like all other humans with special needs can.  That has never been a concern of ours.  Sometimes your cake has delicious buttercream frosting, but sometimes your cake has decadent white chocolate cream cheese frosting.  My daughter's life happens to make ours better despite being different.