Take Three Cookies

I will never think of Oreos as a calorie packing cookie again.  When I choose them to eat, I ignore the calories and I take three, always three...one for each one of my own Oreos.  I think about the strength of the cookie to hold up to the packaging and fight the encroaching milk as best it can before crumbling gracefully into a delicious mess.  I think about the cream, the soft middle with the strong glue to hold it all together.  To make Sydney feel better about being the middle child I told her she was the cream in the Oreo, holding the family together; but truth be told, there are days she is as much the strong cookie as Madison is the cream...or Bradley.  The moment dictates the role of each child.  Sometimes Madison's emotional and passionate nature is the cream, sometimes it's Sydney's humor and logic, and sometimes, it's our love for Bradley that binds us all together - everything that he is and all he has been through.

I remember saying to Eric after having Sydney, "We would have been missing so much if we hadn't had her."

His response then was : "We wouldn't have known what we were missing."

But holding a newborn Sydney, I was pretty sure we would have felt like we were missing something.  I felt that maybe our kids had been placed in my heart already and it was up to me to do the best I could to bring them to light.   I was supposed to have these two girls, I was also supposed to help them be the best they could and would be in this world.  We tease the girls all the time and say: "Why did we want kids?  We used to be cool!  We gave up our freedom, sleep, our money, sleep, going away on vacation whenever we wanted...and sleep."  But here's why the girls laugh when we do this; they know why.  Deep down, they know that we really didn't become cool till we had these kids.  They know that our love for them is so deeply ingrained in us that is flows into them daily.  When I go to hug or kiss them I'll say: "Kiss me because I love you."  Or throw in hug for the same idea.  How do I know that they are feeling this love from us?  Now, Sydney comes to hug me or kiss me and will say one of two things:  "Kiss me because you love me"  or "Kiss me cause I love you Mom."   You can probably guess my favorite way.  But life felt perfect!



Okay, perfect in living in the military and all the ups and downs that come with that...and I was set with these two, I considered one more, then reconsidered, made the list and moved on...gave away the rest of the baby stuff even.  I should have known that would be the catalyst...I popped up pregnant a month later!  Two months after visiting our one and only Fertility Festival in Japan; after living there for what would be almost eight years we chose to attend a local festival as a grown-up only adventure with our neighbors, one of us ladies got a little too close to the smoke...me.  I didn't take the news well...Eric did and he was really sweet to contain his glee when not around me for awhile.  There was a lot more pressure this time.  Eric was retiring from the Navy, we would be returning to the US soon after the baby was born, I worried about how to nurse this baby as long as the girls had and still get a job...blah, blah, blah....   I worried about my age and as if God himself whispered across my heart in an attempt to prepare me, I worried about something being wrong with the baby.

A diagnostic Ultrasound told me not to worry.  A diagnosis of melanoma and ensuing surgical intervention left no room for worry about anything but that.  A non-stress test that showed I'd lost 4 mls of fluid brought the worry back though.  Lost 4mls of fluid?  To where?  How on earth did I manage to do that and not notice?  I was still coping with the news we were having a baby boy!  A boy???  I don't know how to raise a boy - I'm doing okay with girls...but a boy???  But considering Eric was over the moon about a boy, I sincerely tried not to let my concerns blurt more than half a dozen times...a day... but he was good about it.  And after the shock of Bradley's arrival and diagnosis started to wane...this is what I got: pure beauty and pure love.

I looked at Eric in the first few hours after we were told about Bradley, trying to voice my worry about loving this tiny baby that I feared we would lose any moment and all I could ask was, "What do we do?"  His answer was simple: "He's our baby, we love him."  An hour, a week, a month, years - his lifetime would be what it would be, and we would just love him.  And we would do it together, as a team.  Further research would teach us that we probably wouldn't be losing him any time soon, long term life expectancy is going up and that was our hugest concern.  Developmental and Intellectual Delays?  Yes, but everything we read told us with help and intervention he would learn everything like other kids, just not as quick.  I am not a rocket scientist..I am a reader, everything told me he could be too.  It wasn't easy, but it was our new normal and we adjusted.  Our girls were the best help for us.  They were so excited to meet their brother, and their love for him was fast and fierce; so many painful doubts started to ease away and we saw the baby beneath the diagnosis and he was beautiful.   And when I put my three all together I got this: joy!

Now three years later, the diagnosis for Bradley doesn't change.  The prognosis for him is excellent, somewhere in the reach for the stars realm.  The prognosis for this family is just as high.  There is a long road ahead and there will be more hills and mountains for us to climb, possibly crawl up - but his name was etched across my heart long before he came into this world and my job is to help him be all he can and should be.  He grows and learns something new everyday!

 In the words of the pediatrician that taught me the most:  "He will amaze you."  Truer words...because everyday he does.  A lot of posts these days will ask, "What would you tell someone who has a diagnosis or has just had a child with Down syndrome?"  I mulled the idea over for a long time, thought of a million things to say, but I think the most important thing to say is: "Be ready, your child will amaze you!" Bradley does everyday of his life.  Because a kind pediatrician took the time to say that to me, I don't miss the moments where he amazes...and I don't miss the moments when the girls do either.  Instead, I let it run through my mind  pushing the doubts away, keeping worry about his feeding and digestive troubles at bay a little at a time, and it plays like my own personal mantra: "He will amaze you!"

He does amaze me!  My kids amaze me!  To think what I would have missed out on if I hadn't said Yes to Eric, if we hadn't had Madison, and added Sydney...and let the Universe plan Bradley... somehow I think we would have always felt something missing in us without them.  So instead, now I have this: Faith.