What could have been....

I came across this story on MSNBC yesterday and had to sit and cry for thirty minutes after reading it.

When a baby is destined to die

This could have been us. We could have been faced with this horrible decision. When our nuchal translucency test came back with such horrible results, we let our imaginations take us to some terrible places. We worried about Trisomy 18 and 13 - both of which are incompatible with life. We worried we would never get to meet the child I was carrying. I'm not sure that fear ever really went away until we heard her cry for the first time.

It seems like every day, Jay or I look at Lois and say to the other, "We are so lucky." I guess a lot of people would feel anything but lucky if they gave birth to a child with Down Syndrome. But my doctor told me that if I had not been seeing a specialist, and he hadn't been monitoring Lois closely, she would have died in utero. And I would have given birth to a stillborn baby. We are very lucky, indeed.

Lois was a total pill yesterday - completely out of character for her. She insisted on being held all day long. Put her down for 30 seconds and she sobbed her guts out. So although I considered listing her on Ebay several times, I can't imagine Lois not being part of our lives today. I can't imagine coming home from the hospital with only a lock of hair and a photograph. I can't imagine saying goodbye before I'd ever had the chance to say hello.

I'm not sure who we need to thank for the precious gift of Lois Hogan - the doctors, the universe, or God. And I'm not sure what we did to deserve such a gift - but I can tell you that she is in good hands. We are well aware of what could have been.