James Henry gets a check up

This morning Mommy and Daddy got another chance to see our beautiful baby boy. It was so amazing and wonderful to see him again. See his face, see his heartbeat, his sweet fingers and toes and just feel close.

The news of his progress wasn't all together unexpected, but not as hopeful as mommy had set herself up for.

First of all he is doing just fine and all is well. His growth is showing signs of slowing down, however. Many normal babies at this stage of the game would be around 3 pounds and J. Henry is only about 2 pounds 3 ounces putting him in the 20th percentile size wise. Dr. Mitchell, who I just can't say enough wonderful things about, assured us that he wouldn't be concerned even if James wasn't a T18 baby. He just isn't going to be the brut Elie was.

My amniotic fluid was on the high side, but again not yet an area of concern. Dr. Mitchell describes this as more like the 80th percentile and really just means that momma feeling large and out of breath all the time is normal....we are 7 months pregnant after all.

Other T18 markers we tried to look at came in again as we might have expected, his little hands are clenched but his feet don't seem to be rocker bottom. We also found today that where the Level II ultrasound did not detect a cleft lip, this ultrasound did. His omphalacele is still there so the hope it might correct itself has pretty much disappeared.

So what does all of this really mean? Not a whole lot in the big picture. James Henry is fine, Momma and Daddy are fine and Elie is fine. Summer is over so we begin the difficult process of facing the possibilities/realities that T18 might bring us. In the next couple of weeks we will meet with the neonatologists at the hospital to go over what we might expect during his birth and after and what Bill and I feel are right for James Henry. I will meet with our Hospice worker next week for a check in. And on the bright side, begin preparing for Mom and Blair to come visit later in September.

Life goes on. Except today momma is a little sad because reality stopped by for a visit. Perhaps my eyes were lifted a bit too high.

To give you some context, Bill and I recently went to church for the first time in a long time and Rev. Are spoke of Psalm 131 My heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high;...I have calmed and quieted my soul. I invite you if you have the time to read the sermon at http://www.villagepres.org/ under the sermons catagory, July 20th was the date.

The passage that I think of on days like today goes like this:

Hope is not a sanctuary-seeking word. Hope calls us to not merely survive how things are, but to imagine how they should be. Hope is different from optimism. It was Rabbi Jonathon Sacks who wrote: "Optimisim is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the faith that, together, we can make things better...It takes no courage to be an optimist but it takes a great deal of courage to have hope."

So today momma is putting on her courage wings that only she can see and loving her sweet baby boy, his daddy and his sister. And having Hope.