Sydney and Alexandria
It continues to be an up and down week. On Wednesday Debbie and her daughter Sydney from church brought us a meal and spent some time with Alexandria. It didn’t occur to me how teenagers think about Alexandria’s condition until Sydney was holding her. When I was kid plenty of adults died, but no children, and definately no child I had ever held in my arms. With Gabriel we know that he doesn’t really get it, the impact isn’t there, yet. Teenagers have the ability to grasp mortality… I never really thought of the conversations that probably occur before people bring their children here. I bet those aren’t easy.
On Thursday Harry and Gretta came to pick up Aden and Gabriel for a few days. Kim saw her doctor and among other things had a discussion about birth control. Kim told her that I’m not looking to have any additional kids and looking to have surgery to prevent it… (why don’t I want to type the word vasectomy? Interesting…) Anyway, her doctor told her that doing so would probably not be a good idea at this time. We’re emotional (I’m emotional) and it’s not the best time to make that decision. I just don’t ever see my decision changing. I can’t see another child go through this. I just can’t risk it. Kim’s been researching a mutation around the MTHFR gene and how women with this mutation can have occurances of Trisomy 18, but it can be countered somewhat with high doses of folic acid. We’ve had the genetic testing and Kim and I checked out “ok”, but we did not have a test for this specific gene. Either way, even if we did test positive for it, I still do not see any situation where I would chance this again.
Gretta and Alexandria
Harry and Alexandria
Today a friend of ours, Lindsey, came over to meet Alexandria. She worked with Kimberly, and later with me, at Meijer. She gave Alexandria a large wooden letter “A” that she’d pasted pictures from our facebook site on, it was very touching (picture to come). She also brought a bunch of fabric and she and Kim made Alexandria a TuTu. 🙂
Lindsey and Alexandria
Kimberly and Lindsey making a tutu
It’s been a roller-coaster week this week. On Sunday we took her to church and I shocked a couple of people by allowing them to take and hold her for a moment. 🙂 It only took 5 weeks, but I’m becoming comfortable with allowing others to hold her a little more then I was. She cried at church for the first time and there were a few people that said, “Wow she does make noise!” She became calm enough later though that someone else who hadn’t been there for the screaming asked if she ever fussed. I told them yes, but usually around 1 to 3 in the morning. Sunday night during bible study I handed her around, much to the shock of some people there as well (where all the pictures from this post come from).
