gratitude – Down Home with the Irrs

three weeks.

happy three weeks, brady! it’s been a whole three weeks with our littlest dude and, boy, has it been a whirlwind.

things started off great with a breezy delivery, no NICU stay, and a discharge 48 hours after brady’s birth. what we didn’t anticipate was a two night stay at CHOA after only being home for 24 hours. short story is: brady turned blueish around his mouth after a bottle feeding. this is something we were told to keep an eye on with him and his heart condition. after my MIL noticed his bluish tint around his mouth (she’s the one who fed him his bottle), we called his pediatrician to get advice on what to do. turning blue is not something they take lightly and immediately sent us into the ER. thank God we only live 10 minutes away from the children’s hospital and literally dropped everything and went.

after initial examination, brady’s oxygen levels were great (this was my concern) and we thought we would be headed home. problem was his body temperature was low. too low. technically considered hypothermic (despite being in a heated home, wearing long sleeves, pants, socks, hat and swaddle). we were given warm blankets and instructed to keep him warm so they could retake his temperature after 30 minutes. thirty minutes passed and his temperature was actually lower than it was when we arrived. this triggered alarm bells for the on-call pediatrician. it could mean possible infection and they do not take that lightly with young babies. the pediatrician explained to us that we would be admitted to the hospital for a 48 infection protocol.

the nurses whisked brady away to start drawing labs. our sweet little bud was poked and prodded for a spinal tap, urine sample, blood sample and to put in an IV port. it broke us to see our 3 day old baby like that. all we could do at that point was hope and pray all the cultures would come back negative and infection free. unfortunately, that takes time and we were in the hospital regardless. brady would receive antibiotics as part of this plan until all the results were in.

we were elated when they discharged us and cultures were coming in negative. no infection!!! we left feeling like first time parents all over again. our little bug is just a more fragile baby than we were used to. brady’s size in combination with his underlying syndromes and inability to regulate his body temperature is what resulted in him turning blue that night. we learned that he needed socks, footed sleeper, mits, hat, and three swaddle blankets to keep him a nice level of toasty. healthy toasty. lesson learned! and as he continues to grow and gain weight, he will be better at regulating his temperature.

other than this scare, everything at home has been wonderful, although very challenging. currently, we are in the “gain weight and wait for surgery” stage with brady. everything is about getting him big and fat for his open heart surgery (which will come between 4-6 months). this means we are having to wake him up every 3 hours to feed him. i know this is not atypical of newborn life, but usually when you get back to birth weight you can move onto feeding more “on demand.” nope, not us. to say we are sleep deprived is an understatement.

to make it more challenging, brady will not latch. which means i am currently in an exclusively pumping stage of feeding him. i am trying to stay hopeful that as he gets bigger and stronger he will be able to nurse (or even after his surgery), but this EP life is TOUGH. so for all those mommas out there that have exclusively pumped for a year (or longer or shorter) i have mad RESPECT for you. it is TOUGH. my life has been attempt to nurse, bottle feed, pump, wash parts. rinse and repeat. alllllllllllll day long and all night long. one cycle can take an hour or longer to get through. all while trying to entertain and keep landon alive. thankfully, we have had help with L and other areas of life, otherwise we would not be making it.

mike went back to work after two weeks of being home with us. he leaves tomorrow for two weeks and i am not ready to handle all the middle of the night feeds solo. that has been tough, but like i said, we have had help. landon is warming up to his little brother. he has been so sweet with giving kisses, helping me hold brady’s bottle while he’s feeding and “sharing” his toys (aka throwing a ball at him). those are the moments that make me feel like we did the right thing.

we wouldn’t have survived these weeks without the help of our friends and family. to everyone who has brought us a meal, diapers, held the baby or just checked in on our mental well being, thank you. thank you, thank you, thank you.

on deck for us next: appointments. we have pediatrician and cardiologist appointments every other week. brady starts feeding therapy and the early intervention program (babies can’t wait) next week. i am realizing scheduling and rescheduling appointments will become a full time job!

all i can say is – brady is the sweetest and we are very much in love with our boys.

getting real.

i don’t want this to be a long winded post, but it just might. there has been a lot going on over here as we are in final preparations for this baby (and the holidays) and things are starting to get real. real, real.

so far, little bug has passed 3 BPPs and 2 NSTs. i go friday for my NST this week – i am praying that he will be awake so the appointment can be somewhat quick. i just can’t be on that monitor for an hour anymore…NOT okay. seriously contemplating rolling into the OB office with ice cream and donuts to get him to do some flips for us while i am there. come on little man, please cooperate!

in all seriousness though, things are getting real. we are two weeks from Christmas and three weeks from meeting our baby (should everything stay the course). this blows my mind. to sum it all up, i am stressed. i am trying to get everything done in time and i am quickly realizing, that won’t happen. not only because there is not enough time, but also because my body is not having it. between the braxton hicks contractions, low back pain, and lightning crotch (sorry for the crudeness, but this is a real thing and what it is commonly known as), my body is trying to tell me to stop.

but how do you stop? how can you stop? most of the week i am a one woman show with a toddler who wants to play and be held. an almost 30 lb toddler that needs a bath every night, lifted and lowered into his crib for naps and bed, constant diaper changes, and up and down the stairs. aside from the physical stress of being this pregnant with a toddler, i still have to assemble the dresser and organize clothes in the nursery, finish Christmas shopping, wrap gifts, pack a hospital bag and about 100 other things i intended to do before the holidays. looks like 90% of this will have to wait. my body is just saying NOPE.

the physical stress is draining. the emotional stress is equally as draining. as we approach the final weeks, i am confronted with a lot of fears and unsettled feelings. some days feel like i am back at week 13 when we learned the news about our special little dude. some days i battle those ugly feelings and then i feel guilty for being back in that space. this baby doesn’t deserve that. i also struggle with the feelings of adding another baby to the mix. my time with Landon will be different and that makes me feel sad at times. Landon doesn’t deserve a distracted momma.

i am also facing the fear of this delivery – the actual physical delivery of this baby. my first labor was pretty awful. Landon was too big for my body and we didn’t know it. this lead to a number of complications and interventions including a vacuum assist, episiotomy, and shoulder dystocia. sparing you any more of the gory details, let’s just say it was traumatic for me, mike, and baby. at the end of the day, everything turned out okay, but it very easily could have been a much different outcome. i know we will have a better understanding of little bug’s size due to all the growth scans we have, but there is still an element of error and unknown. i don’t want to go through that again and i don’t want to put another baby at risk like that again. every night i pray for a safe delivery. we’ll decide in the coming weeks how we plan to go about delivery when we get a clearer picture of bug’s size.

to end on a more positive note, God is working His magic. i would not be able to get through this without the love and support of my husband. for him, i am eternally grateful. my little family is my everything and they get me through the toughest of days. and my friends – man, am i lucky. the constant check-ins and texts really mean the world to me. i don’t know what i did to deserve all of you, but thank you.

remember when i mentioned we took family photos that were disastrous? well, our photographer is SO talented, she captured some really beautiful gems (snack cup and all, because this is real life people)! not only is she talented, but she is also an incredible human being. God put Rachel in our life for a bigger purpose and He’s already showing us why. Please check her out if you are in the Atlanta area (and tell her I sent you)!

Photos: Perfectly Bliss Photography

the final countdown

it’s me again. sorry, i went dark for the last week plus (by accident). we have had a crazy week and keeping up with my updates kind of fell by the wayside. i’ll start from the top though!

first, we had a lovely visit with my in-laws. Landon just loves all the attention he gets whenever they are in town. literally all eyes and hands on him ALL day and night. that cute little stinker knows how to work his crowd. while here, we visited the Pink Pig, which he was NOT a fan of (see below) and the Garden Lights exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. he, and everyone, absolutely loved the botanical gardens. it was seriously magical. don’t let his face fool you in the photo from the botanical gardens. he LOVED it. i think he just doesn’t like taking photos with me…more on that later.

the pink pig

seriously he was loving the botanical gardens

my MIL and i worked on some nursery projects as well. we thinned out the faux fiddle leaf fig tree and started painting the infamous green dresser. y’all, i decided on a paint color and i love it. now i just pray, pray, pray that this actually works and doesn’t chip off right away. it’s been a rough go with the paint already, but i am blaming the wet weather and cold weather for that. i just don’t think it is actually drying completely. we’ll see.

this past week, i did get a little ME time. it was long overdue. i had a lovely dinner with some college girlfriends that i haven’t seen all in one sitting since moving back. my heart needed that big time. i also got to escape for a hair cut (which took WAY too long, but oh well) and lady hawks holiday dinner while the team was out of town. all in all, a great week for Landon and i, full of lots of love and fun. only downside, we are still sick. ALL of us.

other life updates before i get to the pregnancy related ones, we failed at our rain date for family photos AGAIN because of….wait for it….RAIN. UGH. then due to Mike’s schedule, we had to schedule them for Tuesday evening. bright sunshine, but freezing. i did not adequately plan outfits for us for freezing temps because we were planning to take these a month ago, so the joke is on me. i only have myself to blame for the cranky husband and crying toddler because everyone was too cold and i thought we could “tough it out” for 30 minutes. NOPE. there’s no toughing it out when you are a toddler who doesn’t understand why we are running around in the cold weather with some stranger following us. luckily, our photographer is INCREDIBLY talented and was able to catch a few smiles and beautiful shots of our family (and my belly). we just might be those people with bright blue snack cup front and center in the photos. anything to keep L happy. i cannot wait to share them with you soon. lesson learned – be prepared with cute outerwear for the family just in case.

little bug/pregnancy updates – it’s the FINAL countdown. t-minus 4 weeks and there will be a baby here. that is NUTS. time to kick our butts in gear and really get things moving with preparation (aka buying diapers, laundering clothes, finishing the nursery, getting the car seat ready). we started our weekly testing last week and since have had two BPP tests and one NST (my second is today). little bug passed his BPP tests with flying colors, scoring an 8 out of 8. the NST was a bit of a different story. he’s not very active in the morning and that is when these tests are occurring. basically, he decided it was the perfect time to nap when i needed him to be active. so what should have only been 20 minutes on the monitor turned into 1 hour on the monitor. thank goodness he ended up passing, but that was stressful. i’m planning to make sure he has all the reason to be awake for the test today.

things are feeling a bit more real and a bit scarier. he’s nice and protected on the inside. it’s the outside world that terrifies me. with cold and flu season at it’s peak, i worry about protecting him and keeping him healthy. we are already a house full of germs! i am working on us first so that we can be 100% when it’s time for his arrival. i started diffusing essential oils last night and will continue to do so until we are all feeling better. if not, medical masks are waiting in my Amazon cart. that is not a joke. if you have any essential oil blends/tips that you love, please send them my way! i am a total newbie, but hoping to fall in love with them like everyone else.

i promise to keep you guys updated more frequently now that we are in the home stretch. i’ll be sure to post my NST results on IG if you follow along there. again, thank you all for the love and support during this journey. we are getting close to meeting our little dude and navigating the new road ahead. this anxious momma appreciates the hugs and encouragement.

30 going on 31…weeks

not my age. although, i am recently (ish) 30. i can’t believe it’s November. i can’t believe i am about to be 31 weeks pregnant. i can’t believe we are about to have another baby SO soon. between the holidays and many tasks left to get done around the house, we are going to blink and baby will be here.

in the last week or so, not a whole lot has happened pregnancy wise. i had two appointments, one with my regular OB and one with my perinatologist. i learned a lot of things from these two appointments – basically for the duration of my pregnancy, i will live at the doctor’s office. ugh.

there is a much greater risk of stillbirths with babies that have chromosomal abnormalities and they want to make sure they catch any signs of distress ASAP. so starting at 34 weeks, i will go to the OB once a week for non-stress tests and the perinatologist once a week for biophysical profiles. that’s two appointments a week until i deliver. at any point in time, they could be telling me i need to go in and have this baby. looks like i have to add packing my hospital bag to my list of to-dos in the coming weeks!

other things related to little bug and momming life – our part-time nanny started last week and it has been life changing. the first day went great! i was able to focus on things i needed to do around the house, get myself dressed without having to chase a toddler around while brushing my teeth and even got some work done (gasp!). the second day, Landon realized i wasn’t home and was overly tired which made for a tearful morning. i am hoping this phase will pass as he gets to know her more and by the time little bug is here, he’ll be excited to play with Ms. Mallory. we also picked a pediatrician and it feels great to have that sorted out. i hope my gut is right with this choice and we come to love him as the medical professional protecting our children.

life updates – our first halloween in the new house was a semi-success. i say “semi” because Landon was in a sour mood and was not at all interested in going house to house (i know he’s still young). instead, he just wanted to wander the street and stare at all the big kids in costumes. we also ran out of candy by 7:30 PM, soooooooooo now we know! our neighborhood closes off the street in front of our house so kids can roam safely. it turns into quite the crowd from neighboring streets and two costco size bags of candy just wasn’t going to cut it.

life lessons i have learned this week – i am not alone in my thoughts and feelings. the support from each of you has been incredible and i find comfort in knowing that we are going through a lot of this together. whether related to a baby/child or something totally different, there is a common thread between the struggles. i also learned that while your child is getting their molars, ALWAYS give Motrin at night even when you think they are doing better. the TWO nights i didn’t give L his Motrin, resulted in a 4 AM wake-up (the night before Halloween, so probably why he was cranky) and 3 AM wake-up just a couple nights ago. i am exhausted and definitely coming down with something from the lack of sleep. my goal, more Motrin and take naps 🙂

PS my friends from Cali are coming to visit this weekend to go to their first ever SEC football game. i couldn’t be more excited to visit with them, but also get back up to Athens to cheer on my Bulldogs!

cutest pumpkin in the patch

happy Friday y’all! we are gearing up for a fun, but wet, weekend with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. i was hoping to hit a few fun fall spots, but looks like we will be playing everything by ear due to the weather.

first, i want to say thank you to everyone who read my last post and reached out to me with recommendations and advice on the special needs trust. we are going to figure out some time we can sit down with an expert and really understand what we need to do. now we just have to find that time….

this past week was a busy one, to say the least. Mike was away all week and weekend, so i had to find some things to keep us busy (read distracted) so we didn’t have time to miss him too much. we kicked it off with a trip to the pumpkin patch with my mom, while the rest of the men in the family celebrated my dad’s big 6-0. per usual, i was so excited to take Landon to the pumpkin patch, complete with farm animals, corn maze and hayride. needless to say, he was less than amused and only smiled when his snack cup went “shake shake shake” and he got to walk in the gravel on the way back to the car. typical. here’s a few pictures for proof

equally unimpressed, but snacks are life

we are still in the midst of molar teething, which has resulted in some very trying and tiring days for me. he’s getting better each day and dealing with the pain a little better too.

other things that happened this week – tours and interviews. i am happy to report we hired a part-time nanny and she starts next week! fingers crossed she’s everything we hoped for and Landon takes to her quickly. mama’s gotta work and get things done! we toured two different preschools (we have a third tour lined up for next week). it feels good to get some of these things checked off my list. i also interviewed one pediatrician and have a second one lined up for next week. truthfully, i loved this first pediatrician and would choose him without interviewing anyone else. BUT i want to make sure i am thorough.

i am feeling every bit of 29 weeks pregnant lately. i am currently writing this with a heating pad on my low back because i literally cannot move. probably because i have been going 100 mph and cleaned our entire house yesterday, but it feels good to know it’s done and clean! also, i am happy to report i passed my glucose test (WHOOP WHOOP!) so i can continue to have my bowl of ice cream every night 🙂

it’s crazy that i go back to the OB every 2 weeks now. this means, we are close to the end. woah, woah, woah! slow down. we still don’t have a name, but we did add one more option to our list. we still don’t have anything cleaned out of the nursery, but i did order fun wallpaper for an accent wall (sorry, Mike). we still have no idea what we are doing. we are trying though. after a nice little push to spend time reading again, thanks to my beautiful and talented friend Ashley, i have picked back up with two books. one by Jen Jacob with DSDN and the other by a prominent self-help author who also has a son with Down syndrome. feeling like i can do this a little more than i was feeling yesterday.

still on my to-do list: pick a name, tour the hospital and NICU, pick a pediatrician, clean out the nursery, decorate the nursery, house projects.

NEW on my to-do list: connect with the local Down syndrome chapter, look into Gigi’s playhouse.

enjoy your weekend, friends! we will be spending it with all the Tia and Uncle snuggles for L, another Hawks game, and maybe a couple house projects. we should also carve L’s pumpkin too…. i’ll make sure this is top on the list.

a new season

this week has been another crazy week here at the irr home. we are entering a new season in many ways – a new weather season, a new life season, a new professional season. and all the new seasons are colliding!

at home, we are in a new season of life and homeownership. it’s been a busy week of more appointments and phone calls – calling repairmen, reporting claims for property damage (very minor stuff), buying all the equipment and essentials, and trying to completely unpack a single room (still working on this). we love our home, but man, it’s tough to keep up with it all while simultaneously juggling a toddler and a career that takes a very important member of our team away from us for the majority of the week. oh, did i mention we also have squirrels in our attic? flying squirrels to be exact. and one that managed to find its way into our wall just in time to scare me while Mike was away. hello homeownership and goodbye money! and a big OH, we also have an owl in our backyard. pretty cool, unless you have seen the Michael Peterson Dateline….i’ll just leave it at that…

a new NBA season has officially begun and i am not ready. i am never really ready for the season to begin, but this year really feels like it popped up on us fast. i don’t feel like we really had a summer off (probably because we have been a little busy) and that is draining on us all. it’s also a very strange feeling to be entering a season as the newbies. it was always great to see familiar faces and our NBA family after a summer apart, but now we are those people entering a new team and not really feeling connected at the current moment. i know time will change all of this, but with so many other aspects of life being in transition, it’s tough feeling when we will be spending so much of our time together and away due to the team. i will say i am hopeful! i am grateful to have met a couple incredible women who i know will help ease this transition and also grateful for an organization that really puts a large emphasis on family and support.

a new season of life literally began this week for Mike. we celebrated our favorite guy’s birthday and were lucky to be able to do so with both of our families. in this next year for him, life is really changing and we are embracing the opportunity to get another year together to see what is in store. we checked in with little bug at the perinatologist this week and all is looking great! he is measuring right on target and, other than his heart defect, looking perfectly healthy. thank God. i am now being spaced out 5 weeks between visits unless something changes.

i have been asked several times how i am feeling. physically i am feeling pretty good. i am exhausted, but to be expected. otherwise, pregnancy symptoms are minimal and all is well physically. mentally, i am feeling a bit unsettled. i am feeling unprepared for a second child, any child, let alone a baby with special needs. i am feeling guilty that i have not focused as much on this pregnancy as i did with Landon. i keep putting things off because i have “time” with the pregnancy and these other life matters have been more pressing. it’s officially time for me to stop procrastinating and get focused.

on deck for me this week – call around for interview appointments with pediatricians, focus on the name search (we have one we love, but i want to be 100% certain), look into Gigi’s playhouse in Atlanta, start figuring out what we need for baby #2. i should also start thinking about a design for his nursery… but that might be another week or two before i can really focus on that.

things i am thankful for this week: a healthy toddler, a healthy husband, a healthy baby boy growing inside me. my family, who continuously help us through this transition. Mike’s family who gave me a much needed break this week and helped us with more house items. a roof over our head, even if it’s filled with squirrels. a loving home. and a God who continues to provide for us.

official birthday celebration pic before L’s shirt was stained at dinner…

the waiting weeks

over the next few posts, i will attempt to do my best to get you caught up to the current (almost 22 weeks) stage in my pregnancy. we left off at 14 weeks, so here we go with the following weeks. i call them the waiting weeks.

welcome to the waiting weeks. weeks 14-16 of my pregnancy. they were weeks spent literally in waiting. waiting for more answers to be confirmed by an amniocentesis that could not be performed until week 16 at the earliest.

like i mentioned in the last post, we decided to go through with the amnio to confirm the exact genetic make-up of our baby boy. and again, like i mentioned, the blood test is very accurate in detecting Down syndrome, but not terribly accurate in the sex chromosome detection. given the results of the blood work, we just wanted to be absolutely certain. we were NOT denying that our baby had Down syndrome, but very skeptical that he also had Klinefelters since it’s extremely rare to have both.

back to the waiting weeks. these weeks were interesting. we were both still grieving, but now had to turn our focus (as much as possible) on the immediate need to move cross country.

we had approximately three weeks left on our lease and logistically needed to get things moving as quickly as possible. the tough part, waiting to find out from our moving company when the movers would be able to load our house. fortunately, our move included the packing service, so we were only responsible for packing what we needed for potentially (up to) 90 days. also fortunately, we were planning to move in temporarily with my parents while we house hunted (more on our house hunt later! i promised this blog would be snippets of our life and not only about DS 24/7). these last two blessings made things a little less stressful, but don’t forget we still have our 15 month old to worry about with all the adjustments ahead. move-wise, things were moving (haha) along slowly, but surely. life-wise. that was a different story.

life-wise, we started sharing with our friends that we were moving and it was a mix of emotions. i was not sure how much more i could handle on the emotion front. we made the most incredible friends in Cali. some of the best of our lives. they were more than friends to us. truly, they were family. when you are cross-country from your families and living in a world that revolves around basketball, where holidays really don’t exist, you learn to rely on one another. us women bonded together while our men were on the road or working, literally, seven days a week for 9 months of the year. we became sister-wives of sorts – cooking dinner for each other, holding babies for each other so someone could shower or take the trash out, drinking and laughing together through the long road trips, and checking in on one another when the earthquakes struck (TWICE WHILE HOME ALONE!!!!!). these goodbyes were tough and they barely had enough time to sink in. i cried pretty much the entire flight to Atlanta…and this is honestly not an exaggeration. to our Cali family, i left a piece of my heart there with each of you ❤

down syndrome-wise, i was making connections. i reached out to two “friends of friends” who had walked this path in super awkward texts and emails. i will forever be grateful to both women for being so kind, open, welcoming, non-judgemental and encouraging. you helped me (and continue to) through my mess of emotions and lengthy list of questions. thank you for your patience and thank you for opening my eyes to this beautiful community. we may not have met in person, but i felt less alone in just a few conversations and emails. one of the best pieces of advice i was given at this time was to continue to connect with women and families in our situation.

i was then introduced to the Down Syndrome Diagnosis Network and their private Facebook group for women expecting babies with DS. this support group has been one of the biggest helps in this journey. it’s a safe place for all the questions, worry, ugly feelings, doubt, fears, etc. each of our journeys are different, but one in the same and everyone in that group only wants to help and encourage. it’s the opposite of everything bad you read about the internet and i love it. if you are going through the same journey and have not connected with these women on Facebook, i encourage you to click the link here or on my homepage and get connected. i promise it is worth it. i have spent a lot of my waiting weeks reading the posts in this group and connecting with these women who are all in the same boat. i learned, for me, connecting with the DS community started to get me hopeful and feel excited again about this pregnancy and baby. this was the first sign of my mental/emotional health gaining some strength again.

we finished up the waiting weeks with all our necessities packed away in 6 suitcases awaiting our flight to Atlanta. with only a few days left, we headed in to our appointment with the perinatologist at exactly 16 weeks + 1 day hoping to see a healthy baby and proceed with the amnio.

stay tuned for an update from that appointment and the waiting weeks 2.0 (hint hint)

IRR-32 — photo credit: someplace wild (aka our amazing photographer and 2017 maternity shoot location)

in darkness, there is light

i want to start this post off by first saying thank you for all the love and support you all have shown me over these last few days. i was hesitant to share the last post, but you have shown me grace and i am so grateful for that.

now to go back to the weeks following my last post…

we just received the results of my NIPS blood test (i will touch on this more later) and it was time to start sharing the news of my pregnancy. after all, i was almost 14 weeks pregnant and people would start to notice a belly soon enough. truth was, i was in denial about it all, but mike and i both knew it was time.

Mike jumped right in. he would share the news of our growing family and simultaneously share the challenges we were facing. he may not have shared all the gory details, but from my perspective, it seemed so effortless to him. for me, i was worried and scared. i was afraid of how our families and friends would receive the news. would there be joy like there was with Landon? would we be distanced from friends because our lives were about to be so different, they couldn’t relate? i don’t know why i let this get to me, but it did.

in all the darkness, there was light and it all started when i began to share everything. first with our families, who, while they were heartbroken for our struggles, were the most receptive. each and everyone of them promised to love our next little boy just as much as they love our current one.

second with my friends. all i can say is wow. i never expected to feel so loved and accepted, but i did. not to mention, once i shared what was going on with our sweet baby, my world felt a little a less isolated. one friend had a friend go through the same situation. the next friend had a friend of a friend who walked this journey. and each one of those friends insisted i connect with them. at the time, i was sure if i was ready to do that. after sleeping on it for a couple days, i decided it couldn’t hurt to connect with others. this was the start of more light.

third, with Mike’s job opportunities. God may have thrown us a major curveball, but he was also giving us the tools we needed to help us navigate this new life. the same day we received the blood test results, Mike accepted a new position with the Atlanta Hawks. we were going home. well, my home. this would bring us back to the east coast and close to our families. we would have the support of our families without requiring a cross country flight and major planning.

day to day was still a battle, but there was light and it gave me a sense of hope i had been missing for the last couple weeks. to all our friends and family who sent sweet texts, cards, flowers, ice cream (you know the way to my heart), emails, messages, phone calls, etc., THANK YOU. from the bottom of my heart, thank you for truly making this girl feel loved. we have the most incredible village.

finally, i have to acknowledge my incredible husband for bringing us some light. we have had a blessed marriage, not without its struggles, but this was our first real hurdle. Mike has seen me at my best and at my absolute worst (this might have been it) and has loved me all the way through. he’s been our rock and i know we will come out on top of this.

don’t get me wrong, i was still in tough place. with all the love and support lifting us up, i was starting to see the light.

before i sign off, i want to address the medical side of things. at this point in time, we still did not have a true “diagnosis.” the NIPS is still only a screening test with a small margin of error. the test results were positive for down syndrome and klinefelters syndrome (the sex chromosome abnormality i mentioned in the last post). it is extremely, extremely rare for a baby to have both chromosomal abnormalities. the NIPS test is very accurate for detecting down syndrome, but less accurate for the sex chromosome abnormalities. we decided at this point in time, we would move forward with an amniocentesis to get a diagnosis and potentially rule out the klinefelters. the amniocentesis would have to wait until I was at least 16 weeks pregnant.