10 Weeks

Jen tried playing with Zoe a little yesterday, which elicited some crabbiness and a few big smiles.

Where are we going? Where is this 10 week old developmentally? What can she see? What is she thinking? Trisomy 18 babies are prone to hearing and vision problems. We're going to revise the hospital's grave diagnosis of no hearing. Zoe can hear. Ethan cut his knee hurting today and was wailing the wail of the four year old with a skin wound. Zoe woke up.

There are stories of Trisomy18 babies making it past the sixth month. There aren't similar stories about babies with tetralogy of fallot - Zoe's heart condition - making it very long. The cardiologist had told us before Zoe's birth that in studies done on 3rd World countries of children who had tetralogy of fallot, none had survived past the 2nd or third year.

Ever since we ordered the oxygen machine, it has sat in the corner, mostly unused. Zoe hates it. It might have been aversion therapy for her, because as long as its been here, her breathing has been better.

Miracle baby? What is a miracle? Today's miracle was that in the above story, where Ethan was wailing, Zoe was in a bouncy seat. That's right, Jen got to put her down for a few minutes. Maybe Zoe is getting old enough to allow her mom a few minutes of movement without holding her? Maybe.

At ten weeks, we can turn our eyes and thoughts to tonight's meal and Kellen's birthday. A lawnmower grinds a welcome sound and smell into the morning air. Puffy clouds flit across the sky and boats rocket and float outside my back window. Elise is pushing Ethan in a doll baby stroller. He has a tube in his mouth that he says is to help him breathing. I guess our homelife isn't all that normal. But it never was.