All those pregnancies are making me think!

No no…. I am not thinking about having another baby. Emily will be 15 in 2 weeks….. I am done!

Seeing my friends get pregnant and seeing their babies reminds me of my pregnancy.

We wanted a baby and tried for a couple of months before we got a positive result. We were sooo excited and Jon told everybody he knew way before the safe time… You know the so many weeks you should be waiting for before you tell… 🙂

Quite early in this process I ended-up at the hospital with major cramps, because of the pregnancy, we had ultra-sounds done and the hospital staff was ready to terminate it all as they couldn’t see the fetus in my uterus. They assumed it was in one of my fallopian tube. They couldn’t see it anywhere but the bloodwork said I was pregnant. That day I learned that we were probably a good 3 weeks less advanced than we though.

I told the doctors that until they could prove that my life was in danger, they were not going to terminate my pregnancy. We scheduled a follow-up ultra-sound…

2nd ultra-sound! – they can see the fetus in the uterus but their is no “c.f.” ….. don’t you like it when doctors are talking about you but don’t want you to understand??? So, I asked, what’s a “c.f.”? The conversation was in French at the time and a c.f. stands for coeur foetal… my fetus’ heart…

From the previous ultra-sound, we knew I was at least 3 weeks behind the original delivery date but it wasn’t changed anywhere… so again I asked, is it possible that it is not formed yet? The answer was yes but we shouldn’t take a chance, we should terminate your pregnancy…. Wait what??? No!!!…. We should not terminate anything…. we should schedule another ultra-sound and see if the c.f. is there …

3rd ultra-sound! – here it is…. my fetus is in my uterus and has a tiny beating heart!

What a relief! We were so happy!

Emily arrived a couple of weeks early when comparing to my original delivery date but when factoring in all the ultra-sound, she was born at least 5 weeks early and she was really tiny (5lbs 6oz). Should my delivery date had been changed, we would have been transferred to another hospital, Emily would have been considered premie… Maybe she would have been diagnosed there…. But that didn’t happened…. we were sent home with our perfect little baby!!!!

The rest is history.

Fast forward a couple of months after Emily was diagnosed…

Someone at work had the …. audacity??? to ask me if I regretted not letting the doctors terminate my pregnancy at the beginning when I had all those ultra-sounds going on…

I can’t remember exactly what I said but it must have been something like …. WTF??? You did not just ask me that….? Emily is the love of my life regardless of what is going on now!

Even in my sleepless full of stress state of mind, I never one second thought I should have terminated my pregnancy. I am not opposed to terminating a pregnancy under certain circumstances… I think it is a decision to be taken between you, your spouse and your consciences…..

At that time, Emily had already taught me the importance of love, care, patience, repetition, …. and more! She had taught me to slow down and not turn into a workaholic…. she had taught me that a cuddle is worth more than anything….

How can someone felt it was ok to ask something like that?

How would you have answered that question?

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Introduction to Cri du Chat Syndrome

A month ago, I shared the Cri du chat awareness video with Emily’s resource teacher.

Emily appears in this video 4 times which, to her, is the equivalent of being a movie star!

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Since she was little, I have allowed Emily to make her own decisions.  I have allowed her to fall, to get hurt sometimes, to taste vinegar and lemon juice…..  but most importantly, I have allowed her to learn how to make a decision!

Within a couple of days of us having the awareness video, she told me she wanted to present it to her class….

Wow!!!

I didn’t see that one coming.

Emily knows she has a rare syndrome, she knows she is different and she knows that different is awesome because normal is boring!!!  🙂

Sometimes, she is sad about being different… she wants friends and a boyfriend but quickly she’s back being her happy self…

Emily, to my knowledge, has never talked about her syndrome at school.

Where we live, kids with special needs are included in regular class.  This means Emily is in a regular 8th grade class…  the kids obviously know she is different but I have no idea if they know how much she’s achieved in her life.

Around the same time as Emily decided she wanted to share the video with her class, she was assigned an ELA (English Language Art) project and decided to make it about her syndrome.  She  decided to make a brochure about the 2013 conference in New York City.  We printed all the materials that was available to us and sent it to school with her.  She worked with her EA (Educational Assistant) on building a brochure.

Yesterday, there was a note in Emily’s communication book, her presentation date is June 12th 8:30am and she will introduce the awareness video before talking about her diagnosis and her upcoming trip to NYC, including the conference!

I am so nervous right now!

I will be there, I will try to the best of my abilities to make a video of Emily standing in front of her classmates and talk about herself, her syndrome, her reality!!!

I will be there for her if she gets questions that she can’t handle…  I will be there for her regardless of how it goes…

Remember my public speaking post…..?  How scared I was…. this tops it!  This is beyond anything I ever though I would see one day!  Between now and June 12th at 8:30am… I have to reach into my drama class experience once again and act as if everything is fine…. as if I am not nervous about this new adventure…

I am not afraid that she will not do well, I am worried about her classmates reactions…

Please send positive energy our way so those 14 year old react like friends to Emily’s efforts and achievements…

Would let your child open up like that to their classmates?

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