Come Play!

This morning, Raquel's babbling woke me at 4:15am. Ever since we got her the new bed, she has been consistently sleeping until atleast 6:30am, so I was very surprised to hear her awake so early. As soon as I cracked open her door, I was greeted with a very animated, "Mama! Come play!" Even though it was shortly after 4am, I've got to say that Raquel has this smile that melts my heart, and, although I knew that both of us needed our sleep, I caved in and layed on her bed, where I was immediately smothered with hugs and kisses. We didn't play, though. I just wanted some one-on-one time with her, and, after about 30 minutes, she fell right back to sleep.

But I didn't. I was dreaming of coffee by then. And then my mind started the usual racing and something popped in that I wasn't really expecting: a comment in Raquel's final medical evaluation done at Regional. The doctor was great, very encouraging, and says in her report that:

"Raquel is a beautiful little girl with no dysmorphic features" and that "she has generalized developmental delays of unclear etiology."

She goes on to say regarding family history: "Raquel has a 6-year old sister who is healthy and normal developmentally. Raquel's mother lost a pregnancy at 24-weeks secondary to Trisomy 18 in the fetus. She also had two other miscarriages."

The part that popped into my head was her little side note where she said: "It should be noted that Raquel's mother was offered an amniocentesis during her pregnancy but declined, so no genetic testing has been done."

I don't know why that bothered me this morning, but it did. True - I did refuse amnio, but only because of the risks of it causing a miscarriage. I was under the care and guidance of a fabulous OB-GYN (who always makes me want to have another baby whenever I see her!), and I did have a very intensive ultrasound outside of my OB-GYN, where they were able to see all of her organs in high definition and confirm that everything was working the way it should and where it was supposed to be.

But then I started to really think about the comment. How is it relevant that I declined the procedure? What if I would have agreed to the amnio and found out something was wrong? Would that have changed anything? Absolutely not! I'm a big believer in not getting more than you can handle, even though that's questionable at times. But spending 4am with Raquel this morning just confirmed how special she is and how thankful I am to have her as my daughter.