I sat in Channing's NICU room. Room 21. I got the results of her MRI and our lives were forever changed for the third time in 3 months. I never in my life had so many contrasting emotions welling up in my body at the same time. The MRI results didn't close the chapter on our NICU experience but it gave us one thing that we were stripped of from the beginning. HOPE! We had hope that someday Channing would walk and talk and play and reason. MOST importantly that she would live. I had prepared myself for the worst. I genuinely believed that Channing had HPE and the other (potentially) fatal brain defect. Even though the Dr. told us that TWO defects would be INCREDIBLY rare. I just thought "why wouldn't she have both? everything else has gone wrong". Mentally, I had prepared myself for so many possibilities. One being a funeral. Then I got those results and everything was different in an instant. The light was let in.
Today, Channing is great. She is on the cusp of walking and talking and she's getting to be so fun. She has us all wrapped around her finger. Her personality is definitely shining through these days. She's very demanding and knows what she wants. She doesn't take no for an answer. She loves to read books. She loves being tickled. She loves her grandparents something crazy! She's got a sibling rivalry thing going on with Truckie that's pretty cute. He picks up a toy, she wants that toy, she takes that toy from him. Then she waves it in his face. Luckily, Truck is a good sport about it all.
Today, I'm a really good. I don't cry like I used to, thinking about those days. Ok ok, I don't cry as much. Having those feelings and flashbacks randomly sneak up on me. My PTSD is slowly fading. I don't feel sorry for us. Actually I don't know if I felt sorry but I was mad for a while. I'm not mad anymore. We have an amazing life and yeah people have sucky things happen to them. I have to tell myself "Big deal! Get over it! Could be a lot worse" I'm definitely not at the point where I feel 'better for having gone through this'. I don't think I'll ever say that and I'll probably always be a little sad about the way things happened.
But I think that's okay too.
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