A year of remembering to breathe

Today is full of mixed emotions. It has been exactly one year since my husband and I sat in that doctors office at the Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan. It was Ben's first time seeing the baby and we were excited to learn the sex and hear the heartbeat together. After long moments of silence and questions unanswered the tech went to go get the doctor. As they looked at each other knowingly the tears began to fall. Everything after that was a blur and the drive home was heartbreaking. We couldn't remember exactly what the term was, we just knew it started with an E and we were being advised to terminate..to kill our unborn baby. My dearest friend was there for us the moment we got home and as Ben explained the diagnosis to her she held me close and we both cried. I love you Nicole, I will never be able to thank you enough for being so amazing and so helpful to us during those first difficult months with the new diagnosis and all of the moving...you are incredible. Today I mourn for what could have been, what should have been, but rejoice for what IS. Though we've had a long hard road to reach this point, I wouldn't have changed a thing. We have met so many wonderful people and grown so much as both a couple and individuals. I have given life to a miracle and she is thriving! She is doing things at her pace and progressing everyday. I look at babies Naysa's age who are standing and crawling, sitting up unsupported like it's second nature while I watch her struggle and it breaks my heart. Then I put aside my self pity and look deeper, she is ALIVE! She is smiling and giggling and bringing much needed hope and joy to the world as a whole. She has touched the lives of people in the US, Scotland, UK, Ireland, Japan..honestly everywhere! She is 7 months old and famous ;) A year ago everything was so uncertain, with every feeling of hope was a feeling of fear. I couldn't have one without the other. As my belly grew so did my anxiety but so did my faith. We carried our baby despite the odds, as hard as it was and sometimes still is to accept, God chose this. I don't care how skeptical you are of God or higher powers, you can't look into those ocean blue eyes and tell me she wasn't put here for a reason, just the way she is. So while today may be a bi-polar day for me, all I have to do is soak up her every smile, rejoice in her every babble and it's all worth it.