Elliot is a typical 2 year old boy. He loves cars, cows, legos, playing outside, cuddling and Mickey Mouse. If you know Elliot at all, you know that he loves cows and once he sees one, he can't stop talking about them. He talks about them, he'll tell you what they say, and he'll tell you he is one. One of my favorite Elliot moments was when he was playing horsey with his dad. While on his dad's back and he looks at me and says "Mom, I'm a cow!" I said, "No, you're a cowboy." "No Mom, I'm a cow"
He just loves cows.
Elliot is just about 2 1/2 and what a fun age. All the normal milestones are new to us, since James doesn't meet the typical milestones. He talks a mile a minute in his own language and no one has a clue what he's saying. Every once in awhile we can pick a couple words like mom, daddy, cow, car, Mickey and shoes.
Being pregnant with Elliot wasn't the easiest thing I've done, but I would do it again in heartbeat. Warning: if you're squeamish, stop reading here. One of the first things I had to do was get a cervical cerclage. The reason James was born premature is because I have and incompetent cervix, meaning that as the baby grows and gains weight, my cervix can't handle the weight and will start to funnel, thin, and dilate on it's own. So, a cervical cerclage it was. The plan was to give me spinal block but of course that didn't work so general anesthesia it was. When I woke up there was a substantial amount of pain that I wasn't expecting. All the procedure really is, is putting stitches (with super strong string) keeping my cervix closed. So I wasn't really expecting any pain, stitches aren't too big of a deal. Well after resting for a couple of the days the pain went away and all was back to normal. Part of getting the cerclage was having an ultrasound before the procedure to verify dates and after the procedure to check the cerclage. So as planned we had an ultrasound at 14 weeks to check on the cerclage. Per our usual, something was amiss. There was an area behind the neck that was collecting extra fluid. That can be an indication of Down Syndrome, or other chromosomal abnormalities like Turner Syndrome or Edwards Syndrome. Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with Down Syndrome. Turner Syndrome affects mostly girls and I believe they have some developmental delays and and are infertile. Edwards Syndrome, Trisomy 18, was the scariest. Most of these children don't survive the pregnancy and the ones that do-most die by their first birthday and they have extreme mental retardation. Trisomy 18 spent a little time in the news lately-Rick Santorum who was running for the Republican Party candidacy has a 3 year old daughter with Trisomy 18. All I have to say is AMAZING. She's beat so many odds by making it so far, but she does have many medical complications. Anyway after the ultrasound we were given some options. We could do nothing and see what happened or we could have an amniocentesis at15 weeks to have chromosome testing done.
I decided I needed to know and so for the next week I was on pins and needles. The amnio went well with no complications-odd sensation though. Then it was on to more waiting. I think it was about 2 weeks later that we got the results, they were normal.
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