Handle with Care

A friend of mine gave me a bag full of books. I really love to read but books can get really expensive especially since you only read them really once maybe twice if it's really good.

It takes me a while to read a book because I get busy with a lot of things and then at night I can get about a chapter or two {if its short} before I fall asleep. In college I realized that I cannot lay down and try to read or do homework, 90% of the time I would fall asleep, book open, pencil in hand. I have to be sitting up or in a chair in order to read for lengths at time.

My first book I picked of the bunch with a Jodi Picoult novel, same novelist who wrote My Sister's Keeper. She writes these pull on your heart string novels that give you different character perspectives of the up front issue but also more of a behind the scenes look into a families life. I started reading Handle With Care the end of September and have about a quarter left to read. The book is about a family with has a child, Willow, with osteogenesis imperfecta and the harsh realities they have had to face with this disease where the child could bump into a table or slip on the floor and break a bone. The family is presented with the ability to file a lawsuit against her OB-GYN who is also the mom's best friend. She talks about the issues the family has faced, the scrutinizing from everyone and how this trial has torn the family apart.

One of my favorite parts in the book was one with Willow and her mom...

"You don't have to say I love you to say I love you," you said with a shrug. "All you have to do it say my name and I know."
"How?"
When I look down at you, I was struck by how much of myself I could see in the shape of your eyes, in the light of you smile, "Say Cassidy, " you instructed. "Cassidy."
"Say...Ursula."
"Ursula," I parroted.
"Now...," and you pointed to your own chest.
"Willow"
"Willow"
"Can't you hear it?" you said. "when you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth."

The hardest question that gets raised is if the parents would of terminated the pregnancy if they would have known what they know now.

I can't imagine that thought. Obviously we don't have children yet but we have been thinking about starting one in the near future. I really don't know what we would do if that was us in that situation. I know the realities of having a child with disabilities, not that I've seen it first hand, but I've been around it and heard about it to know. My mom works with children in public schools that have some sort of disability one way or another. Some of them are more drastic and others are smaller but still there. Some things are preventable, you make sure you take your vitamins, no drinking or smoking, but some things you can't predict and are left with this choice whether it be at birth or later in life.

There was a boy that my mom worked with that was delivery newspapers one morning, step out behind a vehicle and a car hit him, paralyzing him or the boy that was test driving a car and went full speed ahead into a telephone poll. Yes, it's amazing that they lived through these ordeals but it also puts things into perspective. I was reading blogs on Thursday night and came across this one about a mom and her child who was born with a rare skin disease, Epidermolysis Bullosa, where anytime something touched his skin, a blister forms. My heart stopped when I read her story about her "perfect pregnancy" and "perfect delivery" only to be shocked moments after the delivery of her beautiful baby boy who has this incurable disease. THis little boy by the age of 2, has faced with the "trach in her babies throat, the feeding tube, the corneal abrasions and eventually losing his vision, the mouth sores, constant infections,  etc etc.". Until reading about this, I never had heard of this disease and am blessed that I clicked on this and read more about it. My heart truly goes out to her and her family and other families that have these disease.

I know I like to think of ourselves as immune to such things but the reality is whether it's us or a friend or a family member we will be know someone who has something {the wrong word to put there but it works for now}. This world isn't perfect as much as we would like it to be and I truly understand when someone says that they just want their baby to be healthy because that is more important than anything else. It's weird how all of a sudden I can understand that thought whereas before I thought it was just something every mom- or dad-to-be says.

Extra personal thoughts
I don't want to/can't think about these things and I don't think anyone should until you are presented with things. I think we just need to take the right precautions and do everything that we can to ensure the baby we bring into the world will be healthy and take things one at a time. Brian and I need to start to take better take of ourselves, not that we are over weight or eat crap, smoke or drink all of the time, but I think it's more about being cautious and in-tune with our bodies. I think it's us staying less on the couch and in front of the TV and being more active. I think it's more about the two of us and building a stronger relationship and bond for whatever the future holds. Now more than ever I've been thinking about our future and where we want to be and go, it's weird how life can change like that as we grow older. Plans can change but I think it's having that foundation of what you want that make it's important. Our worst fear is that we can't have babies, I know isn't what we should be thinking about it, but is a percentage of the reason why we want to start trying. That "what if" presents itself again, it's hard to get away from it...