When it rains, it pours.

The universe has been excessively kind to our family this past month. To share all of our good news almost feels like bragging, but I'm too inspired to keep it to myself. Where to begin...

Well, let's start with the house. 

We were casually looking. When I say "casually"; picture a swollen, irritable, pregnant elephant placed in a 1200 square foot enclosure with two juvenile gorillas that haven't learned to peel their own bananas yet and add some kind of bear that means well... but is still a bear. That pretty closely describes our current living situation. We are coexisting... for now. 

How "casually" would you be looking? When shopping for a home you have your needs and your wants. The first home we looked at had a few cosmetic turn-offs and was at the very top of our price range, but it ultimately had both all of our wants and all of our needs. It is a place where I could immediately picture our family as a whole and each individual on their own being very happy. A key ingredient in the equation is that the Florida school system is struggling and this house would keep our children zoned for the A-rated neighborhood school that our older son currently attends. We had applied to the Gifted Magnet school for both boys next year but acceptance announcements wouldn't be made for another six weeks or so. We arbitrarily went through the rest of the homes on the agenda that night but I could tell by the twinkle in those dashing blue eyes that Big B was thinking the same thing I was: we'd already found "the house" for our family. I'm sure the twinkle was related to the visions of the bar he's always wanted to build around a pool more than the school zoning, but, hey. He's earned it. So we made an offer that night. The seller wanted to close within 30 days. Hmph. Surprisingly our bank said we could make it happen. 

Fast forward a week. It's a girl! We had our mid-pregnancy scan where our little girl refused to show us her precious face but was glad to give us all of the "potty shots" we wanted. When we asked the boys if they wanted to take a peek at their little sister, B said "Sure!" and C said "No, I want to see my little brother." Pretty typical of their personalities. Having been through a butt load of these things over the years, I was confident in my assertions that she was tall-ish, active-ish, had the notably large head of her people, and was, in fact, a she. That's the extent of my medical expertise. We went on and spread the word to our family.

Wow. A daughter. I've never had one of those. Big B wanted a baby girl, but I hadn't given it much thought. I didn't not want one, I just hadn't assigned a gender to this baby. The flood of elation and excitement hit me in waves over the next few hours. A daughter. The fear that she might someday be 6'3" hit me as well, but Big B talked me off the ledge about that one. He assured me that we'll make certain she knows every inch of her is beautiful no matter how cruel those nasty, smelly, pimply, squeaky little things we know as "adolescent boys" will be to her. So, we got through that crisis and were about to kick off a family birthday weekend when I got a very casual (and cavalier if you ask me) phone call from my doctor that went like this. The sonographer had seen some markers on our scan earlier and I would need to follow up with a perinatologist. When do I need to go? Immediately. It's 4:00pm on a Friday, when will they see me? We'll call you back on Monday. Can you tell me what these markers were? <Insert medical jargon that I wasn't meant to understand>. I have noted that you have not had xyz testing done and recommend that you have it done as quickly as possible so that we can forward it to the perinatologist. Have a nice weekend, try not to panic. 

Clearly, this woman does not know me. 

We did have a great weekend celebrating C's 5th birthday, my 32nd and the fact that we were going to have a little lady in our lives. We went out and bought our pink stuff and I ate my feelings. I do that. Whether I'm happy or sad, angry or delighted, they all taste the same. After some fumbling with the referral and scheduling process, we were finally able to see the perinatologist ten long days later. I was so relieved to have gotten there because I was sure the waiting had been the worst part and we'd get the all-clear and move on. Well, we didn't get bad news... but we didn't get good news either. Our daughter had two abnormalities that indicated she might have a trisomy. The most fearful trisomy did not seem likely based on some features that she clearly did not exhibit and some low risk screening results that my blood had produced. If we recalculated my risk factors based on the additional findings, it wasn't as conclusive for additional trisomies. We opted to have genetic testing to determine what we were up against because we had such a small window to make a life-changing decision. 

No, not *that* decision. My heart breaks for people who have to make *that* decision. Fortunately, Big B and I share a faith that takes that burden away from us. We wanted this baby. This baby did not come to us easily. We went to extremes to have this baby. She was the baby we were meant to have in our lives, no matter what challenges she brought with her. 

One of the first things every parent thinks, I'm sure: would she somehow hinder her brothers' lives with the possibility that she'd have special needs? That question entered my mind once and my heart immediately and proudly answered it. We have never raised our sons to think that any life was inconvenient or secondary to theirs. There is no human on this earth that has less value than them, whether she is under our roof or oceans away in a third world country we will never see. That was the last thought I would give to that concern. 

The decision we needed to make brings us back to the house. 

We were under contract with less than a week until closing. It's within our budget, but it's at the top of our budget. Our budget requires two incomes. What if this little girl needs constant care? What if one of us can't work in order to provide that care? What do we do? Do we exit the contract? 

No. This is the house that we all deserve. We will never not work. Ever. There are so many wonderful resources that are available to us through our healthcare plan, the military community, the special needs community. Our daughter will be well cared for, no matter what needs she might have. 

This is the house where she deserves to be thrown in the pool by her obnoxious older brothers, the cul de sac where she deserves to have her training wheels removed, where they'll all fight over the bathroom. This is what we all deserve. These are the tiles that I deserve to delegate sweeping of, this is the yard that I get to watch my kids mow while I have a margarita. This is the shed where C will build his time machine and the yard where B will hold his QB training camp.

Here we are.

Last Friday, we got the notification that our sons have both been accepted into the Gifted Magnet school for next year. 

Monday, we got the genetics results back from the perinatologist that, with 99.1% accuracy, our daughter is chromosomally normal. Her odds at being socially normal are iffy at best based on the family she is coming into, but that's the great gamble of life. We will continue to see the specialist to monitor the potential issues that were identified in her screening, but the most likely outcome is that they will resolve before she is born. Let's chalk it up to the fact that we know way too much these days and it is a constant cause for panic. I have learned so much about myself, my marriage and my family in these last two weeks and have such a profound renewed respect for why I have been put on this earth.

Last night, we closed on "the house". 

This weekend we celebrate Easter. Life is good.