Sophie's Playground & Q & AI have had several inquiries about Sophie's Playground so here are the pictures I promised. I had fund raisers, friends and family generously donated in lieu of flowers at her funeral and we constructed it ourselves to make it happen. It was completed 5 months after she passed away....record time for a church project of this magnitude! I have never worked so hard to make something come to fruition as I did this playground. It is one of the things I am most proud of in my life and nothing outside of Landry's smile makes me happier than seeing children having a ball on it.
I have been asked a few questions that I am going to answer here.
1. Genetics---Mike and I had to go through a battery of genetics testing to see if we were at an increased risk for another child to be born with DS. We did and we both came out negative. Her condition was a spontaneous genetic mutation and could have happened to anyone. The process and the wait period was grueling and quite nerve wracking.
2. It took us 10 months to get pregnant. It seemed like an eternity since Sophie was the one shot wonder...okay that sounds pretty bad but it is accurate. We got pregnant the day after we came home from our honeymoon....on the first try.
3. The picture on the blog of her has been remastered. Digital Imaging Group did it for me because she was pretty beat up after she was born. I labored for 11 hours and finally delivered her at 5:59 a.m. (yes, I had to deliver her and she had already passed away). She had some marks on her face and her lips were very dark. They worked their magic and cleaned her up. The first time I saw the picture I almost fainted. It was a moment I will never forget. I think they did an amazing job.
4. We went to Vietnam and I came home and found out I was 7 weeks pregnant. I was so nauseated the whole time I was there but I thought it was because of the food and the smells. My friend Tracey came over the afternoon I got home and she said I was green. Very green. I took two pregnancy tests that day and Mike and I just couldn't believe it. We had actually stopped trying so we could go on this trip. God had other plans! I am glad I didn't know before I went because I probably wouldn't have gone to a third world country not knowing what to expect. Now that I have been there, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. It is a spectacular place to visit.
5. Bella still loves Landry...she just looks at her sometimes like 'Are you STILL here?!.'
I think that wraps up most of the questions I have received...let me know if you need more dirt :)
4 comments:
wow, the playground is HUGE!!!! what a wonderful way to honor sophie's sweet life. your photo of her is so sweet, she doesn't even look like she had DS. we did the testing while i was still pregnant with hope to find out what other issues she would have with her organ defects... we opted not to do the amnio with this one though... was that something you and mike had to sort through as far as testing with landry to know if she also would have DS or was that something you did not even venture to find out?
I am always honored when people turn pain into beauty. Thank you for reaching out to people, sharing your story, and being an example of hope. Blessings to you and congrats on Sophie's playground. She has a wonderful family.
Wow! Thank you for the kind words...
Mike here....we did not do amnio, but we did do the AFP test with Landry. Our line of thinking with the AFP was that taking the test was the only way that we would have some measure of comfort. If we did not do the test, we would be worried during the whole pregnancy. If we got a result suggesting DS, we were going to worry as well, so we rolled the dice and got a definitive result saying no DS, which helped give us some measure of comfort for the rest of the pregnancy - certainly not total comfort. Since the AFP posed no risk, we decided to go for it....I think instead of being on a million pins and needles, we were only on half a million. Through it all, Renee was a champ, and much less nervous than I was.
Post a Comment