18-20 DS Awareness Month

October 18

 Sofia found a friend to keep her amused during Sabrina's Bat Mitzvah.

October 19

Too tired for a lengthy 31 for 21 post today. Sofia had a lot of fun at the Bat Mitzvah this weekend - as yesterday's photo shows, she spent much of the service sitting in another room tossing her bean-bag lizard around with friends. When you have someone with Special Needs in your family, sometimes you have to get creative with how you manage your activities.
She had fun at the evening party, but then she got SO tired. We managed to find a handy 12 year old babysitter, so David was able to come back to the party after taking her home.

 October 20: Sofia's Birth Story

As I mentioned in a previous post, once we knew that Sofia would be "Chromosomally Enhanced" we shifted our prenatal care into Boston. Besides the three fetal echocardiograms, we had lots of checkups and ultrasounds. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with a pregnancy if the fetus has Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). So we were very delighted to be able to have excellent care.

I spent the last few months of the pregnancy getting ready, and that included making sure everyone else had all their checkups done. I let the boys' Ear, Nose & Throat specialist know that Sofia was coming (and asked if we would get discount on the third set of ear tubes - turns out Sofia was my only child who did NOT need them!).

In early February, the doctor led me to believe that he would induce me early. But then David and I went for an appointment on February 17, and the doc assured us he would let the baby stay in as long as possible. This was only week 36.

So David and I drove home from Boston, and went directly to Toyota to order the minivan - one of the final items on our list. After that and a quick bite to eat, David dropped me off at shul for my Me'ah Graduate Institute Class, and then he went home to see the boys.

And then my water broke!

So David got the babysitter to come back, picked me up at shul and we high-tailed it back to Boston. Sofia was born at 4:44 am, after only a few pushes (my babies come out quick!).

And then I laughingly "yelled" at the doctor for telling me I still had a few weeks to go.