White Flag

I am wrestling with some angel inside myself, and finding myself ready to surrender.

I've always been an info gal: gotta know! We did a CVS with Pedro and Archer without doing any other tests first: we just wanted to know for sure if anything was wrong, and we chose CVS instead of the less risky Amnio because we were planning to be on our cross-country trip during our Amnio window. I could just scream when I think now of how blithe we were, and how we tried to micro-manage everything, really believing that we could. Now, here I sit with statistics for downs syndrome that, while certainly not bad, are far from comforting, sitting right on the cusp of a positive test, a red flag. I can chose to know for sure, and take the higher risk involved with amnio for twins, piercing my uterus twice when we are working so hard to keep it calm and non-contracting. And then if (pu-pu) we find that one of our girls has downs, take the 5-10% risk that in terminating one twin we lose them both.

Or, I can surrender. I can say, "99.7% is a really good chance that nothing is wrong. I'm going to have faith in that, and if one of them has downs, then Bruno and I will be really really upset, and then we will suck it up and learn all the lessons and blessings in raising a downs child. And her sibling will also find her way to learn and grow from it.

"But", my mind screams, "this is not who I am at all!!! I am a gal who needs to know!! I need to manage!! I don't want my life changed by a special needs child!!" Except, my heart seems ready to surrender. It doesn't want to take any more risks of pregnancy loss. It doesn't want to need to know that last 3/10ths of a percent. It wants to lean back into the pillows and stay calm and see what happens next. And I am going through the stretching and tearing and growing pains of expanding into that new person.