It's one of those days

Where I feel like some people just don't understand the importance of helping others.. even if you don't have money, you always have faith. Wishing there was more that I could do for the orphans overseas, and wishing I could give e-v a big hug and tell her how much I love her and how much she means to me.

More soon,
Savana

The hardest part

I was filled with such excitement and joy to find out that my sister was healthy and finally here. Being the impatient italian girl that I am, I wanted to see her right away; the pictures from the camera weren't enough for me! When I got to finally see her, it definitely wasn't what I expected. I had always had the image of mother's laying in their hospital beds with their babies at their side, but e-v was born with some fluid in her lungs and they had to run tests so off they took her to an incubator. I was so nervous walking in there to see her. It was such a lengthy procedure making sure your hands were scrubbed to perfection, not touching certain things. Here I am all excited to hold my baby sister and to my surprise the closest I could get was watching her in this plastic cube. She was so chubby and cute. Being in that room made me so sad, all of the babies in there that were so small, alarms going off over their incubators. Even though I could only look at her, I wanted her to know how much I loved her. I wanted her to be able to come home. Before I knew it, visiting time was up and it was time to go back home. It felt so weird having to leave her and my mom behind at the hospital, but it was comforting to know they were in the best care. My aunt and I went up there throughout the next week as much as we could, anxiously awaiting the moment they would say she could come home. Finally, that thursday, I got a call from my mom saying I could come pick them up! I had just started driving, so I was incredibly nervous to go by myself on the highway, so I called my boyfriend Remi and up we went. This was the first time he would meet e-v, so I was beyond excited. We made it to the hospital in record time, and tried to cram 4 people and a baby seat into my moms incredibly small vw cabrio. When we got home I fell in love. I was finally able to hold her, but I was still nervous because I wasn't used to it. I quickly became a natural ;) We had to be so careful about who we let come over, always making sure everyone's hands were washed and sanitized, no traces of a cold, even just a sneeze wouldn't be chanced. Her test results came in at last and it was confirmed that she had down syndrome. To me, she was the most beautiful baby in the world. What really sticks out to me after that was doctors appointments upon doctors appointments. But in the end, two of the holes in her heart had closed up and the third was very small, everything else seemed fine, and we could finally take a minute to just relax and enjoy her. That was the best part. All of the stress we had gone through, all of the uncertainty, bettered us as a family, as people. Down syndrome wasn't something we had really heard of or thought about until e-v came to us. She opened our hearts and she opened our minds. I'll always be thankful for that.

More soon,
Savana

The Beginning

This post will be a long one.

For the first 17 years of my life, I was an only child. So when my mom came to me and said she had a surprise, the last thing I thought was that it was a sibling. I was shocked to say the least. I had always imagined what it would have been like to have someone else always there, to have someone looking over you or someone to look over. Most, if not all of my friends had siblings, of which I was always envious. When I got the news I was thrilled! Especially being the first person to find out. On our way to the first ultrasound my mother and I were thinking of ways to tell everyone about the great news. All that was running through my mind was what it would be like to finally have a sibling. I was hoping it was a girl, so I could dress her and do her hair. I dreamed about being able to teach her things about life, about boys. We arrived and of course as the doctor called us in he figured it was me that was pregnant. What a self esteem boost! lol. Everything had checked out and seemed fine, we left ecstatic. Probably got some ice cream, that used to be a ritual of my mother and I.  We found out it was a girl, I was so excited to help pick out a name. My mom and my stepdad decided on E-V. I wasn't thrilled, I told my mom over and over it sounded too hippyish and when she grew up she was going to be mad at her for the name :p but they were relentless, so E-V it was. Everything seemed great, until my mom got a call with concern about "hydrops", which we looked up and found to be too much fluid in certain places in the baby. They said it was usually a sign of Down Syndrome, which at the time we knew nothing about and hadn't even really thought about the fact that anything could be wrong. We were scared, we were sad. For most of my life it had just been me and my mom roughing things out, and seeing her upset was a rarity. It's one of the worst feelings in the world to see your parent so upset and not be able to do something for her. Months went by, as well as multiple doctors appointments. A lot of them consisted of me waiting anxiously outside the door for good news, which rarely came. If it wasn't a doctor trying to get my mom to terminate, it was a doctor telling her something wasn't going right. There were holes in her heart. Her bones weren't developing correctly. There was too much fluid. There wasn't enough fluid. The holes had gone away and now they're back. It was a seemingly never ending stream of bad news, of stress. I had only told my best friends and my boyfriend about my moms pregnancy. My mom and I were afraid to tell too many people, because we had no clue what the outcome would be. Doctors had said everything from her possibly having down syndrome all the way to being a vegetable stuck in a wheel chair for the rest of her life to being stillborn. No one could give us any answers, things were very dismal. We did everything we could think of. We went to church, something we hadn't done in years. I found myself praying every night. Asking my grandparents to pray for us. Finally, the day of my moms c section came. My moms best friends, my aunts and uncles, and I kissed my mom goodbye and said a prayer. We went down to the lobby, where the only thing we could do was wait. That was one of the longest days of my life. My aunt and I took a walk around the hospital, trying to keep our thoughts on positive things. We went downstairs where they were having a jewelry sale; this was the one time I wasn't interested. She picked up a necklace, and put it around my neck. It was a penny, for luck. It was in that moment that I realized how bad I wanted this, a beautiful little sister. We went back upstairs to the waiting area and my stepdad came down the stairs. Those 10 seconds stretched on for what seemed like hours. My heart was racing, as well as my thoughts. He pulled out the birth certificate with her little prints on them and everyone went wild. We were jumping around, crying and hugging. The other people waiting must have thought we were the craziest people they had ever seen but I didn't care because it was the happiest day of my life. 

More soon,
Savana