Just Your Average Pool Baby

Jude loves the pool. The first time we bought her she fell asleep as we walked her gently in the lap pool. The second time I brought her, she played. She splashed. She kicked her legs. She laughed and blew raspberries. I wasn't surprised. All the beasties have loved water. As I swished her around, we drew a lot of attention from the kids around us (R insisted we stay in the kiddie pool).

"Your baby is so cute!" two little Hispanic girls told me as Jude stuck her tongue out them.

"I like how she sticks out her tongue!" one girl laughed. Then "Are you from Mexico?"

Another little girl, white this time, jumped into next to us and said "I like your baby. Where are you from?" 

I found myself bemused that these children did not notice that Jude had Ds but did notice that she looks brown and I'm white.  And I found myself relaxing for the first time in a long while. Kids, who have a tendency to just blurt out whatever they happen to be thinking, didn't see anything worth asking about Jude (except her skin color and likely my skin color). I realized that maybe people did just see a cute baby. I didn't feel the need to out Jude. Instead, I just let the kids, and eventually the adults, admire her. She didn't need to represent anybody but Jude.

Over the last few weeks, I realized I had stopped blurting out that Jude had Ds to everyone I meet. It simply wasn't important for strangers to know. I was no longer worried about "looks" or "questioning gazes." If they were happening, they were irrelevant in the space of the busyness that is my life. I also think that as the days slip into weeks and into months that I no longer find Ds to be the center of our lives. It is there of course but it is not something I compulsively toy with or worry about. It is simply one piece of Jude just as are her brown hair and those shiny brown eyes. 

My concerns about Ds have become bigger, more abstract in some ways. I still worry about equality. I am still heart broken over Ethan Saylor. Because even as the Ds fades into the background for our family, it does not for most of the people in our world. Ds is still a mark of difference. An insult. A blot that should be cleaned up or hidden. A thing of pity. I know that to have Ds is not to be any less human. I live with Ds everyday so it has become simply a part of the texture of my life. I wish that we could weave this thread into the world...so that those children in the pool might grow up to see that Jude is just a variation of human. Like we all are.

Marking Time

Wednesday we went for a walk on the UGA campus, and visited a favorite haunt...a lovely little "pond" filled with turtles. As we looked at the turtles, and laughed at every one's attempts to catch them, I kept holding Jude close. I felt tears pricking at the edge of my eyes, and I didn't know why. I wasn't sad. Catching turtles is not an emotionally charged event for me. But for some reason there was this big well of emotion deep inside my gut. I found myself looking away, wiping tears, because I wasn't sure I could explain to everyone why I was crying.

Once we got home, I found some pictures from last year....

And I realized we had been there before when I was newly pregnant with Jude. Before we knew anything about the extra stuff. I was about to go see the Fetal Medicine Doctor. About to get the call that would change my life. I remember I was feeling incredibly conflicted about the pregnancy. I was excited but scared. Worried but overjoyed. I wasn't sure if it was the right decision even though it was something I wanted. I was worried about my motivations. 

When we found out about Jude, I went through a lot of guilt. I had asked to much of the universe and was now being punished. This is what happened when you pushed your luck with getting pregnant at my age. I had too many kids and look what happened. I hated these feelings, and tried to convince myself that Jude was a gift. But I don't think I really believed it until I held her and fell in love. Now I can't imagine our family without her, and I am still dazed with how crazy in love I am. Jude is the completion, our full circle.

Perhaps because of this Athens has become impregnated with meaning. Each place we went to when I was pregnant is now full of the secret of Jude.

Camille then....

And now...

Piper last year...

Piper now...

Umberto on the cusp to teen

And now a teen with a little love to follow him

R was still a baby....

And now is starting to become a girl...

Me...conflicted....

just living in the love that is Jude

Horacio with one baby...

Now with one more baby

And now there is Jude...the completion and somehow our center.

Perhaps time is not linear but like worlds within worlds. Marking the passage of time is perhaps a way to remind us to look for the markers we left on the trees.