My Auntie Heart

Here's the abbreviated back story on my niece, Lydia. When she was 4 weeks old, the pediatrician laid out to Janell the indicators he saw that pointed to Down's Syndrome. When she was 6 weeks old, Lydia had labwork completed for a Down's screen. During her 8th week, Jeff and Janell met with a geneticist and found out that the Down's screen was negative. During that exam, the geneticist felt there were enough physical variations that further testing should be done. That testing was done 2 weeks ago today. This morning Janell was told by the geneticist that all of the genetic tests were normal!! 

Over these past 6 weeks my Auntie heart has ached for Lydia, my Sister heart has ached for my sister and my Mama heart has wept and worried and prayed for both of them. There is nothing like having a big close knit family, but it also means that you are going to go through the hard times as well as the good times with them!

When Janell told me the tests were normal this morning it was almost too good to be true. I just burst into happy, laughing tears. In fact the rest of the family was still asleep and Jeremy came down because he didn't know what was wrong.

Lydia does have lower muscle tone. Her holding her head up in this picture was quite an accomplishment. We will continue to cheer for every developmental milestone for quite some time. One thing that we prayed for was that these genetic tests would be conclusive. They were and so  Janell can be confident that the delays are not caused by anything genetic. That is a relief.

For right now I'm going to keep my thoughts on forcing babies into developmental boxes to myself!

Today is a day to be happy and free of worry. My sister got a crushing hug and Lydia got all kinds of hugs and kisses tonight!!!