I’m very happy to say that we bounced back from that terrible time and got pregnant again shortly after. Two weeks ago we gave birth to a very healthy baby girl. Both she and mom are doing great. My wife even managed to have a VBAC, that’s vaginal birth after cesarean, and came through it just fine.

So, life has moved on for us. Last year was very tough but this year is heading in a brighter direction. I just wanted to close this chapter of my life here so that anyone who visits can take away from this that life, though it has its downs, can also have it’s ups.

To anyone going through this tough time like we did, I sympathize and wish you all the strength through this tough time. Trisomy 18 is really one of those random things that just happens. It’s not anything to do with you, your health or your partners. It just sometimes happens. All we can do is move on, wish for better times and hope they come. For us they did, I hope for you they do as well.

The basics of Trisomy 18, as described to us in detail from the Geneticist, comes down to extra material on the 18th chromosome pair. Basically, everybody has 46 chromosome pairs in every cell. When we conceive a child, each parent gives 23 chromosomes to the fetus, making 46. These 46 chromosomes are paired together. So, there are 23 pairs of two chromosomes, half of each pair comes from the mother and half from the father. Sometimes, either on the egg from the woman or sperm from the male, there can be extra material on one of the pairs. For instance, if the woman’s egg happens to give 24 chromosomes then that is one to many. That can happen for a variety of reasons but the most likely reason is age of the woman. At least the age of the woman greatly affects the likelihood of having a chromosomal anomaly.

Turns out that if there is extra material on most of these pairs of chromosomes the end result is a miscarriage. According to the Doctors we saw, the body takes care of most of these events by having a miscarriage. Unfortunately, the fetus can survive when the extra material is on the 13th, 18th or 21st chromosome pair. As an aside, if there is extra material on the 21st pair then that is Down syndrome. When on the 18th or 13th pairs, the fetus can survive until birth. Half die just after birth. I think the percentage of 95% die either just after or shortly after birth was the number we were told.

One thing that I asked the Doctor over and over was, is there anything we did wrong. Pet dander, cleaning supplies, eating habits, anything. The answer was universally, from every doctor we asked, no. If you find your way here for the same reason please take that to heart, you did nothing wrong as parents, as people. This is just a random thing that happens.

Not much else to say really. We are recovering. Taking life one day at a time. As I said, this will be the last time I talk about this here. Just want to put it behind us as much as we can.

Roma was 96 years old when she died. She led a full and long life. She was raised in the mountains of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Her father, I believe, worked in a logging camp and she spent a good deal of her younger years there. At one point she moved to NYC and lived with her mother for time. She was fiercely intelligent and never missed a much, even at 96. She would still do yard work, cook the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and just never slow down. She was tough. Mountain folk tough and there is some interesting questions that raises, though I don’t want to get into those here. She passed away quietly in the night on Wednesday, December 17th just after midnight. She had been ill for some time. Truthfully, when you get to be 96, you just don’t bounce back from illness.

I regretfully admit that much of her life isn’t known to me. I was in her life for many years of course, but much of her adult life remains a mystery. It’s one of those quandaries, you always mean to ask a million questions but never find the time to do so. I wonder, and perhaps always will, about many parts of her life. Her college experience, work experience, and all the points in between. It’s shame that all those memories, life experiences, are lost forever. More than a shame, it’s a crime.

All that is left of her is my memories of her. I remember her as being strong, practical, pragmatic, logical and full of life. The world is a little less special without her here.

 I will miss you Grandma. Goodbye.

It’s strange how life unfolds for us. We are bombarded, or at least when I was growing up we were, with the notion of the nuclear family. Father, mother, siblings, grand parents, and done. I’ve had several friends that had that experience and I’ve had several friends that grew up as I did, in a multi-family environment. I say multi-family in the sense that no members of my dad’s side really communicated with my mom’s side. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, they just had no reason to talk.  For me growing up in that environment, it really was two families. Two separate dynamics. One had a patriarch and one a matriarch. One had an educated, killer instinct mind set, one had a down to earth, salt of the earth feel.

So what, right? I had two families and that’s that. Close the book and end the blog. Well, the point really isn’t that I had two, the point is for all those that will have two, or more, in the future.  Couples still get divorces in this day and age. Children will still grow up in non-nuclear family situations. What about those situations where parents are fighting to keep a family together with the thought it’s best for the child. Is that really the best solution? Should parents force themselves to remain in a failing marriage just to keep the nuclear family together?  I think the answer is no.

Kids are very intelligent. They can perceive and pick up on even the subtlest of cues. If two parents are together, and miserable, that will translate to the children. How it will manifest is anyone’s guess, but it will put stress on everyone.

Should couples stay together for the kids? No. Absolutely not. Will it be hard on the children? Yes. The younger they are the harder it will be. But the question is will it be better to end things and spare them of the hardships that a troubled marriage will bring or bare with the relationship and trust in the nuclear family.

Even though my family was two. Even though my mother wasn’t with my father, I still ended up OK. I have an advanced degree, a good job, good salary and own my home. And yes, success is the benchmark. Why did I end up ok? Because my father and mother still parented me, even though they weren’t doing it under the same roof.

Co-Parenting in a divorced family is a somewhat new concept I believe. Even though the parents have decided to not be part of each other’s lives, they will always be part of their children’s lives. Coming to the agreement to no longer be married is no less important than coming to the agreement of how to parent a child. Agree to terms. Agree to responsibilities as parents. Communicate with your children what is going on at every step. They may be young but they are very intelligent.

Bottom line to this. Do what is right for you. Do what is right for your children. That does not mean subjecting yourself to 18 years of misery just so your children live in the same house as both parents do. You love your children, tell them that, shower them with it, agree to parent them with your ex and they will turn out just fine.

Just my two cents.

I have always wanted to share some of my experiences with others in the hope that it may help some. I also wanted to guide this site to be somewhat of a personal growth and development website. I plan on doing that but telling of my own life experiences, things I’ve done, mistakes I’ve made, and roads I’ve gone down and what I’ve found when I have. In some cases those roads were great ones, others they were dead ends and still others were just train wrecks.

So, with that said, I thought I would spend this first post talking about family. Mine is going through a tough time right now. My grandmother is ill, well, not ill, she’s 96. When you get up there that far it’s hard to bounce back from problems. About five weeks ago she went to the hospital with her heart beating too fast. The doctor said she needed to check in and slow her heart rate down. She walked into the hospital on her own steam but was wheeled out in a chair unable to walk. Now, I don’t mean to bad mouth the hospital, they are trying their best of course, but they gave her too much sedatives, a Dr. told us, and a large cocktail of drugs for her heart and other general aliments. Three weeks on your back, at 96, with too much sedatives takes it’s toll. She wasn’t able to walk when they discharged her, and hasn’t since. That was about 2 weeks ago. Last night she was admitted again because she said she couldn’t breath or swallow. She’s fine now though, still in the hospital, but can breath, swallow and is generally ok.

The bigger issue really is how an elderly or sick family member can both bring a family together and tear it apart at the same time. I’ve experienced both cases. When my father died, which i’ll go into in another post, the family came together and bonded during his illness. Now, however, it seems that my mother’s side of the family, it is my mother’s mother that is ill, is breaking apart. It’s sad for many reasons. My Grandmother surely sees it, and maybe feels guilty for it, I certainly don’t like seeing my family fight, but there’s so little that I can do about it.

I’ve chosen to do the only thing I could. Be supportive at all times, do not let myself get pulled into the fighting, do not take sides at all, offer comfort at all times. That’s very hard to do of course when you happen to agree with one side or the other. But, regardless if you do, there must be a balancing force in the equation. Even if someone is doing something egregious and terrible, is it really worth it to fight about it while a family member dies or is terribly ill? I’m sure some think it is, but I feel it puts extra strain on an already strained situation.  If you have ever found yourself in such a situation, how did you handle it?  What is the best way? Or is there even one? Every situation is different, every family is different, when such times come upon a family, I think its best to focus on that person, be there for each other, hold off on the fighting as best you can and remember all the good times you’ve had a family.

G. A. Miller