Little boy with cyst

Four years ago, December 2007, we were in a very different place.  A dark and stressful place that literally changed me and pulled the rug out from under our feet.  I don't think we've quite recovered.
I was 7 months pregnant with Son#2, went to the hospital, alone, for a routine check-up.  The doctor did a sonar on the baby, and then dropped the bomb:  Something was seriously wrong with the baby.   A part of his brain wasn't there. 
Everything you take for granted when you carry that baby in your body, when you expect everything to go well (even if you had, like me, a nasty lingering feeling that all is not right), disappears in an instant, and let me tell you, it is devastating.  
Referrals to academic hospitals in bigger cities with better equipment and better doctors follow.  Listening to the prognosis that we should be lucky if this kid will reach primary school.  The humiliation of a cried-out red face in the waiting room between the happy couples with healthy babies; seeing the relief on their faces that today it didn't happen to them.  And then giving beautiful birth to the most beautiful blond baby boy with the Rotterdam skyline shining in the background, and it is love at first sight.  

Year 1 and 2 were stressful.  Just keep breathing. You need to defragment and recalibrate how you approach life and what your place is in it.  Year 3 went a bit better.  Year 4 is the year when you need to lay it down and move beyond all this nastiness and look at this gorgeous boy that is doing perfectly well despite missing almost a quarter of his brain.  Interhemispheric Arachnoid Cyst in the parietal lobe.  Impressive.  Today, all on his own, he wrote the 'M' for McDonalds (good mothering, I know) and he's not even 4 years old yet.  He counts backwards from 10 and colours between the lines beautifully.

The thought that we were in a dungeon 4 years ago, gripped me tonight as I sat holding Son#3 and listening to the fireworks all around us.  Gripped me so badly that I burst into tears.  I'm so grateful that we are 4 years down the line and all is well.  And strange as it may sound, I'm so grateful that we could experience this.  I grew, and that was necessary.  Wow, and what a growth process it has been. 

I wish you the most wonderful year of your life yet.  
Make the best of it. 
I'll certainly try to do that this year. 

Happy 2012!