We heart Xmas

By some misfortunate fluke of scheduling, Hope's annual heart examinations always seem to fall near Christmas. And nothing pauses the Holly Jolly quite like anxiety over aortas.

True to form, Hope's annual checkup was Thursday. We switched doctors this year, transferring from the lovely cardiologist in the suburbs to a doctor at Children's Hospital of Detroit, which performs surgeries should they ever be necessary.

It was a long checkup, 2-hours plus, all told, and Hope performed like a champ, giggling at the EKG leads and fiddling with the echocardiogram as the docs checked out her ticker.

The good news, and it's great, is that Hope's issues are status quo. She has a bicuspid aortic valve, which means the valve that regulates blood flow from the heart into the aorta has two leaflets rather than three. She also has a slight jog in the curve of her aorta, which could be suggestive of a very mild coarctation or narrowing. That could present an issue down the road with blood getting to where it should, and worse case, one day lead to a stint to open it and keep things moving.

Or maybe not. So far, neither present a problem. Her blood pressure's great, the blood is flowing like a trucker on 5-hour energy drinks. As it was last year, these are just things we have to wait and watch as they develop. We see them again in a year.

Until then, it's back to the holly jolly stuff.

Bachelor days

Globe-trotting Hope is at it again, flying to San Diego early this morning with Mom and her Aunt Annie for five days with Aunt Molly -- or as I call her, Dirtbag. Lulu and I are holding down the fort, raking leaves, ripping apart the bathroom, eating frozen pizzas and generally having unsatisfying, one-sided conversations.

It's been about 13 hours and I already miss my ladies. It's terribly lame, but the cycle repeats itself: Count the days until sweet bachelor freedom; feel sad for at the airport, sing a song of emancipation and return home, look around, realize it's awfully quiet and begin to re-shingle the roof. If this keeps up, I may have the foundation of the house up on jacks tomorrow.

I probably sound like a dullard, but Hope has been even more of a joy lately. If something isn't bothering her -- and she lets us know when it is -- she's one happy kid. It's a cliche, but that's all we can ask. And her joy is infectious. It's hard to be in a bad mood around Hope.

Mo always dogs me for writing long and skimping on facts, so here are some:

To our surprise, Hope has done well with her new pink spectacles. She's much more engaged and only whips them off when something is bothering her or feeling neglected.

Hope took to a fancy, schmancy new gait trainer the Intermediate School District let us borrow. It had a long handle so we could help her steer without breaking our backs, like her current loaner. She made repeated circuits and giggled all the way, like her heifer won top prize at the county fair. That's the good news. The bad news is we had it for four days on loan to see if she liked it before ordering it through supplemental insurance. That could take three months. So it's back to the low-tech red walker and more Ben Gay for our backs.

Cardiac Christmas

Hope saw the two most important people yesterday: Santa and her cardiologist. She was ho-ho-hum about Santa, but kicked, giggled and waved her arms for the cardiologist. The girl's got some suspect priorities.

But maybe she was on to something. The cardiology appointment is a biggie. We've worried about it for weeks, in our familiar way. First, we deny and refuse to discuss. Then, as it approaches, we feel sick to our stomachs and paralyzed by dread until we're in the waiting room thinking, "Oh God, we're going to spend Christmas in the hospital."

It's not the ideal strategy, but so far, so good.

And it sort of works: Hope's appointment went well. Her heart is still a bit abnormal. She has a narrowing of her aorta, which could be suggestive of a mild coarctation. Some blood appears to be flowing a wee bit faster than it should, which could lead to other problems down the road. But not now. Her numbers are great. Her heart is working as it should. There's no change from seven months ago.

In short, good news. We don't have to see the cardiologist again for nine months.

Merry Christmas indeed. Phew.

Updates galore

In newspapers, you get blamed sometimes for failing to follow through.

Big splash on the front page: "THIS GUY IS A DIRTBAG!" Then, nine months later, the case winds its way through the machinations, memories fade, the news trudges forward, more scandalous dirtbags emerge, follow-ups get fewer and farther between until -- woopsie daisy -- a blurb is printed on page 43B reading: "Allegations of alleged dirtbaggery allegedly could be unfounded, prosecutors allege."

Critics call it a conspiracy by dirtbag newspapers to rake muck. I say it's human nature: Crises and scandal always get more attention than process, minutia and murky outcomes. When the answers aren't always clear-cut or better than you initially feared, it's even easier to forget the initial problem.

This blog is no exception. In that vein, here's some answers to issues that no longer loom as large as they did a few months ago and some that do.

The spitting of blood: Once a weekly nuisance, it's faded considerably in the past few months but hasn't disappeared. For about two months this summer, Hope would wake up crying. We'd rush into her nursery and see her laying next to a pool of dried blood. We did two endoscopies to pinpoint the problem.

Old pal Dr. Spitenup concluded it stems from her hernia and stomach rubbing against her esophagus. His solution: Well, it stinks, but it doesn't bother her, so live with it. We investigated on our own and believe it was exacerbated by supplemental oxygen fed through her nose as she slept. We have a good friend with cystic fibrosis who uses oxygen. She reasoned that the oxygen dries out her nasal passages, leading to blood that Hope swallows, and then eventually spits up.

We stopped using the oxygen at night. Viola. No more blood twice a week. But the issue persists. A few weeks ago, Hope awoke coated in a mammoth pool of blood so old it was black. We think it was from the rubbing of the hernia.

The eyesight: Six months ago, Hope's eyesight was tested as a matter of routine. The opthamalogist, a kindly, geriatric fellow who inhabits a wood-paneled office that looks like a hunting lodge and I'll call Dr. Speakupsonny, found that Hope was extremely near-sighted and would need glasses when she turned 1. We were crushed. We always thought that, given her hearing issues, it was highly unfair she'd have to wear hearing aids and glasses.

We had a follow-up appointment on Election Day. Dr. Speakupsonny found that her vision has improved, but she'll probably still eventually need glasses. We return to the hunting lodge in six months.

The laryngomalacia: Hope wheezes when she breathes because her larynx is floppy. It's a fairly common, and mostly benign, condition that most kids outgrow by about eight months. She hasn't. That's probably because she is so small. At the rate she's growing, it could be an issue for another 2-3 years. This remains a cause of concern because she could have a very difficult time breathing if she catches a bad cold. Once again, this year, she is having the monthly Synagis shot, the uber-expensive shot to ward off RSV (a respiratory virus) that is recommended for preemies. Dr. Frosty also worries that she's expending so many calories breathing that Hope has a harder time gaining weight. There is a surgery to correct the issue. We are exploring it.

The teeth: Six months ago, I foolishly wrote a blog item proclaiming that Hope was teething. She still could be. But there is little evidence of it. Children with CdLS take forever to cut a tooth. The tooth fairy got tired of waiting by the door, checking her watch and tapping her feet, and was last seen speeding away in a used K Car, listening to, of all things, "'99 Luft Balloons."

The heart: Learning my lesson from the teeth, I am declining substantial comment. For about two months, soon after her birth, this was our biggest concern about Hope. Six months ago, we were told the situation looks good. We have another follow-up appointment soon. I ain't saying another word.

The Dice-K: For weeks, Hope's favorite friend in God's green Earth was a teddy bear of Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, also known in this age of lackluster nicknames as Dice-K. Lulu ate the doll. My sister faithfully mailed a duplicate. Alas, love is fleeting at a tender age and Hope's affections have wandered. Her new love: Big plastic cow on wheels.

The cutie: I am doing fine, thank you very much. And Hope is getting cuter by the day.

No better news

Sometimes, good news comes when you need it most.

The breast-beatings, lamentations and general malaise lasted longer than we expected after last week's ear-tube tumult. We both wish it went better and beat ourselves up for pinning so much on what we should have known was a long-shot.

And it's been one of those weeks with Hope. My worry about disrupting the status quo with surgery proved prescient. The huge smiles, full-body giggles and "Oooh Daddy! You are so Funny" chortles are mostly gone. In their place are much fussiness, tears and apathy about Mom and Dad.

So, as usual, we felt physically ill sitting in the waiting room today for Hope's cardiology appointment. Heart defects are the main reason some CdLS kids don't reach adolescence.

It was a three-month follow-up to check on Hope's left ventricle, the main pumping chamber of the four that comprise the heart. It's a bit big. That's not good.

The fear is that generally chambers are big for a reason: Something is making it work too hard. We worried it is a manageable, but incurable, condition known as cardiomyopathy, which is quite bad.

It turns out that, like a lot with Hope, she may just be doing her own thing.

Her ventricle is a bit bigger than it was three months ago, but proportionately so to the rest of her heart. Blood is flowing fine. Her numbers are great. The heart is beating up a storm. Everything is doing what it should.

"I couldn't deliver any better news today," Hope's cardiologist told us. "If we haven't been tracking her since birth, we probably wouldn't have ever known there was an issue."

We'll see the cardiologist again in six months. After that, maybe once a year or maybe never.

Wow.

Now is normally the time I would pontificate: Let this be a lesson in the vagaries of life, I might say, or Sometimes, your worst fears become pussycats when you stare them in the eye. But I've learned the hard way not to tempt fate by getting too ahead of myself.

So I leave it at wow.

Wow.

We wait

Hope has a big heart. It sounds like swell news and something she comes about honestly -- Mo is nothing if not magnanimous -- but it's probably not.

We returned today to the cardiologist for a follow-up appointment. Of the issues that send Hope once a week to various specialists, her heart defects are the ones that terrify us. We fill notebooks cataloguing her daily feeds and weight, debate the quality of her poop and sleep for hours and absolutely delight discussing her latest smiles, farts and grimaces. But we barely talk about her heart issues because they're that scary.

Or maybe they aren't.

As we learned six weeks ago, Hope has an abnormally thick left ventricle. That's the main pumping chamber of the four that comprise her heart. It's on the mild side of big -- we're talking perhaps 5 millimeters compared to 3 -- but it's definitely measuring larger since her birth. Presumably, that's from overuse. Like a muscle, the heart grows bigger when it's asked to do more. It shouldn't have to do all that much for a little girl who turned 3 months old today.

Oddly enough, Hope's heart appears to be working well. Her blood pressures indicate it's doing a bang-up job distributing blood through her body. The flow through her heart seems fine as well. And the cardiologist today ruled out aortic coarctation, a pinching of a valve like a garden hose that causes blood to flow with increased velocity -- and worried us the most just two months ago.

So, like a lot in life and medicine, we're left with an unknown that's only resolved with time.

If her heart is growing thicker, it appears to be doing it on its own. There's no blockage making it work harder. The tissue itself could be abnormal, a very serious condition known as cardiomyopathy. We don't know now. This could go away, be a lifetime condition managed -- but not fixed -- by medicine, or it could eventually prove fatal.

So we wait.

The unknown is frightening. We're not good at it. But there are worse outcomes. The thickening isn't severe enough to rush us back to the cardiologist soon. We have a follow-up appointment in three months. We left feeling OK. The morning was stressful -- Hope melted down during an echocardiogram, EKG and blood-pressure screenings -- but our big, unspoken fears weren't realized. The tests didn't find more problems to require immediate surgery.

Driving home, we talked about the last few months and years. I launched into an empassioned diatribe of gobbledygook about how this is the defining moment of our lives. It sounded awesome for about 40 seconds. Then, as is my wont, it quickly made no sense.

Mo cut me off: "If anything, this just teaches me once again that we need to savor every day like the gift it is." She's right, of course. I'd be tempted to say she has a big heart if I didn't just learn that isn't always a good thing.

Life and content

One of the dangers about blogging about yourself -- as opposed to say, crazy TV commercials from the 1970s -- is that, sooner or later, you start to view events not as life but content.

Hope had constipation for four days and didn't soil her diaper? I bet there's a parable there about keeping your emotions bottled up. Maureen got desperate and actually made Tuna Helper? Instant punchline!

So it was on Christmas Day, when I caught myself, Flip Video Camera in hand, waiting for something funny to happen and said, "Enough. You are a freaking loser."

I can get a bit obsessive. Since I met Mo in 2000, I have had the following compulsions: Tennis, chicken, watermelon, ping pong, jogging, baking muffins, singing songs about our cats, setting the world record at Arch Rivals, the plight of the American Indian, the supermarket crane game, homemade video and my pal Lulu, among many others. Usually, I'm single-minded in my pursuit for about three weeks, then move on to another obsession.

So I put the camera down and actually enjoyed the holiday for what it was -- a nice day with big Mo and Hope -- and not as something about which to pontificate.

This blog has been a great outlet during a difficult period. It's cathartic and helps sort through a jumble of emotions. But sometimes I err too much on the most flattering side of our lives -- the part where we're one big happy family, standing strong in adversity, sharing a knowing chuckle and maybe learning a few things.

That side exists, but so does a not-so-nice part that is still trying to figure all this out, still hurt and just now beginning to grieve the loss of typical child-rearing. Blame high expectations for the holiday or general fatigure, but it's been a rough patch. We're still raw from the news about her heart condition. I have moments of anger and self-pity. Mo has moments when she thinks I'm a total ass. We both get jealous of friends with healthy babies, then feel guilty because we do.

We feel isolated. The pool of people who can relate to losing a child to a rare genetic condition that supposedly doesn't recur, then having another child with the same problem is limited to say the least. So we talk to each other. Sometimes that works. Sometimes, not so much.

We walk delicate lines, loving a child with special needs. There's joy she's home, but sadness over Hope's condition. We're proud but scared, alternate optimism and despair, fall deeper in love daily but wonder what sort of life she'll have. We don't want to discard our expectations, but don't want to be naive. We want to cherish each moment, but sometimes fear the future. We want to be honest about her issues, but protect her as well.

When Will died, I had another obsession: I would honor his life by becoming a better person. I volunteered, became a Big Brother, started going to church and smiled at strangers.

That lasted a while, then I switched to a more manageable system of handling grief: I'd feel however I wanted.

That sounds pretty good right now.

Another term we'd rather not know

It was one truism in the summer of the ultrasound: The tests you spend half the night fretting about turn out fine; it's the ones you approach with calm that bite you where it hurts.

Never fail, during the 15 or so ultrasounds and echocardiograms preceding Hope's birth, we got good news when we were expecting bad and bad news when we were expecting none.

It's a truism for a reason. Today, Hope had a routine follow-up appointment with the cardiologist to check on a few abnormalities. Logically, we know Hope's heart issues are the ones that should keep us up at night. For whatever reason, they don't.

It could be time to worry.

The test revealed status quo for Hope's blood pressure, which means her heart is doing its job and getting blood where it should. But it found signs that her heart is working too hard to get it there.

Another new medical term we wish we didn't have to know: left ventricular hypertrophy. That means her heart's main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, is thicker than it should be because of overuse. Like a muscle, it gets bigger when it's asked to do more. The condition is not uncommon after a lifetime of high blood pressure. Hope is seven weeks old.

The cardiologist said it appears to be a mild thickening, which is good. But the problem either has developed in the month since she left the NICU or wasn't spotted there. That is bad.

We're not sure of the protocol. The good doctor has no idea what is causing the thickening, so like a lot of medicine, it's wait-and-see time. We have a follow-up appointment in six weeks. If the cause of the thickening is Hope's heart, there is medicine to stop the thickening but not reduce it. If something else is causing the issue the approach would vary accordingly.

Obviously, this is not the news we wanted a week before Christmas. There's no polite way around it: This sucks.

There's a naive, clinging-to-hope part of us that doesn't believe the test. That's mostly me. Hope had four echocardiograms in the NICU and each doctor had a different take. That's understandable. Her heart is about the size of a Macadamia nut now so there's ample room for interpretation and miscalculation.

But we've also known since late July that Hope was going to have heart issues. They always seemed to linger in the background as just another log in our bonfire of worry. They don't anymore.

If anything, today reminds us that every day with Hope is a blessing. It's corny as all get out, but it's true. Everything we've read about CdLS babies leads us to conclude the first two years are the most critical. That means we need to go against my nature as a cynic and Mo's as a worrier and never get ahead of ourselves, savor the moment and plant extra kisses on our sweet daughter's forehead.

Bushed

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We bought a garage door the other day. Once adorned with retro eagles that Mo insisted I remove when we moved in, it broke every three months. My parents taught me how to deal with these problems: Ignore them until you can't possibly anymore, then apply the cheapest fix and forget it until it breaks again.

After years of adhering to the tradition of turning small problems into expensive ones, we followed the door's lead and broke down. Returning home from work, I was eager to see it.

I made it about three steps into the garage when Mo yelled at me through the side door.

"What are you doing?" she barked. "Get in here! I need a break."

That's life now. Five minutes looking at a door is wasted time. I'm typing with two fingers and trying to coax Hope back asleep. Mo is napping. She's making up for last night Afflicted with what my father-in-law delicately calls "the creeping cruds," I decided I couldn't help with Hope's feeds and needed a bubble-bath and nine hours' sleep to slay whatever ailed me.

Call it what you like. I consider it a valiant sacrifice to shield my daughter from germs that had nothing to do with eating six slices of pizza in 10 minutes.

Like all new parents, we knew this would be exhausting but weren't prepared for how much. From afar, it shouldn't seem so hard: You burp, feed, fuss, coo; change a few diapers, apply some creams now and again and -- voila! -- wile away the next three hours completing jigsaw puzzles or online enrichment courses.

Of course, it's all-consuming and unrelenting. I'm bushed. Mo's bushed. We're learning that raising a child with unique challenges is probably like raising a healthy one but magnified. It starts with the doctors: In addition to a pediatrician, Hope sees a cardiologist, audiologist, geneticist and physical therapist. And the spit-ups and rashes that would normally be scary are petrifying. Mo is now navigating the maze of health care and HMOs. We'd like to add a gastrointestinal specialist to the list to evaluate Hope and address her spit-ups. It's supposed to be standard for CdLS kids. Our network has pediatric GI docs. The next opening is May.

But big deal. It's work. What great in life isn't? And Hope's doing good, home now for three weeks and notching small landmarks. We don't panic anymore when we don't hear her for 3 minutes. She's becoming more emotive every day, sticking out her tongue, fixing her stares and flashing dimples like she was at the county fair. We're not counting her breaths anymore. But we are counting our blessings.

Mojo, juju and fate

It's a funny word and we're still getting used to it: "Progress."

There wasn't much during 89 days with Will. But a glorious, straight line out of the hospital is developing for Hope. She's keeping herself warm and graduated to a big-girl crib. She's doing so well with her increased feedings that her IV is gone and there's talk the supplemental tube may be removed from her nose. And the fourth echocardiogram of her heart Friday spotted no new causes for concern, so the next one isn't planned for two weeks. In the whirlwind that's been the last 10 days, that might as well be next year.

Friday was Mo's 32nd birthday. It was blissfully low-key -- if you can discount the half-hour of dread we spent during the echocardiogram wondering if everything would go wrong. It didn't. Instead, Mo held Hope for about six hours, read her stories, doted on every wheeze and hiccup and micromanaged her husband's bottle feeding techniques. That sounds about right: Happy birthday, indeed.

It was a nice to get through the day without any drama. Three years ago, the Red Sox had just won the World Series, my mother was visiting and we had a child in the hospital who seemed to be improving. Will's progress was halted on Mo's 29th birthday when he stopped breathing for the first of three days. There were subsequent fits and starts, but he never really recovered after that.

So Friday was a big emotional hurdle to clear. I avoided posting yesterday in fear of jinxing ourselves. We realize all this talk of mojo, juju and fate makes us seem like we're two steps shy of sacrificing a chicken, but it works for us. And hey, Hope was born on Halloween.

We also know these comparisons to her brother aren't entirely fair to Hope. She's her own person and she's healthier than her brother. They're simply yardsticks to measure her progress. As much as we loved Will, we realized early on he wasn't long for this world.

That's not the case for Hope. We realize there still could be setbacks, but lately, we've allowed our fears to become more pedestrian: "We're going to have a newborn home. What are we going to do? Our lives will never be the same."

They won't, and thank God for that.

NICU rhythms

After five days, we're slowly readjusting to the unique rhythms of the NICU. It's a place of paradox: Both peaceful and stressful, miraculous and tragic. No one wants to be there, but there's nowhere you'd rather be considering the circumstances.

We forgot how wonderful it is to hold a baby in our arms. We love Hope's soft skin, running our fingers through her auburn locks, staring straight into her eyes and wondering what she'll look like tomorrow. Best of all, we can gaze into her face without a mess of tubes, wires or oxygen apparatuses. Because he couldn't breathe without oxygen, we had unencumbered views of Will for about 10 seconds after his delivery and again when he died.

So that's been such a blessing with Hope. It feels so right to hold her close and whisper ga-ga-goo-goos. It's so tranquil you can almost forget that two of the letters in NICU stand for "intensive care." But you can never let your guard down. You know you shouldn't, but can't help it: One eye always is focused on a screen showing Hope's heart rate, breaths per minute and oxygen levels throughout her body.

That's the duality of the NICU: Utter relaxation peppered with frequent worry. If her oxygen levels fall below 88 percent, a persistent ding-ding-ding alarm sounds. If it falls below 75 percent, it changes to a jarring DANG-DANG-DANG and the nurses come quickly.

Fortunately, there's less cause for worry these days with Hope. She seems to be doing well. She's drinking breast milk from a bottle and the amounts increase daily. Her heart abnormalities haven't necessitated intervention. She's about a half-degree away from being moved from a warming incubator to a crib. And docs are tantalizing us by sprinkling phrases like, "When you take Hope home ..." in conversation.

We haven't mustered the courage to ask when that might be. We're big into jinxes and that seems like the ultimate no-no. And Hope still has work to do. One of the things about hanging out with doctors 10 hours a day is you learn scary words like "Tracheomalacia." Basically, that means Hope's trachea -- the windpipe -- is a bit floppy and not fully developed. It goes away with time, but it causes her to make wheezing motions. Also, the girl's got to start chowing down. She's lost about 3 ounces since her birth, which isn't yet a cause for concern. And neither us nor the doctors know whether her genetic condition will complicate things.

Until then, we wait and count our good fortune. We prayed like hell we'd never have to be back. Now, we miss it instantly when we leave.

Fate and Hope

After our son Will died, I vowed never to write another blog.

That resolve was weakened a few times, but never broken. Bored, I once toyed with a blog chronicling my stuffed-animal winnings at the crane game. The idea lasted 10 minutes. As did my idea about filling cyberspace with musings about my dog, Lulu. Both were too trite, too full of piffle to bother.

Mostly, though, I never wanted to write another blog because Mo and I never thought we'd be in this same situation again. And if we were, I promised, I wouldn't want to try to contort a difficult situation into a good one again with flowery words, witticisms and chin-up exhortations.

In the end, we didn't want to blog because we didn't want to repeat history.

Fat lot of good that did.

Nearly three years after Will's birth, Oct. 15, 2004, Mo and I once again are graced with a growth-restricted child with health problems and a genetic condition who likely will be in the hospital a while. Hope Beatrice Kurth is a 3 pound, 15-ounce, auburn-haired beauty with big, bright eyes, pudgy cheeks who looks like neither of us. She is a spitting image of her big brother. And it took doctors about four hours to preliminarily diagnose her with the same condition that contributed to his death.

We fought so hard, prayed so long and employed every superstition we know to avoid this fate. We were assured the condition they likely have, Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, is a random genetic mutation that doesn't strike twice. We read the fine print -- 1 percent of families have more than one child with the syndrome -- but barely acknowledged it.

Instead, we worked like the dickens to control outcomes that we couldn't. We developed rituals to ensure fate wouldn't strike twice. Will came out of the blue. Mo was 32 weeks pregnant, measured small on Tuesday and gave birth via a "not-quite emergency, but we better do this quick" C-Section.

When we learned Maureen was pregnant in March, we thought we learned our lessons and steered clear of bad mojo. We had well-defined taboos: Don't park in the hospital's parking garage during ultrasounds, don't arrive late and don't talk about lunch plans in the examining room. We did all those things with Will, and he was born about 17 hours later.

This week, walking through the same Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit we swore we'd never again visit, exchanging awkard hellos with doctors and nurses we never thought we'd see, I was struck by lessons from high school Latin.

My teacher didn't always comprehend the concept of "Latin," so we read a lot of Greek fables. They had a recurring theme: You can't escape fate. Achilles' mom could dress him up like a girl, but he'd still die in the Trojan War. Oedipus' dad could leave his son on a mountain to die, but he'd still grow up to kill him.

You can't escape fate. And having a child with challenges is ours.

That's where the morbid analogy ends. Those are lessons from tragedies, and Hope is anything but.

She is a wonderful, beautiful, squeaky little fussbudget who is already making us so proud. Her first three days on earth were chock full of tests: three echocardiograms to pinpoint progress with a few heart abnormalities; an EEG on her brain to ensure she didn't suffer seizures in utero; a full skeletal X-ray; and ultrasounds of her brain and major organs to verify they're all OK.

They are, and she's passed all her tests with aplomb. She's already doing little things that most parents take for granted but amaze us because Will never could. She's breathing on her own. She is drinking milk from a bottle. She has graduated from a heated platform that allows doctors easy access in case of emergencies to an enclosed incubator. Hope is doing so well there's murmurs a regular ol' crib could be in her near future.

Mo went home from the hospital today. She's still in a lot of pain from her C-Section, and it's so hard to leave your beloved little girl in the hospital. This is going to be a difficult, but rewarding journey. There's already been so many tears, late-night anxieties and big questions that can never be answered and will drive us crazy if we try.

But this is our fate, and we accept it. The situation may seem eerily familiar, but the details so far are better. Hope's delivery was as it should be: A nerve-wracking, hand-gripping, "Oh My God, What Are We Getting Into?" miracle. Unlike with Will, no one asked us if we related 15 minutes later. The doctors we used to view with suspicion are now kind. Most importantly, our girl seems to be doing well. So we count our blessings.

Some things haven't changed. The hospital soap still smells the same, the food is still lousy and the NICU still sucks.

But things will be OK. Sometimes, the fate you fear the most just isn't so bad.