A few thoughts from Daddy.......

The research bug has finally made it's way into my head. I sit here in the wee hours of the morning ( or night depending on how you look at it) and not being able to sleep, I finally got the nerve to Google "trisomy 18". I have found how commonly rare trisomy 18 really is (if that makes any sense). Here is just one result of a search I did for trisomy 18...........Results 1 - 10 of about 496,000 for trisomy 18. (0.06 seconds). It only took .006 seconds to find almost 500,000 hits for this disease. And I am sure that if you change the wording a bit, who knows how many sites are out there. Is this disease rare? No, just unheard of. The most common forms of a trisomy are trisomy 21 (downs), trisomy 18 (edwards) and trisomy 13 (Patau). Trisomy 21 is the most common, trisomy 18 is second and 13 is the rarest of the three.

I have to say, looking at some of the medical sites, Kristen's personality definitely shown through. She was without a doubt a fighter. She fought a battle in 3 days that most fetus's don't get to fight....
(click the post title to keep reading.)

Most of the sites said that 1 in 1500 are still born and 1 in 5000 to 8000 don't live longer than a week. Only given three days to get to know, love, cherish, adore and care for Kristen was unquestionably against most and all odds. I am very thankful that God gave us those three days. Kristen didn't loose any battle, in fact, she won every battle and now gets to live the eternal life with Jesus. Don't get me wrong, for the first few hours of her life and while we were still at St. Joe's hospital, I was really really mad at God. For a few moments everything I believe was put into question. But as the hours, days, and weeks go by, all those thoughts fade and all that is left is knowing that in my times of grieve and sorrow, my Lord will never leave me nor forsake me and he will not abandon me in this time and time to come.

Seeing some of the photos of defects from trisomy 18 made me realize how much Kristen had to fight to live. Every cell, every cell in her body was affected by this chromosomal disease. From the top of her little head to the bottom of her feet, she was affected. Yes, she had the cists in her brain, yes, her head was smaller, yes her little pointer fingers overrode the other fingers, yes she had bad heart malformations and defects, yes her lungs were immature, yes she might of had rocker feet. But from a father's eyes, none of that matters nor did it matter. All that matters is that she was beautiful and she was ours. Also from my research and from what medical personel have told us is that this disease is nothing that Tara nor I carry. This was not a heriditary trait but it is a genetic trait and that nothing that we did had caused this to happen. This is by no means the end of the Balcom family. We will push on and move forward in continuing to expand our family. Granted to allow Tara's body to heal properly, it has been suggested that we wait at least a year before we start to try to have more children.

My final thought.......please don't feel like you have to "hide" your grieve when around us. This is hard on many people. We cry just the same and your tears will help our tears. By hiding your emotions when around us, we in turn, begin to feel that we have to hide our tears when around others. To the nameless and faceless, we will never be able to find words to begin thanking you for everything that you have done for us. To everybody else, thank you for lifting us up in your prayers and for all that you are doing for us as well. God bless

K