I've been feeling a bit sentimental lately.

Maybe it's because yesterday Georgia turned seven weeks old. Maybe it was the beautiful pictures Kayla Duffey Photography took of our little girl. Maybe it's the peaceful sound of my daughter breathing next to me. I don't know.

Becoming a mother is moving. You feel so many things, profound and beyond how anyone could have attempted to describe to you before. You become the entire world for one little human being. And they don't care if you didn't get enough sleep. They don't care if you didn't have those stretch marks before. They don't mind the stains on your tank tops and they don't care if you need time to pump or eat or just be alone for minute. They need you. Always and forever. And you have to face the inevitable fact that maybe someday, they may never appreciate everything you gave.

I have a new appreciation for the mothers in my life. The amount of love, sacrifice, and caring that our mothers have given for us just to survive... and sometimes we never even say thank you.

I think most mothers struggle with the idea that someday, they may not be the center of their child's world. Someday the bird will leave the nest, right? And here I am, in this limbo, wondering if my daughter will ever have that opportunity.

And then I'm faced with the fact that, beyond all my plans and hopes and dreams, being a mother surpasses all of it. I will give it all up, just for her happiness.

And I wonder if I was robbed.. was the experience of a "normal" motherhood taken from me? Yes. I suppose so. The fog of my daughters future gives me this hidden anxiety of the unknown. No doctor knows what my daughter will do with these extra bits of chromosomes. No physical therapist can predict my daughters capacity. No amount of tests can truly give an answer to her future.

And that's where I find my peace. No one knows what my daughter is capable of. No one knows how she will be in a year, nevermind five or ten.

But I do know that my daughter isn't anywhere near what any doctor could have predicted so far. She survived. She is literally a one in a million shot at life, and here she is, week 47 of her existence. She shouldn't have made it past the first trimester, nevermind surviving her birth. She made it out of the hospital in ten days. She learned to breastfeed. She made it home. She has been part of my family for seven weeks and I think for any parent of a trisomy child, every second of their life matters just a bit more painfully than we could explain.

And my husband and I are the lucky ones. In the wake of her diagnosis, I have met and seen such inspiration in the children and parents of trisomy. Some women carry their children, regardless of their poor prognosis. They choose to endure the loss of their child, just so they can hold them, as they exit this world. There are parents who have to travel hundreds of miles to even find a doctor to care for their child. I shudder at the what if... what if they had caught Georgia's syndrome sooner? Would they have given her a chance? Or would she have been a discouraged statistic like the rest? Would it have changed our minds? Or would I have found the strength to be brave and have faith?

My daughter inspires me every day... even on the ones where it seems like the crying won't stop and I have the typical first time parent experience of wondering what the hell I got myself into... but in the quiet moments... when she sleeps in my arms, and I think sadly of how fast she's grown, or when she surprises every medical professional she meets with her abilities, or when she hits this little milestones like holding her head up, or recognizing me from a distance, I'm inspired.

God saw something in my husband and I to bless us with such a beautiful and wonderfully loved challenge. I wonder if someday we will be one of those couples, like Allie and Noah in the Notebook, where our grandchildren speak of how our love made miracles happen, and one was named Georgia.

I suppose my sentimentality is centered in just the genuine awe I have in my new every day life... my normal is unlike anything I had planned, but I do plan on only letting it make me stronger.

I will forever fight, because my daughter can.

I hope, somewhere out there, someday, our story can help someone else... I think in my mind of some woman, like me, who had prayed for a child, and when the doctors tell her there is no chance of surviving this prognosis, she finds my sweet daughters pictures and sees that all the fear and doubt is worth it.

I have yet to find one parent of a trisomy child who regrets their decision to keep their child, when the doctor said they shouldn't. I haven't seen one parent say, it would have been better for us to have never known.

Keep praying and sharing our story. As much as we appreciate everyone's help, I really hope these words find their way into helping someone else.

"Though she be but little, she is fierce."

#georgiaonmymind #trisomy18 #trisomyawareness