Before having children, I dreamed of my mythical daughter enjoying dance as I did in my youth. I dreamed of putting her hair in a bun and buying her first pink leotard and tights. I dreamed of watching her find her own preferred style of expression be that hip hop, like her mama, or lyrical, a style of dance for which I was simply not made. I dreamed of her feeling the way I did back then, and still do today, when good music fills the air - impossible to keep my body still.

Hi there. You don’t know me, but your choices impact me. Your choices impact my child and her self-worth. So I’d like you to get to know me a little, if you’re open to it?

I not so secretly wish she was inundating me with questions, requests and generalized toddler statements about dolls and the sky and cats and everything in between.

I didn’t think Elliott would be trach free until age 5 or 6. Maybe 4 if we were lucky. She did it in 2.5 years. One of her many moments proving me, and others, wrong.

100 days of experiences with Cal that we didn’t get with Ellie. There isn’t a word in the English language that adequately describes my elation for having my newborn with me while he is still a newborn. Believe me, I’ve scoured thesauruses.

This 9 year old had Down syndrome. It was my kind of a celebrity sighting. I was more excited to see this girl and her family than I would've been if Angelina Jolie walked up my driveway with her flock of children. 

Elliott can take typical toddler baths. she can swim, go to the beach, play in sand and won’t need to wear bibs to distract her and other kids from grabbing at the trach like the built-in and life-threatening toy that it is.

Then, it rubs salt on the wound by creating gas that I formerly believed could only be produced by truck drivers living solely off beef jerky and gas station hot dogs for weeks at a time. Can I just tell you how stunning I am? I mean really, the essence of femininity if I do say so myself.

So all of this change translates to an element of trust. It’s an exercise in trust. I am at the gym, running sprints on the trust treadmill. I am performing trust tricep dips until I fall. I am sitting in the trust sauna until all my worries sweat out of me and fall onto the teak floor.

I never want Elliott to get caught up in the comparison game that can, at times, devour me. I never want her to feel that her legs aren't great... or really, that any part of her isn't great. That she isn't great; amazing, actually. 

There is no magic potion, there is no easy button - we just do what we have to do. But doesn't everyone? Don't you all do whatever needs to be done to ensure your kids/family/friends/neighbors/the people you love are taken care of? Yes. Yes, you do. As you should. 

The next day, Brad and I drive to the hospital and check in at the radiation department awaiting our turn for the ultrasound. Once in the room, the technician is doing her job and keeping pretty quiet. Not like they can tell me anything anyway, but I've always found the quietness to be immensely haunting. There are words floating in that silence. 

This experience was a reminder (not like I really forget) that for my entire life I will be educating people that my daughter is just a kid. I carry such contempt for the various terms that float around forcing me to label my child as if she were anything else than my child.

I walked into a nearby conference room, shut the door and listened to the voicemail. It was my Doctor. Not a staff member telling me all was fine, but my Doctor asking me to call her back. My morning sickness morphed into a grander sickness.

As a result of our experience the concept of "birth plans" are comical to me - that would assume the pregnancy and delivery are going to go just as you intend it to. I want to meet five women where this has been the case. And then I want to punch them in the face. Just kidding...I would only punch one of them, I'm not a monster. 

I will forever remember this day and specifically that moment between new mothers. Both finally nearing their turn to leave the NICU - one with her baby, one without. 

Almost immediately after Elliott was born, she was struggling to breathe on her own. She needed to be intubated (have a breathing tube inserted into her mouth) multiple times and after all the failed extubations (removal of the breathing tube) the word “trach” made its shocking debut.

I built her with my imagination - how she would look, how she would act. My imaginary daughter would be curious, a good reader and have great calves like her Dad. She would be witty, creative and kind, she would like to dance, be a good cook and have my smile... 

I remember lying on the table while the ultrasound technician did a fetal ultrasound of our babies’ heart. Brad holding my hand, me making small talk with the tech. Not because I cared what he said but because if I stopped talking I’d have to face my own reality.