The Benchmarks

Today our Little Lionheart is six months old.

If Cora was a typical baby she might do some of the benchmarked baby tricks like sit up, roll over, push up, or crawl. She would probably be trying solids and holding her own bottle, or at least drinking from a bottle. She might be babbling, playing with toys, and laughing.

We all know, she can't do any of those things. But there is an almanac full of beautiful accomplishments this girl has made that blows the "what to expect" books out of the water.

The first and most astounding thing she has accomplished is that she fundamentally changed my perspective as her mother. All my adult life I have been afraid of having a child with special needs. What would I do if my child was different? What if my child couldn't walk or talk or read or play sports or be just like every other kid out there? What if my child looked different? I truly believed I wouldn't have the strength or the guts to mother a child like that. I don't have any patience, I am too judgmental, I am too afraid of what everyone else is thinking.

Cora's miracle is that she changed my mind. I won't lie -- I was still scared in the early weeks of her life when more and more bad news kept being revealed. But then something extraordinary happened. She worked her way into the inside of me, and she changed me.

I have accepted at the very bottomest bottom of myself that Cora will not meet the typical benchmarks. I know very little about what she will one day accomplish, but I do know that. That's not what's amazing. What's amazing is that I no longer give a crap about the stupid benchmarks.

Every step forward, however baby-step-like it might be, means so much more to me than it would if she were a typical child. Each step is made out of gold. I absolutely celebrate each tiny thing, and thank god for them without secretly asking for more. I am grateful for the days she doesn't need to be on a ventilator, for the times when I can hold her, for the few milliliters she drank from a bottle a couple of weeks ago, for the deep and sincere way she can look me in the eye. When she held her head up a few days before surgery, I could have died right there. Life seemed so completely fulfilling in that moment.

Cora's milestones have been all those things I just mentioned. But more importantly, her accomplishments have been to make people reconsider how precious life is, how ridiculously rich we are to have kids to cuddle, friends to laugh with, and healthy bodies. She has reunited me with friends I haven't spoken to in years. She has made nurses and doctors fall in love with her. She has brought many, many people to prayer. She has beaten the odds twenty times when her body had all but given out, but her spirit still had more to say.

And she can grasp toys, and hold her own hands, and hold mine. And when she's feeling good, she can even hold her head up.

What a wonderfully clever little being she is.