One long month

From Bryce Aubrey Zeiner

Today is the one month anniversary of Bryce's death. To be honest, I do not know what to write.

Bryce we miss you... or at least the idea of you. How can you miss something that you weren't use to? Bryce was not part of our everyday routine, he was just inside me. I miss the concept of my second child, but that does not include medical needs, pain and death. I yearn for a healthy Bryce, the little baby that would be kicking my ribs and soon to be keeping me up all night. Is that fair to miss something that was never truly real? To be so self absorbed that I really only miss the thought of a child, but not Bryce? I am completely perplexed on how I should feel. So today, I give up. It is part of my nature to make everyone feel better, to let them know that it will be ok. Today is simply not that day.

Knowing that people might be looking at the blog specifically today, I did want to share yesterday's memorial and more of my most recent thoughts. Pictures are posted in Bryce's photo album, I hope that everyone can see what a beautiful place Bryce is buried. The headstone is currently being made, we are having a craftsman carve something special for Bryce. Once we have it placed we will post a picture of this a well.

Love to all,
Dianna

evaporated myth

I have had a lot of time to think and to talk to family and friends lately. In this process of writing a narrative for Bryce's life, lots of isolated thoughts have come up. This is one of those thoughts.

This isn't going to be an overly insightful concept for most of you but apparently I have been living with a gaping blind spot for quite some time now. Here goes:

I don't control anything in my life that truly matters.

Saying it out loud makes it seem so obvious it's embarrassing. I'm healthy. I was born into a good family. I'm a biologist because it was the thing I was naturally good at when I was in the career-choosing part of my life. I met Dianna by random chance. One of my sons is healthy and beautiful. My other son was only beautiful.

I think that most Dads believe that they can protect their kids. Our culture lauds Dads for this imaginary strength and cunning, for being six chess moves ahead of everyone else when it comes to averting danger. What complete bullshit. You can strap your kid into a car seat. You can put a helmet on your kid when your kid is doing something that requires a helmet. You can teach them to not run into the street to chase a ball. You can tell them to not talk to strangers or get into their car. These things aren't protection, they are common sense.

You can't protect your kids from random chance.

-Gus

Karyotype results

From Bryce Aubrey Zeiner

The above picture is Bryce's karyotype results from the amniocentesis. Although there is no new information from these results that we did not already know, we are comforted to see the actual data. To physically view the scientific reason behind our sadness, to understand why Bryce died. Bryce had a full triplication of chromosome 13. Notice the size difference between chromosome 13 and chromosome 21 (a triplication of Chromosome 21 causes Down syndrome). Even though it is not just the size but what genetic information is carried on the chromosome, when comparing the two it is obvious what a difference between the quality of life would be, if Bryce had the chance to survive. Poor precious boy, how and why were you so unlucky? Bryce, we love you.

In Bryce's photo album, we added a few more of the artistic photos we received. We love these photos almost as much as we love our boy. Evidence of his life, evidence of how Bryce has changed us. We hope it does not pain you to see them, we think they are beautiful.

All our love,
Dianna and Gus