Our purpose in life: Adriana’s happiness.
When you become pregnant you always have a fundamental objective, that is for the baby to be healthy. In our case, the pregnancy went well, with “normal” complications (which we later realised were prenatal symptoms): vomiting, diabetes with insulin, excess amniotic fluid…. And finally, they decided to provoke the birth because the baby was losing weight in the uterus. And so, Adriana was born on the 10th December 2013. Tiny but beautiful!!!
The first little problem was that she was born without a sucking reflex, so for the first few days she drank breast milk but in syringes, later in bottles because she was not strong enough for breastfeeding. From the age of 10 days, we started a medical route where nobody was able to explain to us what they were looking for. She had a heart murmur, some peculiar physical features, she didn’t gain weight, she hardly smiled… but nothing concrete.
She is a strong girl and in her little more than two years of life she has only had one viral process, so it has not been easy to reach a diagnosis.
In any case, I don’t know from which specialist the geneticist could have been reached. And after a complete genetic analysis on the 3rd of August 2015 (you never forget the date) they told us what was wrong with her. She has DiGeorge or 22q11 syndrome, a condition that is considered rare and about which almost nothing is known at first. The geneticist gave us a web reference to the association so that we can download the manuals that explain what the symptoms or pathologies are. Then we began to understand the lack of knowledge about what had happened to us.
At the beginning, the world fell apart for us, but the truth is that I am proud of how we reacted: from the first minute we acted to reduce these symptoms that may or may not appear in these children. Since then, everything has been a long-distance race. One day Víctor (her father) and I sat down, and it became clear to us what our purpose in life was: for Adriana to be happy.
Despite all this and the therapies: genetics Immunologist, endocrinologist, digestive, neurologist, cardiologist, otolaryngologist, rehabilitation, general Paediatrics, nephrology, physiotherapy, speech and language therapist, stimulation and swimming,… we can only thank the world for the treasure that was sent to us, because she is an example of strength, because every day she teaches us all more than we can teach her, because she has placed priorities and values in our lives. All this is worthy of thanks, also because we are finally achieving our purpose: TO BE HAPPY!!!!