Happiness

Can be translated into different languages and experiences.

Butter obviously makes me happier than words can express. I wasn't "supposed" to be a mother. I'd been told I wouldn't be able to bear children and had given up on the thought. After the initial happiness and shock of finding I was pregnant with him, I had an ultrasound that showed all of his intestines, stomach, and liver on the OUTSIDE of his body. The picture looked like spaghetti. I was told the follow-up ultrasound would likely show the same picture and that I'd seriously have to consider terminating because if he made it full-term, he would likely die during or soon after childbirth or would live maybe a few years in an almost vegetative state, requiring feeding through a tube and almost certain brain abnormalities.

I lived for weeks between that film and the follow-up praying harder than I ever had in my life. None of the doctors who dealt with my case thought that anything would change. Not one of them. These were widely-known doctors who dealt with high-risk pregnancies. I'd prepared myself the best I could for the next appointment.

And the picture showed a closed belly. Nothing hanging out. Nothing stringing along inside the little sac. A closed, round belly. Nothing wrong with the spinal cord. Nothing. Everything was tightly shut.

And the little (whatever. he is SO NOT) four year old I have today - in all of his happy glory - with giraffe rain boots that he doesn't like to wear in the rain because "they might get WET!"