The short history
of Julian Alexander Danielzik
also known as "Snuffles"
Draft 1.0
Julian was born August 17th, 2006. Unlike his sister Kitty, he was not
a 100% planned child, but more a happy surprise. That doesn't mean he
was unwanted or unplanned. Cass and I didn't use anything to prevent a
pregnancy. Also, Cass had just mentioned a month before, that she wants
another one.
Then in the winter of '05, I got a phonecall from Cass while I was at
work. She told me, that she took a home pregnancy test and it came back
positive. Honestly, at first I was too stunned to react really to it,
but according to my coworker I had quite the grin on my face as it
finally had sunken in.
At first we had to figure out how to name the incoming addition to our
family. While he name Julian Alexander was set already, there was still
the chance, that it would be a girl. After long hours of brainstorming
the name Tasha Cecilia was selected.
The pregnancy was neither worse nor better than with Kitty, if I recall
correctly. There was, however one worry point. One of Cass' bloodworks
came back out of normal range, indicting an increased chance of Down
Syndrom. We had an appointment to look deeper into that matter, but one
thing was sure: we would not go for an abortion, but would love the
little one, no matter what. But as we talked to the specialist, we
heard with relief that the increased chance was at 1in 106, less than
one percent, while Cass and I had, by the serious language of the
report, expected something like 50% or worse. A thorough ultrasound
revealed no indicatons of Down Syndrom and the babies gender. The
revised chance for Downs was now 1 in 360.
Then, my parents arrived to witness the birth of Julian.
August 17th we settled down again in the O'Bleness hospital, and this
time I stayed as well, not wanting to recreate something like what had
happened at Kitty's birth.
Near the end, however, Julian was giving us some sorrow. Every time
Cass had a contraction, his heartrate would go down, indicating some
distress. And Dr. Chan, who was finally the doctor to deliver the baby
was a bit distressed himself by that. He even had the C-Section room
prepared, just in case, but offered Cass first to use the forceps. Cass
agreed to this try and Dr. Chan went to work. He managed to deliver
Julian at 1:16pm. While the little one came out blue and purple, he was
fine after a few minutes.
Today he is a happy little baby, almost 6 months old, who is keeping his parents and his older sister active.