Nonny smiled, then laid her head back on the couch and closed her eyes. Mom gave her That Look, that Too Precious to Handle look, and I admit it, it was actually nice to see that none of us ever grew out of being her little kids, no matter how old or married or pregnant we got.

How pregnant Nonny got, rather. That one would only ever be her.

There’s an app on my phone called Marco Polo that Mom let me download especially so I can send video messages to Thomas, and I sent one then. “She’s here!” I said. “She made it! Everyone say hi to new dad Thomas!”

He sent a message right back, his hard hat on and his face sweaty. “My main people! Aw, I miss you guys. Thanks for the chat, Lobster. Keep me updated on you-know-who, mmkay?”

(Yeah, he calls me Lobster. Let’s just say the first time he came to meet the family we went out to a seafood restaurant and there was an incident involving my dinner still having eyeballs.)

I looked at my sister while her eyes were closed. She didn’t look pregnant. Except for the glow. I decided I should watch her very carefully in the next few months. Maybe I should document the experience. Track when her ankles started swelling. Track how big her belly slowly grew. Track when the morning sickness went away. Go with her to doctor’s visits, if she’d let me.

Otherwise, I’d never know what it was like.

A Shot a Day Makes the Doctor Say Yay

Not very many twelve-year-old girls have to give themselves shots every day, but really it’s not bad at all.

Sometimes Turner syndrome messes with your heart. (It messed with mine pretty good.) Sometimes Turner syndrome messes with your thyroid or your kidneys. (Mine? So far, so good.) But there are two things that Turner syndrome always does:

1. Turner syndrome means you can’t have babies of your own. Nonny’s taking care of that one for our family, and I don’t even need to think about that right now anyway. Right?
2. Turner syndrome means you don’t grow to a normal height. Not on your own, anyway. But there’s special medicine called growth hormone and if you give yourself a shot of that stuff every day for a while, you can do a pretty fine job with the whole growing thing. I’m already over five feet tall. Without the shots I’d barely pass four.

I’m pretty lucky, actually. Since my doctors figured out about my Turner syndrome stuff soon after I was born, that meant I got to start shots early and do plenty of growing. Sometimes girls with Turner syndrome don’t find out until it’s too late for the shots.

The needles don’t scare me. They’re small. My bedtime supplies aren’t that different from everyone else’s. Toothbrush, pajamas, needle. Check, check, check.

Mom used to give me the shots. Then I told her I wanted to learn how to do it on my own, and after she taught me, I did it in one try.