what was it?

The most common question I get when I tell our story is "What was it about Zoo Boy in the first hour after birth that made you think that Jacob was so different?" I've tried a million ways of explaining this, but everything seems to fall a little short of anyone actually being able to understand. I'm not sure it's possible TO understand unless you actually live through the experience. But let me assure you, there was a HUGE difference, even at that early age.

An hour or so after Zoo Boy was born, the nurse came in to do some measurements and clean him up a bit. This was all done on a warming table next to our bed. As he lay there, he seemed perfectly delighted about everything -- the attention from the nurse, the warm light above him, the cozy mat he way laying on. As she was working on him, The Map Man's parents came in for their first peek. When the nurse left, they hovered above him and he lay there happily naked, RELATING with them on his little newborn level. My parents came in a short time later with the same experience. He just seemed so, I dunno, comfortable in his skin. Content with life. A real part of the world he was born into, like he was a missing piece that found it's way into the puzzle of life. It just wasn't like that for Jacob, who seemed totally overwhelmed and puzzled by his world from the moment he came into it.

Zoo Boy studied the world and people around him because he was curious about it and knew he was a part of it. Jacob stared in a seeming mix of disbelief and concern. Zoo Boy looked at your face as if he wanted to know you; Jacob peered intently thru it, like he was trying to look inside your brain and figure out just what the heck you were and why you were in his space.

So a mere hour after Zoo Boy's birth, The Map Man and I looked at each other and said "ummm.....". Finally we understood what other parents had been talking about. Finally we knew what having a typical baby was like. No wonder we just didn't "get it" when other parents of babies tried sharing their stories with us! And that left us wondering -- what the heck had we been experiencing for the past 2 1/3 years?

And so the search for answers began.