That said...

there are moments, half hours, even, when little A makes me laugh. She has eaten, and pooped, and suddenly her smile comes out. This huge, toothless grin, that can be shot just as easily at me as at the mobile above her changing table. Or the corner of the ceiling.

And she coos. Like a champ. She oohs and ahhs. She makes raspberry sounds (I say she's imitating the sound of pooping, and will continue to consider it her first word). Sometimes it seems, like the dog, she's most vocal when M and I are talking to each other.

She stares and furrows her brow, then smiles again. She aims and kicks things with her legs.

She completely melts my heart. And it is those moments, after I laugh and coo back, that also break my heart because I think "if I could just find out why she's in pain and help fix it, she'd have more of this." And more sleep, and better eating, etc. And after each remedy we try, especially now that it has been almost 12 weeks, I get a little scared that if it does work, we could have done it earlier and spared her the pain.

I know. The world doesn't work that way.

But you know you wish it did.