"The first time anyhow." and "What are the odds?"

My dad finally came to meet my daughter, thirteen months and one dead little brother into her life. Yes, I’m bitter, resentful and full of hatred. Upon seeing his granddaughter for the first time (did I mention she was thirteen months old?) he said “Well kids, you’ve done good!” and my first reaction and immediate response was “The first time anyhow”. Why? Why is it that I say those things? Why is it that I try so very hard to find the humor in my son’s death? Obviously there’s nothing funny about it at all. Maybe I like the look of horror I usually get. I’ve always been one for reactions. Maybe I want people to feel the horror that I carry around. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself that it wasn’t as big of a deal as it really was that I don’t hurt as much as I really do. I hate bad stuff. I have never been one to know what to feel or say or do in the face of a tragedy. I shut down, I ignore, I bury and bottle. But this is my tragedy. Maybe I make jokes before other’s can. I don’t know. It’s weird. It makes me feel weird about myself. Maybe I want people to think I’m dealing with it and moving on. I am. I am dealing with it, and I do feel like I am moving on…and all the while carrying my little tragedy around in my pocket. But honestly I feel like we did a good job the first time around, and totally screwed it up the second. I know Down Syndrome isn’t my fault. Nothing I did or could have done would have changed it. At least that’s what the doctors say. But it was my body that did it, my egg that didn’t cooperate and split the way that it should have. The egg that had one purpose; to split the right way…couldn’t get it right. “What are the odds?” (A common thing people say); well at thirty-one the odds are one in nine-hundred. If you had an eight hundred and ninety-nine percent chance of winning the lotto, you’d play. I’d have played. ONE IN NINE-HUNDRED!!! I’d say my odds were pretty freaking good. I’m always that ONE, and now they tell me I have a repeat chance of one in ONE-HUNDRED now. How am I supposed to even think about conceiving another child? And they all say “But what are the odds?” and all I can think is “pretty freaking good!” It sickens me to feel this way.