After over 6 months of silence from me here I decided to share with you what was going on in my life. I stopped posting here just few days before the BJ show in Poland, but the reason behind it is totally not BJ related. That’s why I post in it NBJ section, even though parts of it still will include BJ stuff. Once again life has written a special story for me. If you manage to read it to the end you can decide for yourself whether it ends with a happy ending or not. I just have the need to share it with the world and this place is the only place I know to do so. And it took me few months to be ready for it. So please forgive me the tone of this post.

It was afternoon of 18th June, just one day before the show in Gdansk. I finished work and the only thing ahead of me was experiencing the greatest dream of my life. First ever BJ show in Poland, which happened to be in my hometown. When I got back from work, my wife, who was then in her 9th month of pregnancy with our second daughter told me she is not feeling very well and that she has frequent contractions and probably will give birth soon. All my life, I had two greatest dreams above any other smaller ones – to have 2 children and see BJ show in Poland at least once. And to experience them both on the same day would be to cheesy even for a Hollywood script. My wife has been with me at all our previous shows and of course she was going to be at the one in our town too. We even have foreseen the situation and bought a seating ticket for her, just in case it happens on the day. Doctors gave us the date of 25h June as the probable one, but one or two weeks left or right was possible too. I had the ticket for GC on the floor, but in her eyes view, just to check and be ready to leave the stadium if this really happens at any part of the show. So many of our friends were saying how cool that would be for me, such a huge BJ fan. But still I never really took it too seriously this might really happen. Besides, my wife wanted to go for the show really bad and was hoping the contractions will cool down. She’d much more wanted to go to hospital right after the show but not right before. Anyway, just after about 10pm her waters broke and then it was almost certain that this dream might really come true. We left to hospital and after general procedures we reached the delivery room 10 minutes past midnight. So we knew for sure our daughter will be born on the day of the first ever BJ show in Poland. And the whole labor was so fast that exactly at 00.30, June 19th, only 20 minutes after we got there, our beautiful little daughter – Alice - was born. I was with my wife during labor all the time just as I was at Natalie’s birth (our first daughter) and I simply couldn’t believe what had just happened. This went so fast, it was unbelievable. Natalie’s birth took about 5h and this took only 20 minutes. This was no unreal. Especially for me this was too good to be true. On the same day two of my greatest dreams were about to become reality. I think that was the most exciting moment of my life…but…You Can Only Get So High…..

…Then You Gotta Come Down….We had few minutes to see our daughter, they put her on my wife’s chest as they always do, and then took her away to make some typical measurements and basic tests. And when they came back with her, they came back with a new doctor out of nowhere. And she said that baby in general is fine but shows “phenotypic features of trisomy 21”. We both looked at each other and looked like “What? What the hell does that mean?” We didn’t understand a word of that, even though it was Polish, but sounded like foreign language we don’t know at all. But it sounded so serious this couldn’t be anything good. We asked her what does it mean and she said “Well, we have to do some extra tests and we have to make sure about it, so don’t worry yet, but it seems your daughter has Down Syndrome”. And we understood that very clearly. Too clearly actually. And she added that very often it comes with some kind of heart defect, but they will do more test later, and she left. The silence of that moment will stay with me for the rest of my life. We just looked at each other, without words, completely shocked. “How? Why? We are so young! This can’t be true!” Those were the first thoughts coming through our minds. Nothing was certain but that news overpowered the joy we had shared just 5 minutes earlier, and happiness was all gone. We were looking at Alice and we could not see a thing wrong. Then I looked at her eyes closer and it looked a bit weird but not too weird and we still were so confused. After about 30 minutes they put some cables to her foot, and after few minutes something was wrong with oxygen in her blood or something and they took Alice away to do some detailed tests quickly. And we were left there all alone. Without baby. Without words. Without joy. Only with fear and sorrow.

One very important thing is that throughout whole pregnancy my wife’s done many scans, including 3D scan, and visited doctors regularly, that were supposed to show any signs of abnormalities with the baby and they were absolutely clear everything’s fine. Nothing, absolutely nothing suggested that the baby will be born with neither DS nor heart defect. We were told the baby is 100% healthy and there is nothing to worry about. That’s why we were so shocked when they told us about it. On the other hand, even if we knew during pregnancy about it, it would not change a thing. We would never abort the baby. Never. It’s just that there was no time for preparations, no time for adjusting your mind to the thought. It was poured on us like a bucket of ice cold water.
Later we’ve learned that Down Syndrome happens about once every 1500 pregnancies for women at the age of my wife. So you can say we won the lottery. Statistically chances for it were almost impossible, yet we turned out to be that one case anyway.

I remember we only said to each other, that no matter what happens we will have to stay strong and somehow go through this together. We both did not cry. I guess we were both trying to pretend to the other one that this is easy and there is nothing to worry about and that soon it all will be just a bad diagnosis and it will all be good again. But deep inside I think we both were scared as hell. At least I was, but as a man, I felt I have to be that brave knight even more and not show any signs of weakness to my wife. I left her at about 3am and went back home. And over there I could be that vulnerable knight and tears are all I can remember from that night.

In the morning, when I came back to hospital it was 90% clear Alice has Down Syndrome and she only needed some genetic tests done to prove it, which was supposed to be a formality only. The thing is that only one hospital in my city is able to do them and you wait for about a month for the results. So we already knew we will have to wait really long for definite results but they basically gave us no hope. But what was as tragic as the DS diagnosis, was the confirmation that Alice has a severe heart defect, called AVC (you can read more about it here: http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInf...rdiac/avc.html ) and will have to go through an open heart surgery for sure. They didn’t know how soon, but she will for sure. And just to make it clear, Alice was kept away from my wife all the time. They kept her at a special ward, with premature babies. So you can only imagine what a nightmare my wife was going through even more. She could not even hold her and only wonder how she’s doing, and maybe visit her like twice a day for few minutes. We were maybe 12 hours after Alice’s birth and we already knew, that our life will never be the same from now on. And with that thought in my mind I was few hours ahead of my second greatest dream – first ever BJ show in Poland.

To be honest at that point I actually didn’t want to go at all. I was so depressed and lost all my hope about anything. If you check the thread about the show in Gdansk and go to opening post by me, you’d get the impression how proud and excited I was about this show. And after reading that, you can just try to imagine what must have been happening in my mind to actually even think about not going. Moreover, there was one more factor that has already weakened my excitement about the show few weeks earlier – absence of Richie. I also bought tickets to the show in Stockholm and Tampere and because of Richie’s absence I decided not to go. I’ve been saying loud and clear here over the last few years that Richie to me is the most important member of the band, and always has been. Without him to me there is no Bon Jovi. That’s why I dropped Scandinavian shows, even though I lost some money, because Swedish promoter refused to give me refund for the ticket (Finish gave me refund without any problems). Richie’s presence and charisma, not to mention obvious guitar and vocal skills to me are too important. So actually it was even a bigger miracle for me that the first ever show was scheduled for Gdansk, because if it was any other city in Poland probably I would not have gone anyway, not only because of Richie not coming, but also because of my wife’s pregnancy and a risky date.