Beryl

We’d met in college, Mary and I, me in pre-med and she working on a BA in business administration.

We married right after graduation and Mary got a job as a buyer for Costco. I was entering medical school that fall, so we put off having children until I graduated, just too busy a schedule for both of us.  We had little time for us, let alone a child, at this time in our lives.

Once I graduated from school and started a 2 year residency in Gerontology, we began in earnest to start a family.  

We tried everything except drugs, I’d heard too many stories and saw too many cases of triplets and quads, for us to be comfortable with that possibility.

When we were both turning 36, we decided to look at adoption before we got older. The agency was great to deal with and we passed all of their tests as parents to be.

In three months, they presented us with a baby girl, Beryl, about 10 days old. We took our baby girl home, we were ecstatic, finally a family with a child.

Beryl was extremely smart, turning over at one month and sitting up by herself at 3 months.

Her pediatrician was recommended by the adoption agency and Mary took her in for  

checkups every 6 months thereafter.

Beryl walked at 6 months, began to speak clearly at 14 months and by 18 months was conversing fully with Mary and me.  We were thrilled with our child!

I went with Mary to the next visit with Beryl’s pediatrician. 

We sat in his office as he praised our child, “She is truly a prodigy, even for this newest model of AI “baby, the Bionic Energy Resonator Yielding Life, or “Beryl” for short.