Well we did it. One year: One year, one surgery, two boots and bar, three weight scares, four teeth, five days in NICU, six casts. And a partridge in a pear tree. Happy Birthday, Baby J!
For those of you that have met Baby J, you know that he is so so so happy. His big blue eyes melt every heart and, man, he loves to smile. I love him so much that I can feel it in the pit of my stomach, reverberating to the tips of my fingers and toes.
At first, I was afraid to love him.
At 20 weeks we were told that he would be born with bilateral clubbed feet and possibly down syndrome or spina bifida. We had to wait to be sure.
(Yes- It was the worst week of my life)
A week later, they confirmed that it would just be bilateral clubbed feet and they may have prematurely tried to diagnose the other two… No kidding. Regardless, I felt like my baby was arriving broken, deformed; I was bad mother for letting this happen to him. How could I protect him from the world when I couldn’t even protect him while he was inside of me?
It was a tense pregnancy: I felt guilty, sad and scared… along with all of the physical symptoms that pain one in their final months.
He arrived very quickly (8 minutes!) and was instantly whisked away. Nurses, doctors and my midwife rushed around him while I yelled, ‘Why isn’t he crying‘ from the other side of the room. They took him away – I didn’t know where or why. I laid there in pain, in fear, wondering what happened to my baby.
An hour later, my husband was able to go see him in NICU and I followed in a wheelchair some time later.
He wasn’t able to breathe on his own. His blood sugar was very low and unstable, and there was not enough oxygen circulating in his blood. His clubbed feet curved inward – unnatural – he looked broken.
I didn’t cry – I just stared. Who was this deformed creature? I had failed already.
‘We didn’t think he was going to make it,’ a doctor told me later. ‘We called Sick Kids and tried to get him in there but they weren’t sure either so we kept him here. It was touch and go for a bit.‘
Lord. That was heavy. So heavy.
I spent a lot of time by his side…staring at him…this baby that they told me had grown, given birth to, but I kept asking if the doctors were sure he was mine.
It wasn’t love at first sight, an overwhelming rush of emotion that had bowled me over with my first son. No, this was a different feeling. A lack of feeling. I felt nothing looking it him.
I wanted to love him, I did, but I couldn’t. I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t die. As my sleepless hours stretched into sleepless days, I was beginning to recognize a sort of fondness for this little baby. That scared me too. What if I fell in love with him and he left me? I wasn’t sure that was something I could get over.
We left the hospital days later. No one could give us a definite diagnosis which didn’t really ease my anxiety around loving my son. Without a diagnosis, how could we know it wouldn’t happen again?
He also had acid reflux so threw up everytime he ate. He would arch his back and scream after every meal and cried constantly. His gas seemed so painful and nothing calmed it down. He wouldn’t gain weight and no one seemed to have a solution. I remember sitting beside him as he lay crying on the carpet thinking, ‘What have I created? This broken baby….’
I felt exhausted, embarrassed, sad, angry, scared and so, so guilty.
Finally, I cried.
From the age of five weeks, J and I went to Sick Kids hospital weekly to fix his clubbed feet. I was told that with the right treatment, he would walk, run and jump just like all of the other kids. I felt optimistic as we started treatment.
He did five weeks of casts followed by a tenotomy, a surgery that cuts his achilles tendon, followed by more casting. He then wore boots and a bar for 23 hours a day before graduating to where he is now: 12 hours a day in boots and bar. He will have these until he is five.
Things started to turn about six months in. We had those special times together at the hospital: we sat in lots of doctor waiting rooms, we shared these little moments of not knowing what would happen next, of smiles and tears and just holding each other close.
I sang to him constantly and talked to him all the time. The fear dissipated ever so slightly. The anger began to fade. The sadness consumed me less and less..It all became a little less heavy.
He started solids around six months and finally began gaining weight. He spits up so rarely now. He still wears his boots and bar and doesn’t walk yet which worries me but I also know is totally normal. He breathes well and overall, is a very healthy little boy. He has another totally unrelated surgery to get through which scares me but I a trying to remain positive.
Some days I still feel guilty. Some days I still feel sad and angry and scared but I am so grateful. He is growing into the most beautiful, energized, loving little boy who looks at me with so much love, trust and joy that my heart melts multiple times a day.
I have been blessed with two gorgeous, intelligent, fun little boys who both have a sense of independence, a sense of humour and are full of more love than I knew existed in the world.
So cheers, baby! Happy first birthday!
Thank you for teaching me about fear, love, strength and what it means to be a mother…most importantly, your mother.
