An Unexpected Journey with Miss Scarlett

I mentioned several posts ago that we received "fantastic news" during our visit down South. For those of you that have been holding your breath waiting for me to spill...here goes!

I've actually been mentally composing this post for about eight months, since the earliest days after Scarlett's birth. Now that it's come to writing it, I find it's not so dramatic as it all seemed then, so I may not have as much to write as I though I would. (Note: everything seems ten times more dramatic in a postpartum haze then it does after all those hormones wear off! I've had five children, and yet I always seem to forget this until well after the fact.) There have been two versions in the works, and I'll go ahead and say that this is the version I had hoped to post.

It actually started as a post about one issue, then another issue took over my thoughts and emotions, and eventually they dovetailed into one. At any rate, it all started when Scarlett was born, when - confession time! - I was alarmed to find I was not completely intoxicated by that "cocktail of love hormones" delivered at birth. In my previous natural births, I experienced the bliss that comes after labor, that is heightened by having experienced all the sensations of birth, and I was instantly and rapturously in love with my babies. Even in my two medicated births, when I was in a haze, there was no gap between birth and bonding. But this time, I was disconcerted by having looked at her and thinking, "That's not the person I was expecting." And why in the world this would be, I'm not completely sure. She looked like she fit with her siblings. The birth was amazing. She was adorable and miraculous. I held her tightly when she was placed in my arms, kissed her, spoke her name to prompt her to respond to us and begin crying, loved her and never for a second rejected her with any part of me (heaven forbid she should ever find this one day, read it, and think I was disappointed with her!)...but I didn't have the rush of warm-fuzzies I was waiting for. Part of this, I think, was because after I delivered her head, I had though the worst was over, but then she got a little stuck. The delivery of her shoulders and chest was far more painful than I had experienced before. So when my midwife, Jami, pulled her out of the water and placed her into my arms, I was still feeling shocked and I had a hard time of delivery had been something different that what I expected.

Before I could recover from this, my emotions followed a downward spiral of events that started first when that night and then again the next morning, Jami mentioned (gently and tactfully) that Scarlett's ears were just the slightest bit low-set. She emphasized that she didn't see anything else that could indicate an immediate problem associated with this, and that she felt it was just the way Scarlett was made, but nonetheless, it brought a stab of fear that further held off the happy emotions. Personally, I didn't have a problem with her ears, but the fact that something other than the "normal" box was checked on the section about her ears on the newborn exam sheet made me a little crazy. I felt panicked, thinking, "I can't believe I messed up a baby!", as if somehow I were responsible for this thing (that wasn't really a "thing" at all, but keep in mind what I said about those postpartum hormones!). That feeling was compounded when Scarlett opened her eyes the next morning, and revealed that she couldn't open her left eye all the way. If I felt panicked about her ears, I was all the more so about her eye. It reminded me, irrationally, when Aimee received her first American Girl doll, and one of the eyes stopped opening and closing properly. We sent it to American Girl, they fixed it, and sent it back. I remember wishing desperately that there was something as easy we could do to fix Scarlett's eye...and feeling a rush of anxiety, because she was a baby, not a doll, and couldn't just be "fixed." And on top of all that, feeling so very guilty, because I was her mother and and "shouldn't" even be having these thoughts.



I struggled with this through my the period of physical recovery, and it was somewhat difficult for me to leave my room after the first week to take care of everyone else. Scarlett had been born in my bedroom, so in all kinds of ways, many of which were positive, my room felt like a peaceful cocoon. I suppose I felt that if Scarlett and I could stay there together long enough, everything would resolve itself - her eye would get better, we would have a proper bonding experience, I would feel only the joy and relief of having had a baby, and none of the anxiety and slight confusion that I was feeling instead. But I had to rejoin the real world when Dave had to go back to work, regardless of how I was feeling, and, as usually happen in cases in which we think we can't do something but must do it anyway, the very doing eventually became part of the strengthening and the healing. Still, in the very first week, I remember holding her in the sling on morning as I was getting ready to start our day, and I remember wondering glumly if my memories of our first weeks together would be tainted by my failure to respond emotionally to her, at least in the way that I wanted. But I was reminded in that moment that I was holding her, nursing her, caring for her just the same as I always have with all my babies...and that those are the things I would remember, and certainly those were the things that would count with her. The doing was what mattered...and because there were four other energetic children to care for - four children, incidentally, who were thrilled with Scarlett and never failed to offer affirmation about how beautiful and wonderful she was - there wasn't much time to sit around and marinate in guilt or self-pity.


So that was some relief, and it certainly helped when we were thrown the next curveball at her two week well-check. Her pediatrician, as it turned out, didn't think her ears were low-set after all, but he was concerned about the size of her chest, which was larger than usual. He said that he thought she would probably just grow into it, but that it could indicate a chromosomal condition, so we would just watch her over the next several months and make sure she hit her milestones. So your baby might have a life-altering condition. But it's nothing to worry about yet. Have a nice day!"

I walked out of the office feeling a bit stunned, and wondering how I would survive watching her every move in anticipation of her hitting her milestones...for the next few months. As it turned out, of course, the next few months weren't quite that agonzing, partly because, as I've just mentioned, real life was still happening. I couldn't sit around and wait for Scarlett to be ok, or for all this to the "normal" experience I had expected. I'd like to say that I didn't have time to worry at all, but then I'm pretty sure you would know I was lying! I did spend a fair amount of time in those few months grappling with a depth of mother emotions - and just human emotions - that I hadn't previously touched in my life. And this is what came of it all:

At first, I struggled with rebellious feelings toward God. "How could you do this to her? How could you do this me?" It took some time, but I had to be reminded that life happens to ordinary people. There's no particular reason that I should be exempt from bad things happening. This wasn't about ME, anyway, but about her. I was confronted with my own lingering self-centeredness in regard to my children, and I wondered how often it was my expectations of them, and the way they met them, that I loved best. Ouch.

In realizing and wrestling with these things, however, I also became aware that if I found out that anyone viewed Scarlett as anything other than an absolutely adorable baby, if anyone thought less of her because of her eye, or any other flaw in her appearance - if they even suggested there was a flaw in her at all! - I was capable of doing physical harm to them. That intense protectiveness was the reason I didn't tell anyone, including family members, about what the doctor was concerned about, but it was also what confirmed to myself that there was nothing wrong with the bond Scarlett and I had. Some of the warm-fuzzies might have been masked by anxiety, but I did truly love her. And when she began to smile and coo, it was impossible not to respond to her with adoration. In fact, I cherished each smile and sound all the more because I was watching her so closely to make sure she did all the right things and the right times (which, incidentally, she did and still does). I savored every moment with her, slowing down a time that usually flies by in a blur.

Eventually the things I feared became overwhelmed by what I loved - and in some instances became the things I loved (like the way she winks her droopy eye when she smiles!). By the time we moved her to Ohio, I thought she probably did have the condition the doctor had told us about, and I was no longer afraid of it. So when her new pediatrician wanted to get her tested, I was ready, and we went ahead and had the blood test done (and then waited and waited...apparently those tests take a long time!). When we were back in SC for a visit last month, the nurse from the pediatrician's office called with the results - and they were negative! It took a few minutes to register the news, and even when it did, I wasn't as euphoric as I had thought I would be to hear it. I think it's because it's not her chromosome count that makes her perfect to me - and perfectly loved!