This essay was originally published in 2005 in the Globe and Mail.
I gave birth to my baby boy, and he was beautiful. He was the product of a second marriage for both of us, evidence that broken people can heal. He symbolized hope and joy. He was our love child.
His birth was everything I wanted. No interventions, no medications, a baby who slipped out naturally after a few pushes to meet his parents. Even in the late stages of labour, Mike and I were giddy with excitement in between each contraction. "The baby is coming," Mike kept saying, and I would grin and nod and kiss my love before another wave of contractions pulled me back under.
We took him home after 10 hours, and he was all wee and jaundice-yellow. He was a quiet, soft, sleepy baby with a sweet mop of hair on top of his head. His round face was mine, and his eyebrows were blond. He was our little peanut, our button. His dad and I fell deeply in love with him.
Then the dark clouds started to settle in. At the end of his two-week checkup at the clinic, the doctor hesitated. I could tell he wanted to say something.
"Do you remember we talked about prenatal testing?"
Yes, I had. I had declined the testing. I knew I'd carry my baby to term no matter what.
I looked him straight in the eye, and took a deep breath. "Are you trying to tell me that our baby has Down syndrome?"
Retrospect is such an easy thing. I had not forgotten the day after Aaron's birth, when I had gotten up after a long night of scrutinizing my boy and typed "Down syndrome" in the Google search engine. I had broached the subject with Mike, and he had scoffed at me for being paranoid. Then I had asked the public health nurse later that day if she thought Aaron had Down syndrome.
"Yes," she had said gently, but then she had inspected the palms of his hands and his toes and concluded that he had a heart-shaped face like his mom, and eyes like his dad -- that's all. No other signs. So we filed away this scare in the back room of our heads and carried on. Whew. That was a relief.
But when the doctor mentioned the prenatal testing, I knew. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. I was holding onto my baby for dear life. "Oh," I said. "Can I use my cell phone here?" I had to phone Mike, immediately.
I don't recall our conversation. I am sure I sounded as if I was being strangled -- and, in a way, I was. I do know that I sat in that examining room, nursing Aaron until Mike arrived. I don't cry easily and there was a choked bundled of tears sitting just beyond my throat. I remembered to breathe.
Mike wanted to carry Aaron over to the lab in the hospital. He wouldn't put him in his stroller, and he marched proudly through the hospital corridors cradling his son. It was as if he was saying, "I'm looking after my boy, no matter what!" They drew blood from Aaron's little arm. Mike and I didn't talk much -- I felt sick as the needle went in and Aaron gave a cry of protest. We had to wait two long weeks for the result.
We were back at home. Aaron was napping in his car seat. The day was beautiful . . . mid-April, sun streaming out of the prairie sky. We sat on the balcony of our house, watching Aaron sleep, discussed how our doctor was wrong, how he was too inexperienced, how he had surely misdiagnosed.
There was a waft of music coming from the house across the alley. I strained to make out what song it was -- it was coming from an open bedroom window. A young man lived there with his parents. He had a rare chromosome deficiency and is one of the few people with such a condition to be alive. He wasn't expected to live beyond a year old, but there he was, 20 years old, blasting music out of his window.
The song finally became clear. It was a song from my memory of junior high school dances. Our neighbour was playing ABBA's Take a Chance on Me.
The results came back after the two weeks. And yes, our baby has Down syndrome. The deep chasm of grief seemed endless when we found out that the baby we expected was not the baby we received.
But slowly the sun peeked out from behind those clouds, and I was able to get out of bed and go about my business. My baby, now two years old, did not allow me to stay stuck in the grief.
Instead he holds out his chubby little hand as we trundle down the sidewalk, both delighting in this warm fall day. My ABBA-playing neighbour is outside as we pass his house, and his face lights up as I greet him by name. Take a chance on us, indeed.
Σχόλια