The Verdict

What would your verdict be in the same situation?

I rocked the chair all the while holding my darling baby close. She yawned and blinked her sleepy blue eyes. Looking down I could swear she saw me clearly, but that piercing gaze usually meant she was just focusing. She smelled so fresh and sweet. Her wisps of blond hair stood out from her head forming a soft halo. I ran my index finger over her soft skin and whispered, "I love you, Jaimie."

"I love you, too, Maggie."

I jerked awake. Bruce stood beside the bed holding my left hand to his face. "Honey, I have a surprise for you. You want to go see Jaimie? The nurse said I could take you down to the nursery."

I sat up throwing my legs over the side of the bed and winced as my stitches threatened to tear. "Yes, I want to see her. Get my robe, please."

While I put my robe and slippers on, Bruce brought a wheelchair for the short trip to the nursery. I leaned forward as though that would increase the chair's momentum and get us to our destination faster. Impatience increased tension and my head began to throb. Having been subject to migraines all my life, I prayed as never before that the ache would subside. I felt a light tickle on my forehead and the pain was gone.

"Thank you, Lord,"

A nurse waited inside the door of the unit. She welcomed us and directed us to a sink to sanitize our hands. We were given masks and pea soup green gowns to put over our clothing.

In spite of all that had happened the day before, I wasn't prepared when we saw our little angel again. Tubes were everywhere! Intravenous lines fed into an arm and a tiny foot. My eyes traveled from her toes to her naked body to her head and … I laughed.

In the midst of tragedy, the absurd rose up and smacked us square in the eyes. Our baby lay jaybird-naked on a heating table to raise her body temperature. Lines and tubes ran from all parts of her body including one temperature probe attached to the top of her head. But around the probe was a 3-ounce paper cup with Disney characters cavorting all around it. She looked like a baby clown with that silly little 'hat' on her head.

The laughter turned to wrenching sobs as I took in the room my baby shared with no other. She was so small! Weighing only 6 pounds and 1 ounce at birth, she had lost a few ounces already. Her ribs formed ridges up and down her sides. No 'baby' fat could be seen anywhere. Yet she slept peacefully, never moving.

"You can touch her," the nurse urged us.

"Where?" I cried, looking for a space on her body not interrupted by wires.

I found a two-finger wide area on her ankle and a one-finger space on her narrow shoulder. My fingers lightly moved over the two small spots while my arms ached to scoop her up and hug her tight. Just being able to touch her at all brought milk surging into my breast. Drops stained my gown. We stayed there for over an hour, talking to our baby, encouraging her, begging her to live and come home with us and loving her so much more than we ever believed possible. That afternoon I was sent home, but Jaimie stayed behind for two long weeks sedated with Phenobarbital to prevent convulsions.

Every day we visited twice. For four days all we could do was touch tiny areas on her legs or arms and talk, talk, talk to her. The fifth day the wires were gone! I rushed through the sanitizing process so I could hold my baby in arms that ached with missing her. Gingerly I scooped her into my arms. She gave no sign that she knew I was there. Her eyes didn’t open and her breathing never changed. It didn't matter. I held her for one hour, then two. Bruce took her for a few minutes, but I couldn't relinquish her for long. Greedily I took her back.

"Look, honey, she must've gained two or three ounces!" I said trying to convince myself more than Bruce. The thin blonde wisps of hair had fallen out, but I told her, "You'll be beautiful even if you're bald! Now would your mommy fib to you?"

Exhausted, but thrilled to have spent so much time holding Jaimie, I let Bruce talk me into going home. She seemed to be gaining ground, but the final tests results weren't in, so she remained in intensive care in an incubator. My mantra became, "She'll be alright. She'll be alright."

The next day Jaimie had a new baby keeping her company. Why the baby was in intensive care I have no idea. She weighed in at fourteen pounds and was built like a lady wrestler! Jaimie wasn't even half her size. While holding my baby, I watched Little Lady Wrestler being fed.

The nurse brought in a four-ounce bottle. Two swallows equaled an empty bottle and a baby screaming for more. An eight-ounce bottle was produced. That one took almost thirty seconds to empty and Little Lady wanted MORE! That resulted in Frantic Nurse. I learned later that the nurse was new and experiencing her first day in the baby ward. She made the assumption that caring for babies was a breeze. That, of course, was before she met Little Lady Wrestler. Little Lady gave no quarter. Before her feeding was over she had drunk three and one-half bottles of formula. With a foghorn burp erupting from her sated baby self, she turned her head and was asleep seconds afterward. Jaimie slept through it all.

The longest two weeks of our lives passed. We received the call telling us the test results were in and we could bring our baby home. The news was a good news/bad news item. We wanted more than anything to bring Jaimie home, but we wanted her to be healthy and whole.

David just wanted his sister home so he could do his big brother bit. After all, he had promised her an awful lot. So far, having a baby wasn't at all as he had envisioned. He wanted to go with us to bring his sister home. We had to turn him down, but promised she would be waiting for him after school. He was relieved since he hated to miss even a day of school. He was one of the few children that fought like a tiger if I wanted to keep him home even when he was legitimately sick. He gave no indication that he was, in fact, having a rough time in his new class and with a couple of children who lived on our street.

Before picking up our daughter, Bruce and I had to see her doctor. Holding hands tightly we sat down on the edges of the offered chairs. Determined to be optimistic, Bruce spoke first.

"So what did the tests show?" he asked. "I can't imagine that anything very serious would be wrong. Just look at her, Doc. She's beautiful!" As he ended, his voice was pleading more than asking. I grasped his hand tighter.

"Yes, she is beautiful, but I'm afraid there is one problem and possibly more associated with the initial one." the doctor began. "Jaimie has what is known as Down's Syndrome. This particular syndrome is a form of mental retardation. We have no tests to show just how severe the retardation is until she is older."

"No! You can't do that to her!" I screamed at the doctor. I half-rose from the chair, but Bruce pulled me back down.

"Maggie, the doctor isn't doing anything to Jaimie. Come on, Honey, he's trying to help her. Sit down and listen." He rubbed my shoulder absently.

The doctor resumed. "Bruce, there really is nothing that can be done to help the retardation. But there are physical problems that we can help. Fifty percent of Down's babies have open-heart surgery before they are two years old. Jaimie has a heart murmur that sounds as though she may need the operation. We'll have to keep a check on her. The two of you have a rough road ahead. I wish I could break this gently, but there is no way to do so. You have to be constantly vigilant.

Watch for her lips and skin turning blue. If that happens, get her to the hospital immediately. There will be little time to prep her and get her in the operating room Right now the blood is flowing correctly through the heart. But usually less than a year after birth, the flow reverses so that artery instead of vein blood is flowing through the heart. At that point she will be slowly suffocating from a lack of oxygen being supplied to her organs."

In addition, she will probably need glasses at a very early age. Serious dental problems will arise in more than seventy-five percent of the children. Usually the tongues are literally too long for the mouths of these children. They have to practice long and hard to learn to hold them in. The roof of the mouth is sometimes too high for them to learn proper speech. And they have a tendency to gain weight because their thyroids are under-active." he paused.

"Please, though, don't be dissuaded. Just take her home and love her." he finished.

Bruce asked question after question. The truth was finally sinking in, but neither then nor later did he shed so much as one tear. I was beginning to wonder what was wrong with him.

To each question, the doctor's answer would end with, "Just take her home and love her." After about the sixth time, I had had enough!

"What do you mean? Just take her home and love her? Of course, she's going home with us. Of course, we're going to love her. We've waited almost eight years for our second child. What did you think we'd do?" I snapped at him.

"I'm sorry if I've upset you, Maggie, but the truth is far too many people leave their children at the hospital and never return for them when the child isn't 'perfect'. They'll just direct some institution to come and pick them up like they are so much dirty laundry. I just want your baby to have the love I know your family is capable of."

The tears flowed again. This time it was for all those nameless, faceless babies that no one was willing to take the time to know. How could any parent be so cold? Why would they even try to have children if they would only accept perfection? What kind of monsters were those people?

"I'm sorry, Doctor Bennett. I didn't know. Yes, Jaimie will have all the love she can handle and then some. Never worry about that." We left to get our baby.

The nurses had put Jaimie's name on the stocking she was originally delivered to me in. They wrapped her securely in blankets and tucked her into the festive red sack. Tears fell from many eyes when we left, including ours. The nurses and doctors had been exceptional in a time when hospitals and institutions were being asked to perform miracles with less and less funds. Love for babies like Jaimie was seldom issued to the babies in their care kits. Sometimes a life of bare existence greeted children whose only wrong was being born different.

When we arrived home, David was ecstatic! He danced around for a moment singing a song he made up for his sister before sitting down so he could hold her.

"What's wrong, Sis. Didn't you want to come home? Mom's been crying and Dad's been worried about her. You've got some problems, huh? Well, don't you worry like Mom and Dad are doing, okay? You've got your big brother and I can help you get better. I promise, okay?" Just before he finished his brotherly speech, Jaimie opened her eyes. No one can convince me she didn't look directly into his eyes with total trust in her white-flecked orbs. From that day on she and David bonded and that bond has never been severed.

In bed later Bruce and I came face to face with the verdict that had been handed down. Doctor Bennett's final words to us were, "Don't expect anything. Just love her."

"We will expect EVERYTHING until she proves us wrong. The verdict may be that her mind is not as sharp as some, but we don't have to accept a sentence of hopelessness."

Our marriage had been tested before, but never with anything as large and important as our child. The verdict had been mental retardation and a need to love her enough to accept her limitations. It was up to us to pronounce the sentence. Our decision was to love her enough not to accept her limitations, but to push her past them until she proved she could do no more.  Thirty years later and we’re still waiting for that day.

Author's Note

All critiques welcomed.

Reviews

[Mark Coffee]

This was fascinating. I want to hear more. What happened with the trouble David was having with the kids in the neighborhood? You baited me with that, what's next?