Chapter 8: I'd Give Anything

When Shea takes her daughter to the doctor, she gets news that makes her feel like she's doing everything wrong.

Sometimes Zoe makes a facial expression and I get the uncanny feeling I recognize it. And then I remember where I’ve seen it before"the mirror.

Shea

5 Months Old…

Everett was at work and the house was quiet. I lay in bed with Zoe asleep in my arms, thinking how much she had grown already. Five months old. Wow. She’d discovered her feet this week and even started to sit up on her own for a few seconds at a time.

Already I can see her learning about the world. Examining it, cataloging it, trying to understand it. She looks at everything like it’s all so new. And it is to her. It’s a new world for me, too. But I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this mothering thing. Finally.

I slipped my arm out from beneath her head and sneaked out of bed. The early morning is often the only few minutes I have to myself all day, so when I can, I like to take my time getting ready. Maybe shave my legs if I can work up the energy. Maybe.

As I combed my hair, I thought about my friends. Each of us moving along on our mothering journey, yet none of us dealing with the same situations. Even Jasmine’s twins are so different from each other that I’m beginning to understand why there’s no rule book for parenting.

Andrea is as fussy as ever, which could be attributed to either colic or being a girl. Neither of which, Jasmine can do anything about so she just has to ride it out, which she still isn’t convinced she can commit to. Xavier is finally coming out of his shell--probably a good thing before Andrea runs him over. Jasmine keeps hoping Hector will step in to raise him to be a good man but it seems like she’s seeing less of him than ever. I’m worried about her.

Alexis is already exactly like her mother, which is hilarious. She has all kinds of things to say about when she eats and how, whether or not her mother is changing her diaper correctly, how amusing her toys may or may not be depending on the time of day. Riley’s finally getting a dose of what it feels like to be in the crosswinds of her lightning storm, and it has truly humbled her. She’s still as snarky as ever, though, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Me. What can I say about myself? It seems I’ve finally loosened my grasp on how quickly the world turns. No matter how many parenting books I read or how much I baby proof the house, I can only control so much...and the rest I just have to let be.

A thud jolted me from my thoughts, and I stood up, listening. It took a second for the screaming to start, and when it did, my heart stopped. I shot out of the bathroom and my breath caught in my throat when I saw Zoe face down on the floor next to the bed. I said her name and picked her up cautiously. As soon as she was in my arms, her crying stopped, which made me feel even worse. How could I be such an easy solution to her problem, when I was the cause of it? I examined every single inch of her, and when I was sure she was okay, I slid down to the ground and burst into tears.

***

A few hours later, Zoe had a doctor’s appointment. I almost cancelled, certain he would see my failure written all over my face. Or worse, on hers. Is there tamper-evident packaging on babies? I went anyway. She’d been rubbing her ears a lot lately, and while she didn’t seem to have an infection, I wanted to be sure.

One thing I have to say about my pediatrician's office is they’re prompt. I remember when I was pregnant, sometimes I would wait in the doctor’s office for an hour, or approximately three trips to the bathroom. In Dr. Meyer’s office, though, I was usually sitting in the back room with Zoe stripped down to her diaper in ten minutes or less. One of the nurses took Zoe’s weight, height and circumference, and then we waited in the bright blue office while the walls closed in on me.

“How’s the little one?” Dr. Meyer said as he came in the door, laptop in arm. He’s an older man with stark white hair and dimples. Some women might call him handsome.

“She’s good. I mean, well, she’s okay. I mean...I think something wrong, I guess, or I wouldn’t be here,” I said with a laugh, and snugged Zoe’s little body closer to me.

Dr. Meyer smiled. “All right. Why don’t we start with why you’re here then?”

I shifted in my chair. “It’s nothing, really.  I feel sort of stupid now that I’m here.”

“A mother’s intuition is best,” he said. “Trust it.”

“Okay. She’s been rubbing her ears.”

I shrugged, and he laughed at my sudden indecisiveness. Usually I pelted him with questions and self-diagnoses like a tennis ball machine.

He asked me to put her up on the table, so I did. I hovered nervously nearby as he listened to her heart and lungs and felt her abdomen. I kept waiting for him to turn on me with a glare and an accusing finger, but he never did.

“Okay, let’s take a look at those ears,” he said finally. I don’t know why doctors always wait until the end to look at the problem that brought you to the office in the first place, like they’re waiting to see if you’ll die of impatience first.

He looked in one ear and then the other.

“No,” he said simply.

“Really? I was sure--”

“Just ear wax. Either that or she might be teething. Sometimes that will cause ear pain.”

“So much for my mother’s instincts,” I said, and he laughed. “Is there anything I can do?”

Dr. Meyer shook his head. “Not really. If she seems to be in pain you can give her some baby Tylenol.”

He motioned toward her, indicating I could dress her so I did. He made a couple of notes in his laptop, and I thought he was going to leave, but instead, he sat in his chair until I was done.

“There is something I want to talk to you about,” he said and my heart sank.

“Oh?”  I put on my best surprised face.

“Is Zoe breastfed or formula fed?” he asked.

“Oh.” I stood up straighter. “Breastfed. Exclusively,” I added.

He made an mmm-hmmm noise and I sank into a chair with Zoe in my lap.

“Is something wrong?”

“Well, Zoe’s a little underweight for her age.” He turned his laptop around to face me and pointed to some brightly colored lines. “Do you see this dot here?” he asked. I nodded. “This is where she should be...and this is where she is.” He pointed to a line significantly lower than the average.

“Oh.”

I looked down at Zoe. By looking at her, no one would know the difference. She was smaller that Alexis, but she was about the same size as the twins. Although, now that he mentioned it, the twins were also small for their age, being multiples and born early.

“Is she okay?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. It’s nothing to worry about. Some babies just have a harder time putting on weight. Or there’s the possibility your milk production is low for whatever reason. But it’s probably time to start supplementing with formula.”

I had stopped listening around the time he started talking about my milk production.  Suddenly, the small room that had just been suffocating me felt like an open field, and Dr. Meyer, a million miles away. His voice echoed brands of formula and how much to give her, but I wasn’t really listening.

I left the office and went straight to the grocery store. I picked out a few cans of baby formula and put them into the cart. Paid for them at the register. Drove home. I did all of these things with my brain on pause. It was like I was in a walking coma. The thought of calling Riley floated through my mind, but I was too afraid to say the words out loud.

“How was your day?” Everett asked when he got home.

“Fine,” I said.

“How was Zoe’s doctor’s appointment?”

“Good.” I stirred the white liquid in the pot, my eyes crossing as I watched it swirl together.

“What are you making there?” he asked and kissed me on the cheek.

“Formula.”

It took him a moment to answer. “You mean, like, formula? For Zoe?”

“Mmm hmm.”

Everett gently took the spoon out of my hand and turned me around. “What’s going on?” he asked. He knew how much I loved breastfeeding. I’d never given Zoe a bottle even once.

I buried my face into his chest, and though I willed myself not to cry, my tears wet his shirt. “I’m a horrible mother,” I said, my words muffled by his shirt.

“What are you talking about?” he asked and tried to pull me off him so he could look at my face. I only clung to him harder. “Shea, what’s going on?”

“She’s underweight,” I moaned. “It’s my fault. I’ve been starving her all this time.”

“Shea,” he said and finally managed to pull me off of him. “What did the doctor say?” Before I finished telling him everything, he cut me off and said, “Shea, c’mon. You can’t blame yourself for this. There’s no way to know how much milk you’re producing or if that’s even the problem.”

“I know it is. I’m sure of it. Maybe I’m not drinking enough water. I could drink more water.”

He frowned and pulled me back against his shirt. “Honey, we’ve got to put Zoe first. Whatever the reason, we have to make sure she gets what she needs to be healthy.”

“I know,” I said. “I just feel like I failed.”

“You’re doing everything right,” he assured me.

When I started crying again in violent sobs he put his hands all over me like he was afraid I’d been hurt.

“She rolled off the bed,” I moaned into his shirt. At first his body tensed, but then he relaxed again and, unbelievably, he laughed. I stopped crying and looked up at him. Seeing the shocked look on my face, he laughed even harder. My first thought was to slap him, but it soon dawned on me what his smile meant.

Zoe was fine.

We all make mistakes.

And laughter is the only way we make it through them.

So I laughed with him.

***

Before bed, I gave Zoe her very first bottle. I expected her to reject it, but maybe I just wanted her to. More than anything I wanted to hold onto the idea that I was sole source her life. And that she needed me. She didn’t reject it, though. She took right to the bottle easier than she’d taken to my breast. A tear landed on her cheek, and I wiped it away with my thumb.  She suckled, her eyes closed with sleep and happiness and I couldn’t help but smile. That’s the thing about being a mother. Somehow, as long as your child is happy and healthy, even your failures feel like accomplishments.

Author's Note

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