what we lost in through the looking glass.

On Wednesday we went to another baby naming and basked in the joy of a tiny new soul and in the embrace of community. It was utterly lovely, one of my favorite traditions.

And yet afterwards I felt a sadness that permeated for days.

It seems almost impossible now, I thought, but our son was once that small too. And when he was the age she is now, already we knew he had a medical condition with a lifetime of management ahead, already we were, in the face of uncertain insurance and tight OR scheduling and the fear of winter illness, desperately trying to make sure he got the surgery that would keep him from going permanently blind.

When he was born, he wouldn’t latch at first. And then his blood sugar was low, so the protocol was to give him formula to help stabilize it. The nurse kept reassuring me that all of this wouldn’t negatively impact breastfeeding, but I wasn’t worried at all. I just remember looking down at him and saying, “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out together, won’t we?”

On our way back home from the baby naming, we walked many of the same streets we did after that pediatrician appointment so many months ago, both of us in such a haze that we walked blocks past the Metro station without realizing. That pediatrician appointment, where we beamed at him as we waited for the doctor, his beautiful little body in just a diaper, and David said, “He’s just so perfect.” But then the doctor couldn’t see what she needed to in his eyes, and doctor after doctor came in after her and looked and shook their heads, and all she could do was offer us a name on a piece of paper and a gentle apology.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay,” I sighed.

And it was okay, really. I’m so grateful that he got the care he needed and is doing so well. But we lost something big that day, and it’s so blindingly apparent to me when I see new babies and their parents now.

Our joy, the joy of new parents with a perfect little baby, quickly became tainted with fear and guilt. And that surety I had in the delivery room - the surety that even though I didn’t know how things would work out, we would manage - instead eroded into a persistent worry.

We were so in the thick of it then. I think we handled it as well as we could. But it’s really just now that we’re processing the emotions, the gravity of what was lost to us.

Last updated August 29, 2019