Miracle In A Baby Booty
November 13, 2010
3:35 a.m. CST
I mentioned in previous posts that in 1979 some crimes were committed against me. They rattled my cage in a way that most people don't get to experience or understand. The nature of these crimes are not the subject of this post. I'm just filling in some gaps so you can understand the backdrop of the subject. The first time this crime was committed was August 15, of 1979. The second time this almost identical crime was committed was approximately about a month later. In response to the experience of the crimes, I latched onto the first person who came along. I met my daughter's father in December of 1979. I held on to him, and let him hold the pieces of my universe together because I couldn't. I was an emotional and mental shambles.
When I met my daughter's father, I did not ask him if he was married. I was suicidal and was looking for a reason, any reason, any excuse, to not commit that act. I was looking for answers I did not believe could be found but tried to find anyways. Whether or not he was married was a non-issue to me at the time. It never entered my mind. I knew I was going to seduce him and sleep with him the first time I saw him, even before I met him. I just knew. I was determined. I was looking to him to save my life. He did. However, mothers being mothers, mine takes the eternal position that the affair was all his fault. In her mind, he was the mastermind behind defiling me and totally ruining my life. To her, I was the pure and unspoiled territory, a pure child that had never seen or experienced evil, and not capable of this type of choice. She thought of me as having fallen in love with exactly the wrong man and that he had taken advantage of me and used me. Truth is, I was never in love with him, and never even considered love as being part of the equation. I wasn't looking for love, just an excuse to not die. If he had not fallen for my advances toward him I would have either found someone else or committed suicide. Mom doesn't get it.
I can say categorically that had I not been with somebody at that time, I would have been dead within the week. I can also say with conviction, that I am not, nor have I ever been ashamed or sorry for that choice or for any other choices I made concerning that relationship, or for having my daughter. I'm still here. She's still here.
I guess her father thought it necessary to ease my conscience, in order for him to have his way with me. He told me he was divorced. He admitted to having one son, who, by the way, was only 3 years younger than me. I was 19. He was approximately 36. His son, he said, was 16.
Our affair lasted 1 year, almost exact. I hadn't expected to stay with him that long, but once I started it with him, I didn't know how to break it off. He was the first time I had ever been with a man sexually, although he had not been my first boyfriend. I had been raised to be a "good girl," a virgin, and a nice person. I hadn't been raised to be a user. It wasn't in my nature or my upbringing to just use someone and then just toss them away like a used Kleenex tissue. But after being with him for a year, his jealousy became so intense, it gave me a damn good excuse for breaking it off with him. I was 3 months pregnant when I told him to get lost. I broke up with him about mid-December of 1980.
I found out just before becoming pregnant that he lied about being divorced. Yes, he was married. That revelation, though, did not cause me to break up with him. I was under the illusion that they were separated. I was also still under the belief that he only had 1 child from that marriage.
When I broke up with my daughter's father, I told him I did not ever want to see him again, hear from him again, or even hear of him again. To this date, I have not seen him or had any contact with him. Hearing of him is a whole other story, but I'm not going into that now.
I had a difficult first 4 months in my pregnancy. Everything made me vomit, even the smell of fresh air. I'm not talking about a couple of heaves and then it was over. I mean heaving spells that would last for half an hour, sometimes for each attempted bite of food. And they were very severe stomach contractions. Even a sip of water would start the retching. Before I became pregnant I weighed 210 lbs. My weight dropped like a rock. I couldn't keep my pants from falling. I was severely dehydrated and had to be hospitalized. I looked like I was bordering on being emaciated. My doctor complained that this was no time to diet, that dieting could cause me to lose my baby or have a baby with severe health problems. I explained I wasn't dieting. I told him what was going on with the morning sickness, and how severe it was.
The doctor wrote a prescription and gave it to me. He followed with an explanation of the medication I will never forget. He told me that due to the severity of my morning sickness and the severity of the stomach contractions that he was afraid I was going to lose the baby. His prognosis for losing the baby was 90% if I didn't take the medication to control the heaving. He said he couldn't tell me to take the medication though. He pointed out that this medication is famous for causing deformities in babies. However, if I took the medication, I stood a 50% chance of my baby being deformed in some unforeseen way and a 99% chance of a live baby. He said he was leaving it up to me whether or not to take the medication.
I weighed the risks. I was 19 and had to make a very adult, grown-up decision, all on my own. At 19 you really don't see all the ways life can go horribly wrong or the consequences of your decisions, even the right decisions. Looking back, I suppose that worked in my favor. At 19, you're really not prepared. With time and experience, that changes. I made it. I decided, let's go for the live baby. We'll cross any other bridges when we get to them.
The medication worked like a charm. It completely stopped the morning sickness. By the time I was 4 months along, I was able to stop the medication altogether. Some nausea came back, but was very mild. There were just some foods I had to avoid, like milk, soda pop, and anything else I liked. My diet became very bland, but I was getting by. Air still smelled bad first thing in the morning, but I got through it.
My daughter was born in May of 1981 about a week before the date the doctor had predicted. She was beautiful and looked just like me. Well, with the exception that I could see her father's lips and ears. She had a head full of long, black hair with copper highlights that was already down to her shoulders at birth. She was born at 8:16 a.m. on a Sunday. After a few hours of sleep, the nurse brought her in and let me hold her. Her eyes were big and brown and were open and focused and she was looking around at everything in the room. She tried to climb my shoulder as if it was Mount Everest.
Some parents check their children the first time they hold them. They count the little fingers and toes. I don't know why, but I didn't. Didn't even think of it. I was just awestruck. She was beautiful! I noticed the way she focused on everything and everyone in the room. I knew this was going to be one very smart girl! I was right.
After the visit was over, and they took her back to the nursery, the doctor came in and gave me the chilling news. He told me about her foot. I hadn't checked when she was with me. He made sure I knew. He described the severity of the ankle deformity. He said that sometimes deformities like this can try to straighten themselves out, but this was more severe than anything that could ever straighten out completely. He said that they would not know until she turned 4 just how much it might try to straighten itself. Until she turned 4 they could not make any decision on whether surgery would be warranted. He said no surgeon would perform surgery on a newborn infant if the problem was not an immediate life or death situation. In fact, he said that no surgeon would be willing to perform surgery on such a deformity as hers until she was at least 6 years old.
He gave me different scenarios of how it could all play out. Her ankle may or may not straighten itself out. The variables as to how much it may straighten itself out was infinite. It may or may not someday need surgery. It may or may not need more than 1 surgery. She may or may not need a leg brace someday. It was possible that a leg brace may still be needed after surgery. It was possible she may need a leg brace for the rest of her life. There was just no way of knowing. There was just 1 thing that was certain, guaranteed, written in stone. Even if the most remote possibility came about and it straightened out, with or without surgery, and she did not need to live in a leg brace and could walk without any artificial aid, she would still never be able to keep up with other people who have normal, healthy legs.
He said she would never be able to run, or jump, or hop, or skip. She would always be on the sidelines, watching everyone else have all the fun at physical activities.
After the doctor left the room, I walked down to the nursery window and looked at my beautiful baby girl. The nurse came over and picked up my daughter and brought her to the window. The nurse made a point of unwrapping my daughter from the blanket and showing me the foot. My daughter's left foot while the left leg was straight forward, was turned completely backwards at a 180 degree angle. The tops of her toes were pressed into the back of her left calf. The ankle bones were pushed outward from where they were supposed to be toward the center, or should I say pointing toward her right leg. Her left leg and foot was only half the size of her right leg and foot.
Sometimes you see your life suddenly mapped out in front of you. You see all the dark days ahead, the hardships you're going to have to deal with.
Sometimes you just can't take it in. I thought of my daughter living in a wheelchair for years. I couldn't see how I was going to carry this person up and down stairs for who knows how many years. I was in over my head, and I knew it. I couldn't handle this. I took a deep breath and thought "Let God." We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, I had a beautiful baby girl, a LIVE baby girl.
When mom came to visit me in the hospital, I told her the news. What more could I say?
When I came home with my baby girl after the standard 3 day hospital stay, my sister came at me like a swarm of bees. She was prepared. Obviously, mom had told her about my daughter's foot and the doctor's speech long before I came home from the hospital. My sister was consumed by the thought she had to take the bull by the horns and make sure my daughter had this fixed. She had researched all the U.S. surgeons who specialize in infant surgery and presented me with a list of a dozen infant surgeons who could immediately (in her opinion) fix my daughter's foot, quite possibly before the month was over. She wanted me to sit down that very minute and start making phone calls to these surgeons. I told her not to worry. I said I was going to have her anointed at church. My sister was furious. She insisted that someday my daughter would hate me and blame me for not being able to walk or have a normal life. I countered with I was not opposed to having the surgery performed if it was needed, but that it didn't need to be today or this week. There was plenty of time before her foot would be needed for walking. I said we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
When Saturday rolled around, which was the day we observed as the weekly sabbath, my daughter was 6 days old. I took her with me to church. I hunted down the minister, showed him my daughter's foot, and explained what the doctor had explained to me. The minister cried. The tears streamed down his face. He went around the room and gathered an elder and a deacon together with him. The 3 of them, along with me, formed a circle in a back room. I held my daughter. The 3 of them put blessed olive oil on the tips of their fingers, then put their fingers on her head. They prayed for healing. Somewhere in that prayer I heard them say some acknowledgment that they believed that everything that goes wrong is a direct result of sin. Someone had sinned. They acknowledged that her foot being deformed was a result of someone having sinned. I knew they were most likely referring to me. If taking that insult resulted in my daughter's healing, what did I care? It didn't matter. Her foot was more important than my ego or my self-esteem.
The ceremony didn't take very long. It was over quickly. After church I took my daughter home. Both my mother and I took turns at massaging my daughter's foot every time we picked her up. We'd slowly and carefully pull her foot away from the back of her calf, and gently rub.
Seven days later we took my daughter to church again. She was 13 days old. The bones in her ankle were popped back into place. Her foot was facing straight forward. It was not only forward but also not pressed against her leg. Her healing only took 7 days. Granted, her left leg and foot was still much smaller than the right leg and foot. It was several months before the size caught up and they were completely equal.
My daughter has participated in every activity. She runs, skips, jumps, hops, dances, and was a cheerleader at one time. When the neighborhood girls got together to play double-dutch with their jump-ropes, she was better at it than anyone else there. She not only kept up, she was better! In high school she participated in the international day competition dance. For a while, she was part of a dance club that performed exhibition dance. Today, she dances salsa. While she's not a professional dance instructor, she helps teach dance along side professional salsa instructors.
I can find no law of physics or medical science that can explain this miracle. I can also not find any logic for why my child was completely healed 100% and many others are not. I have seen many instances where no healing occurs at all.
I know there is a God. And only God knows why.
