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April 13, 2003 - Problem Child
So. A long silence here. The "war" is part of it, of course. But now that the "war" is "over", and "we" "won", as a good American I'm not supposed to be thinking about it any more. In fact, if I try really hard, maybe I can forget about Osama bin Laden, too. Or maybe not. Ê I'm also silent because I don't want to write about my daughter. In fact, I'm getting to the point where I barely even want to talk about her. This is because the vernacular of early parenthood seems to term everything related to an infant as A Problem. Gee, it must be really rough on you, getting so little sleep. Gosh, that awful crying must be driving you crazy. Guess you're doing a lot of laundry and changing a lot of diapers these days, huh? Why do people persist in talking to me as if easing our daughter gently into life is the worst thing in the world? And with such a smug well-meaningness in their tone as they say it. And then always the cheery follow-up reminder to !enjoy her! Well, now that we've had a long conversation about sleep deprivation and dirty diapers, my zest for motherhood has surely been miraculously renewed! Ê We are having problems, and late nights and smelly laundry are the very least of it. Due to an intensive, round-the-clock medication schedule and skin care regimen, most days Asha's skin looks almost normal. But the treatment, as they say, is only skin-deep. She may look fine, but the itching hasn't stopped, so the scratching hasn't stopped, so what we have here is a baby that can't be left alone even for a minute before she starts tearing at her face. While she is awake, one of us needs to be with her every second. When it gets really bad and all distractions have failed, we have to take her tiny hands in ours and physically restrain her from hurting herself. She may grow out of it. She may not. The only medications that are really effective are most definitely not for use on a five-month-old baby. So, we wait, and Toby comes into the kitchen and says to me that he's not sure about having another one. Ê It's very difficult for me not to erase the last two paragraphs. Asha is not a problem to be solved. She is a breathtakingly innocent being with the eyes of an angel and a glorious appetite for every shape and color and sound that life has to offer, and to be the one to introduce the world to her will be my life's highest honor. In the face of her beauty, and in light of what we all had to go through to get her here, it seems monstrously ungrateful to complain about her even the tiniest bit. If it were just late nights and smelly laundry I would hold my peace. The nightmares I still have about former employers continue to make routine domestic drudgery look like an all-expense-paid vacation to the Bahamas. I can nap during the day, and at some wonderful future time I'll be able to show my daughter how to work a washing machine. I never imagined, though, that I'd have to watch her hurt herself. I don't know how I could have prepared myself for something like this, and I'm not at all handling it well. When you've done everything you can to take the pain away and it's still there, and she looks to you with eyes that are brimming over with tears and there's no way to explain to her that you're sorry that your best efforts to help her haven't been enough ... how do you cope with that? Ê Toby doesn't stand idly by - this is his battle, too. But it's taken the heaviest toll on me, and when he said that he wasn't sure we should have another one - however it might have sounded at the time, and whatever I might have thought he meant by it - it was a reflection of his concern for me. Still, though, I was stunned by it, bewildered and outraged and pained. We talked it through, and things are better now - especially since the new medication may finally be helping, and a cheery, sunny baby who squeaks and squeals and blows little raspberries is gradually beginning to emerge. He took it back. But I wish, so much, that he hadn't ever said it at all.
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