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Body failings
Mar. 20th, 2008 10:40 amI don't talk about this too much because it's whiny and it's ugly, but every so often it rears its ugly head and I thought that perhaps if I wrote it out, it wouldn't bother me so much. I don't know.
I was putting the baby down for a nap and got to thinking, again, about all of this muscle tone business and how the PT suggested we see a neurologist. I really don't want Punk to see a neurologist because it's very likely the neurologist will want to do an MRI, and to do an MRI on an infant you have to sedate her. You know, because you can't just tell a baby, "Don't move." And I really don't want Punk to be sedated or put under. It scares me.
But there's also more. So she has an MRI and then what? Then does the neurologist start talking about cerebral palsy? Does it go beyond the world of doing some stretches and hoping for the best, of water therapy and infant massage? Does it become something bigger?
After a while it all just lumps together in my mind: the reflux, that weird mystery rash way back, the formula intolerance, the delays. It always comes back to the same place - my uterus. My uterus, which wasn't able to sustain both of our babies. My uterus, which generated a small placenta and thin umbilical cord for Punk. At the time, it was a casual mention, "Oh, you had a small placenta and a really thin cord." As if it was no big deal. But now I think, 'Did Punk get less oxygen or nutrients because of her small placenta or her thin cord?' Or I think, 'It took a minute to get her breathing and they talked about giving her some blow-by before she got it together. Is that when it happened? Is that what ruined her muscle tone?'
And then that's when I start thinking that maybe I /should/ think about an MRI. Because maybe the MRI would be normal and I could stop beating myself up and concentrate on stretching out my daughter's hips/legs/knees/ankles so that she can function normally in the big world. Or maybe it wouldn't be normal and I would spend my whole life wondering why my body would lose one child and break the other. Maybe I asked for all of this by overriding nature with ovulation inducers, you know? Maybe I just tempted fate a little too much.
It doesn't matter to me, personally, if my daughter has delays or has to work harder or whatever. But it DOES matter to me that I may have somehow caused this for her.
I was putting the baby down for a nap and got to thinking, again, about all of this muscle tone business and how the PT suggested we see a neurologist. I really don't want Punk to see a neurologist because it's very likely the neurologist will want to do an MRI, and to do an MRI on an infant you have to sedate her. You know, because you can't just tell a baby, "Don't move." And I really don't want Punk to be sedated or put under. It scares me.
But there's also more. So she has an MRI and then what? Then does the neurologist start talking about cerebral palsy? Does it go beyond the world of doing some stretches and hoping for the best, of water therapy and infant massage? Does it become something bigger?
After a while it all just lumps together in my mind: the reflux, that weird mystery rash way back, the formula intolerance, the delays. It always comes back to the same place - my uterus. My uterus, which wasn't able to sustain both of our babies. My uterus, which generated a small placenta and thin umbilical cord for Punk. At the time, it was a casual mention, "Oh, you had a small placenta and a really thin cord." As if it was no big deal. But now I think, 'Did Punk get less oxygen or nutrients because of her small placenta or her thin cord?' Or I think, 'It took a minute to get her breathing and they talked about giving her some blow-by before she got it together. Is that when it happened? Is that what ruined her muscle tone?'
And then that's when I start thinking that maybe I /should/ think about an MRI. Because maybe the MRI would be normal and I could stop beating myself up and concentrate on stretching out my daughter's hips/legs/knees/ankles so that she can function normally in the big world. Or maybe it wouldn't be normal and I would spend my whole life wondering why my body would lose one child and break the other. Maybe I asked for all of this by overriding nature with ovulation inducers, you know? Maybe I just tempted fate a little too much.
It doesn't matter to me, personally, if my daughter has delays or has to work harder or whatever. But it DOES matter to me that I may have somehow caused this for her.
