Some Mothers Get Babies With Something More

To all the mothers who got something more. . .

Some Mothers Get Babies With Something More
Written by: Lori Borgman Columnist and Speaker

My friend is expecting her first child. People keep asking what she wants. She
smiles demurely, shakes her head and gives the answer mothers have given
throughout the ages of time. She says it doesn't matter whether it's a boy or a
girl. She just wants it to have ten fingers and ten toes. Of course, that's what
she says. That's what mothers have always said. Mothers lie. Truth be told,
every mother wants a whole lot more. Every mother wants a perfectly healthy
baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin
skin. Every mother wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber
baby for being flat-out ugly. Every mother wants a baby that will roll over,
sit up and take those first steps right on schedule (according to the baby
development chart on page 57, column two). Every mother wants a baby that can
see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions. She wants a kid that can
smack the ball out of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire
ballet class. Call it greed if you want, but we mothers want what we want. Some
mothers get babies with something more. Some mothers get babies with conditions
they can't pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a
palette that didn't close. Most of those mothers can remember the time, the
place, the shoes they were wearing and the color of the walls in the
small,suffocating room where the doctor uttered the words that took their
breath away. It felt like recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the
kick ball coming and it knocked the wind clean out of you. Some mothers leave
the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months, even years later, take him in
for a routine visit, or schedule her for a well check, and crash head first into
a brick wall as they bear the brunt of devastating news. It can't be possible!
That doesn't run in our family. Can this really be happening in our lifetime? I
am a woman who watches the Olympics for the sheer thrill of seeing finely
sculpted bodies. It's not a lust thing; it's a wondrous thing. The athletes
appear as specimens without flaw - rippling muscles with nary an ounce of flab
or fat, virtual powerhouses of strength with lungs and limbs working in perfect
harmony. Then the athlete walks over to a tote bag, rustles through the contents
and pulls out an inhaler. As I've told my own kids, be it on the way to physical
therapy after a third knee surgery, or on a trip home from an echo cardiogram,
there's no such thing as a perfect body. Everybody will bear something at some
time or another. Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or
maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, medication
or surgery. The health problems our children have experienced have been minimal
and manageable, so I watch with keen interest and great admiration the mothers
of children with serious disabilities, and wonder how they do it. Frankly,
sometimes you mothers scare me. How you lift that child in and out of a
wheelchair 20 times a day. How you monitor tests, track medications, regulate
diet and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your
ear. I wonder how you endure the clichés and the platitudes, well-intentioned
souls explaining how God is at work when you've occasionally questioned if God
is on strike. I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy pieces like this one -
saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you're ordinary.
You snap, you bark, you bite. You didn't volunteer for this. You didn't jump up
and down in the motherhood line yelling, "Choose me, God! Choose me! I've got
what it takes." You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put
things in perspective, so, please, let me do it for you. From where I sit,
you're way ahead of the pack. You've developed the strength of a draft horse
while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil. You have a heart that melts like
chocolate in a glove box in July, carefully counter-balanced against the
stubbornness of an Ozark mule. You can be warm and tender one minute, and when
circumstances require intense and aggressive the next. You are the mother,
advocate and protector of a child with a disability. You're a neighbor, a
friend, a stranger I pass at the mall. You're the woman I sit next to at
church, my cousin and my sister-in-law. You're a woman who wanted ten fingers
and ten toes, and got something more. You're a wonder.