What Makes Me Tick

What Makes Me Tick

I don’t know about movies. I haven’t read all the latest and greatest novels. As much as I adore music, I know very little about a lot of musical artists. Twenty- some odd years ago, for all intents and purposes, I dropped off the face of the earth. This pseudo death wasn’t a bad thing, it was a needed thing.

My husband and I had only been married for a few years. We found out we were pregnant with my older son. We both wanted the pregnancy so badly. I think we were convinced he was a boy, and chose his name ten days in. My asthma gave me difficulties but we were doing really well. I always seemed to crave French toast at two am. I used to put my ice-cold feet in the middle of my husband’s back until he nearly shot out of bed like a rocket. Then I’d play innocent. “Oh, are you awake, Honey?”

He’d just say, “Let’s go.” That meant we were making a late-night run to an all-night diner for my addiction. All the wait staff knew us. They laughed when they saw us coming. We never needed a menu. While we sat enjoying the food and company, I’d usually notice my breathing was labored and I wheezed loudly. I spent my pregnancy using inhalers and taking steroids and antibiotics.

Nevertheless, my doctors were pleased with my progress, and my baby’s. I had gained the right amount of weight. My belly measured just what it was supposed to. I had no protein or sugar in my urine. Truth be told, I missed the target of that little stick that measured sugar and protein half the time. About my fourth month, I had a stroke of genius. If you don't tell them the measurements are high, then nothing is really wrong.

By the beginning of my fifth month, I was planning on building the backyard pool. I knew I carried an Olympic swimmer. He rolled over and over, several times an hour. Until he didn’t. I was cleaning and doing laundry on an ordinary day, and realized he had not moved; all day. A wave of panic hit. I defied the situation by not calling the doctor. I know how ridiculous it sounds now, but I told myself if the doctors didn’t know what was happening, then nothing was really wrong.

My husband came home from work early in the afternoon. I knew I needed to say something. This was his baby too, and I couldn’t take foolish chances. We were having lunch together and I blurted out, “Fred, the baby hasn’t moved all day, but that’s not a big deal, right?”

He froze for a second with his fork halfway to his mouth. He very slowly set it down. He said, “I’m sure everything’s ok, but that was one of the things they wanted us to look for. So we have to call.”

By the time I dialed the clinic phone number, I had myself convinced there was nothing wrong. They were going to tell me to keep on top of the situation. Rest. They’d say he would move after I rested, and everything was ok. I got a recording. I looked at the clock. “They’re still at lunch,” I informed Fred. At the beep, I started leaving a very calm message: “Hi, this is Shirley Cairo. (I rattled off my phone number and date of birth) I’ve had kind of a strange day today. I could be just missing it, but I don’t think I have felt the baby move at all today. So if someone could just give me a call….”

A live voice breaks in. “Mrs. Cairo? This is the nurse. How soon can you be in the office?”

I groaned. I am needle and doctor phobic. I did not want to hear bad news. I just wanted to go back to bed and wake up to my perfect pregnancy again.

“If you don’t have a ride, we can send the ambulance.”

An ambulance? That’s an emergency. By this time my hands are shaking. “I, I can come in now.” Fred was listening. He got my jacket and shoes for me. I fumbled around a bit putting them on. We were at the clinic ten minutes later.

They took me straight back to a room I’d never been in. There were four lounge chairs that looked something like the chairs in dentist offices. There were four nurses in the room, and I was the only patient. They were moving around quickly and pulling in equipment. They were speaking something that sounded like English but throwing out a lot of medical terminology.

Finally one turns to me. “ We’re going to measure your belly and monitor the baby for a while, ok? ” I just nodded as she got out her tape measure. She made kind, casual conversation as she measured, and then she went quiet. She looked at the chart, then measured me again. After the second measurement, she rather briskly walked out of the room and called for Dr. Nestlerhode. True fear descended in my heart. I heard him in the background. “Get that monitor on her NOW”

Two nurses put the monitor on that would detect motion. The machine had a paper feed that gave results. In the meantime, Dr. Nestlerhode picked up a strong, steady heartbeat from the baby. I closed my eyes and focused on that beautiful sound with everything I had. Despite that encouraging sign, there was no movement for forty- five minutes.

In the meantime, I received a couple of guests. I greeted the ladies on either side of me that were being calmly strapped into monitors. They only had one nurse each. I felt special. I’m not sure if these two knew each other or not, but they talked through me like I wasn’t there. Back in those days, women on the frontlines of war was a new concept. The battle stories we told were of our labor and deliveries. If you got two really excitable soldiers, they’d outdo each other with the gory details. These two were five-star generals. “ I had a C-section last time around. They made that first incision and we were all showering in amniotic fluid.” As the other lady was countering, my doctor came to my rescue.

As he unhooked the belts, he told me that in two weeks, my amniotic fluid had increased to twice the size it should be, and they needed to do a level two ultrasound. Dear God, I was going to be the next one to shower my docs.

“Ok, I’ll schedule that appointment on the way out.”

My doctor shook his head. That has to be done now, Dear. We’re waiting on the head of high-risk pregnancies from OSU. (Ohio State). He’ll do the scan and read the results. I went numb. He was there within minutes.

He piled the ice-cold gel on my belly for the level two ultrasound. He worked with one hand and held my hand with the other. “Let’s see what this little guy is up to.” He looked for a few moments then turned the screen to me. He showed me every organ that was perfectly formed and working just as it should. “My only concern,” he went on, “is the size of his head. Although the shape is perfect, it’s extremely large. That may indicate a problem, or it may just be heredity.” The pumpkin head on the exam table blushed. He smiled at that, and the fear left me. The doctor and I formed a bond. It’s a good thing we did. We had a date for a level two ultrasound, two to three times a month. I could have wallpapered the baby’s room with the pictures.

My due date finally came, and went. Another week passed, then a third and fourth. I was a full month late. The level two scans were once a week now. I still had far too much amniotic fluid and felt no movement. The doctors decided that I should be induced. There would be a neonatal trauma team present.

Well, they tried to induce my labor. The boy wasn’t having it. After fourteen hours, my water didn’t break, and I didn’t dilate. The specialist gave up and took me to the OR for a C-section. I could just hear the baby, laughing from inside my belly. “I win.” The stubborn little guy literally had to be pushed lower toward the incision.

This was it. We had spent the last five months in agony. We were going to see how bad off my newborn boy was. I heard a loud cry. They worked with him for just a moment. Then they laid him on my chest and pronounced him perfect. Perfect. I had to let that sink in. I never wanted to let him go.

The doctor leaned over the screen and gave us all the details. “ He’s long and lean, at 21 inches and nine pounds, three ounces. There ain’t no way in hell you coulda had this baby.” It felt really good to laugh. My husband and I were holding our healthy baby.

He was a character. He cried so loud he woke up every baby in the nursery. The instant they brought him to me, he would stop. We took him home a day later in an ice storm. I made a fantastic recovery from my surgery. It’s a good thing. I would need that strength.

I spent my entire pregnancy talking to, and reading to the baby. It carried on after he was born. I was in the back seat with him, telling him all about his new life he would have. I told him about the house, and the weather my husband was driving us in. I reassured the baby, who we will call Baby Boy, that Daddy was a really good driver in snow and ice. He would keep us safe. Most three day old infants would be fast asleep. His huge, denim blue eyes were wide awake. He looked right into my eyes while I spoke to him. I’m grateful my husband can attest to this, otherwise, this is really hard to believe. Baby Boy not only listened with eye contact, but he stretched his little neck forward. His lips curled around his tongue. No matter how much I told myself I was losing my mind, he looked like he was trying to imitate the sounds I was making. Once we got home, Fred saw it too.

Baby Boy was either really happy, or screaming like something hurt him. It was so frustrating. Here’s this sweet , helpless infant. All he can do is count on Mommy and Daddy to figure it out. I felt like I was letting him down. I just needed to understand what the difference was between the times he was at peace, and the times he screamed. When he was three weeks old, my parents visited. Baby Boy cried pitifully, all day. I cried with him. I had done everything else to no avail.

Mom said, “Honey, maybe he’s just sick of being held. They’re their own little people and they’re born with a personality. Try laying him down.” I laid him in his crib. I put his little stuffed Pooh Bear beside him. He never slept without Pooh. The instant his back hit the mattress, the crying stopped. I watched him for a few minutes. He didn’t sleep. He looked all around the room, eyes wide, extremely content.

I was convinced that was a fluke. In the days that came, I put him down when he cried. It broke my heart. This was the opposite of how things were supposed to be. Every time I laid him down, he stopped crying. What was I doing wrong? Why didn’t my newborn infant want me to hold him? God forbid, was I hurting him? If I sat him in his pumpkin seat and we talked, there was no happier baby. By his fifth week, I noticed something even worse. When I held him now, he would actually twist in my arms. My infant son was actually trying to move away from me. I was shattered. A baby needs desperately to be held. And a mommy desperately needs to hold her infant. We don’t parent according to our needs. We parent according to our children’s needs. Baby Boy needed to be touched very little, and talked to constantly.

At his six week check up, and I debated telling the pediatrician what was happening. I felt like everything was in my imagination. She watched him pull his neck and move his mouth.

“This one is going to be a seriously early chatterbox.” Hmm. She picked up on that too. Maybe it was safe to tell her the rest. She listened to everything I had to say. She never interjected, she never interrupted. When I said everything I had to say, she squeezed my hand. Then she introduced Fred and me to a horrible, new vocabulary: Sensory integration dysfunction. She went on to tell us that Baby Boy was far too young to be formally diagnosed. If we knew holding him made him unhappy, then do it less. She told us to try gentle massage instead. She concluded by saying, “We’ll just have to keep a close eye on him.” With that statement, the pain and fear of my pregnancy fell onto my head and shoulders like literal rain. Oh my God, he’s not alright.

From that day on, I lived in some degree of fear. Some days were better than others, but I was never really comfortable. Instead of enjoying his growth and development, I methodically checked off each milestone, checking it against known norms. He hit most on time. He never held his own bottle, though. One thing all his physicians seemed to agree upon, was that he was physically healthy. As for the few delays he was having, he would catch up. It was time for me to accept that he was ok, and move on.

That philosophy served me well for the next few months. When Baby Boy was five and a half months, he started crying again. I don’t mean he cried to be changed, or for food. It was an ear piercing cry. He sounded hurt, or frightened , or both. To my absolute dismay, laying him down in his crib didn’t help. Between sobs, he pursed his little lips and kept making a “puh, puh” sound. His Pooh bear wasn’t with him. Was he asking for his Pooh Bear?! I have never in my life heard of a five month old wilfully using language to communicate, and I didn’t believe Baby Boy was either. He kept murmuring, “puh.” In some sort of weird science experiment, I handed Pooh to him. He immediately stopped crying.

“Oohh , Fred,” I called in disbelief. I told him everything that happened. He gave me the ‘get real’ look. We weren’t going to take his bear from him to test my theory. Instead, we spent the rest of the afternoon laughing at me for thinking he spoke. We would hum circus music while the other would say, “ Step right up, folks. Come see the amazing talking baby.”

Two weeks later, we were at a friend’s house for a pool party. Baby Boy was lounging pool- side with my friend’s teenage daughters. I was inside chopping vegetables. My friend Linda came inside with a platter full of burgers from the grill. She said, “So Shirley, how long has Baby Boy been saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’?” I dropped my knife.

“Linda, he just turned six months a few days ago. There is no way.”

“Oh yeah? He says both every time someone walks by.” Once again, someone else confirmed what I thought I had imagined. This time it was strange and wonderful. From that day on, he continued to add single words to an impressive vocabulary. Some words were hard to understand, but cut the little guy some slack. He was only six months old. Fred and I just looked at each other and laughed. “Step right up, folks. Come see the amazing talking baby.” We had no idea just how amazing he would be.

Six months is a great time for babies. They are usually sitting up now. They don’t seem to be as fragile as spun glass. Their personalities blossom. They laugh out loud. They get mischievous. They really start to engage with you. A great way to mark this time is with photos. I wanted Baby Boy to have a professional photo.

We went to a department store. The photographer was absolutely gorgeous. She was a tall, thin, fashion plate with a perfect face and perfect skin. She pretended Fred and I weren’t even there and marched straight over to Baby Boy. “Is this my little guy? No wonder Mommy and Daddy want your picture, you are adorable.”

Baby Boy just stared up at her beautiful face. Oh I wish you could have all been there. His little mouth hung open. He had a grin on his face, and a deep, dopey laugh came out of him. He looked and sounded like he’d had one too many drinks. I asked Fred what he put in his bottle.

As long as you weren’t trying to hold Baby Boy, he was the happiest baby. He loved to smile and laugh. He was sweetness. He was pure, tangible joy. He radiated a light that is hard to explain. He was no different for this picture. He was so excited. He kept laughing. When he did, he would bring his little hands up to his face, and wave them. In fact, he was covering his face with his hands. Our beautiful, intelligent photographer would not be defeated. She gave him two small blocks to hold, to occupy his little hands. It was the perfect solution. She was able to get lovely shots, with a couple of different backgrounds. Pooh Bear was an absolute must. We left for home, so pleased.

He slept soundly in the car. I loved to see those long, black lashes lay on his cheeks. I giggled at how excited he was with the photographer. Those little hands were so cute. He just kept waving them. We were so ignorant. If the same information that’s out today would have been out then, we would have known he was stimming. We would have known he was showing very common signs of autism. Even the very early speech that we celebrated was a diagnosable condition, called hyperlexia. All I knew at that moment, was my sweet family was together, happy, and healthy.