ECHO

We were both on our sides, her dark eyes locked on mine.  Her little grip on my index fingers tightened as the nurse applied the echo-patches.   As we lay there, the two of us, her eyes boring into mine, I imagined her thoughts, “I’m feeling uneasy Mommy; but I trust you.”  The examination paper below me crinkled as I squirmed to fight the tears.  For nearly 25 minutes we shared this moment – one as intimate as any we have had.

“Have you tried skin-to-skin contact with the mother?” my amazing pediatrician quizzed the nurses when Edie was born.  Six hours had slowly ticked by since Eden and I were surgically separated.  I had yet to see her and now there was talk of med-flying her to Johns Hopkins – where I could not follow.  There was no fighting those tears.  The pediatrician seemingly caught off guard, left and mumbled something about his return.

No more than five long minutes later, Dr. Singh wheeled in my precious daughter, unswaddled her newborn body and put her, IV strapped to her arm and all, on my bare chest.  Every 20 minutes a nurse checked on us.

“Wow” the first one said.  “This is the most peaceful she’s been.  Her respiration is normal,” she said with surprise.  We were inseparable – here was the proof.  Our mutual love transcended medicine and logic.  All we needed was each other. 

But back at the pediatric cardiologist’s office, the contrast of her small still body and steady gaze with the zooming, athletic, jumping, somersaulting, climbing toddler I’ve come to know was unsettling.  Eden’s situation was never horrible; surgery was never a medically considered option, her life never threatened.   We expected this, her third echocardiogram in two years, to reveal that her little heart had mended itself as the doctors predicted.   Despite this, I was overwhelmed by my desire to protect, comfort, and heal whatever may be left to heal in her little heart during this examination. 

Her vulnerability – our vulnerability – was palpable.  She was not the newborn infant who slept through her first echo on day four of her life outside of the womb.  She is a toddler – a child.  I thought back to her birth.  She no longer simply needs to smell and feel me, her little eyes that never took theirs off mine told me she needed me to assure her that everything was all right.  And yet somehow, without uttering anything intelligent, I could tell I was.  All we needed was each other.

I imagined other parents and their precious children in similar situations where the news was bad – devastating, the procedures painful.  I imagined their desire to do anything, to give everything to ease their son or daughter’s pain.  I swallowed a couple of times to stifle the tears again surfacing.  More to keep my own composure than hers I asked, “Can I sing you a song?”

“Yes” she whispered. 

“Which one do you want?”

“Margaritaville.”

Yes, our little love is a Parrothead.

As I feebly squawked,  “I blew out my flip-flop…” (her favorite line), the nurse either out of sincerity or sheer torture announced we were done.

The pediatric cardiologist entered the room and reported that the VSDs and murmurs were gone, but there was still one small hole that he was confident was a PFO.  He explained what this meant and finished with, “Eden is discharged from pediatric cardiology care.”  

After we left the office, Edie returned to the toddler I had become used to.  She talked about the “gilled chees” at Panera I had promised and at the library climbed on the big sailboat and zipped around bookshelves.   The rest of the day, I had a hangover of sorts – two related yet dissimilar emotional experiences kept emerging.   I was consumed with the tender love I feel for my daughter, enhanced in the face of her vulnerability and courage, and her love and trust for me.  I also couldn’t escape the possibility that there may be a time when I cannot heal my child just by my presence.  I can only imagine what the parents of children undergoing chemo or other treatments are going through.  So as I love on my Edie, I give thanks to God and pray for those moms and dads, and their precious children with all my heart.