Loving My Christmas Girl Born Disabled by Congenital CMV

Expecting our next boy or girl, due to get there Christmas Eve of 1989, experienced been a delightful knowledge. What a Christmas current! But the moment Elizabeth was born on December 18. I felt a stab of anxiety. My speedy thought was, “Her head looks so tiny–so deformed.” Ahead of she was twelve hours outdated, I observed out why.

When the neonatologist entered my home the pursuing early morning, he reported, “Your daughter has profound microcephaly–her mind is incredibly damaged through. If she lives, she will in no way roll about, sit up, or feed herself.”

He concluded that Elizabeth’s birth flaws were being prompted by congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) – a virus that may possibly have no symptoms for the mom, recognized as a “silent virus,” or it may well current alone with moderate to critical flu-like signs.

The Facilities for Illness Handle and Avoidance (CDC) states that somewhere around 8,000 toddlers a 12 months are born with or produce long lasting disabilities simply because of congenital CMV. It is the #1 viral trigger of delivery flaws–a lot more widespread than Down syndrome.

How and why did I catch this virus that I experienced scarcely heard of? I examine the CMV literature. It mentioned that girls who treatment for youthful young children are at a greater hazard for catching it due to the fact it is frequently remaining drop in their saliva and urine. Pregnant women need to have to stay clear of kissing them on the mouth and sharing towels and utensils with them. Arms ought to be washed thoroughly, specially right after wiping runny noses, diaper adjustments and picking up toys that have been in a toddler’s mouth.

When I was pregnant with Elizabeth, I not only experienced a toddler of my own, Jackie, but also ran a licensed daycare centre in my home. I felt ill at what my deficiency of knowledge experienced finished to my tiny woman. In milder instances, small children with congenital CMV could encounter a gradual listening to reduction, put up with some visual impairment or wrestle with slight learning disabilities. But Elizabeth’s situation was not a gentle one particular.

“My everyday living is more than,” I assumed. I questioned God to heal her right away, but since He did not, I begged him to eliminate me and prayed to be crushed to loss of life in an earthquake or struck by lightning. I just couldn’t tackle raising such an stricken child, period. Despite the fact that youngsters are meant to be a blessing, I felt considerably from blessed–I felt stricken.

Luckily my partner Jim’s love for Elizabeth considerably outweighed his grief. He claimed, “She desires me. I want to guard her from this cruel entire world she has been born into.” He was just like Charlie Brown with that pathetic Xmas tree.

“Oh God,” I prayed, “make sure you support me love Elizabeth too.”

In the beginning, whenever I looked upon Elizabeth, my heart broke afresh. I could not see past her prognosis. The prognosis turned more of a man or woman than Elizabeth herself–it was a living creature relentlessly torturing me.

If I was ever to transfer ahead and find joy once more, I knew I had to cease dwelling on the unanswerable thoughts that retained popping into my head like, “What will she be like in the long term?” “Why didn’t my OB/GYN alert me about this?” and “Why would God permit me capture CMV?”

In those times immediately after Elizabeth’s start, all I could do was rock her and browse the e-book of Psalms. Just before Elizabeth was born, I really couldn’t relate to the Psalmists. I believed, “Wow, those people men and women are genuinely depressed!” Now, I identified ease and comfort in their bitter concerns, such as, “How very long need to I bear soreness in my soul, and have sorrow all the day?” Being aware of I was not the only 1 despairing of everyday living designed me feel considerably less on your own.

It took Elizabeth a couple of months to ultimately figure out in which my confront was, but then a person working day she appeared directly into my eyes and smiled-we had eventually linked! I gradually started to assume, “If she does not care that she’s seriously mentally retarded, and, apart from a wonder, will never walk or chat, why should really I be so upset?” It’s possible it was the sedative Valium talking, but that imagined caught with me, even when I no longer wanted “mother’s very little helpers” to get me out of bed and into the shower.

At some point, I no for a longer period concentrated on Elizabeth’s disabilities, but on her qualities-her appreciation for currently being alive for a single. Although she could not hold up her head or shift her tightly clenched fists to get to a toy, she could hear and see-at the very least a very little. She could not sit up by herself substantially less crawl, but she could sit for hours snuggled contentedly in my lap and review my encounter with her significant blue eyes framed by extensive darkish eyelashes. When I smiled at her, she’d crack into an ear-to-ear grin in return, allowing me know that my pleasure with her was all she desired to be satisfied in this earth.

It took about a calendar year, but I at some point stopped praying that a nuclear bomb would drop on my home so I could escape my too much to handle anguish above Elizabeth’s issue. Lifetime did come to be excellent yet again. We ended up inevitably capable to go ahead as a satisfied, “normal” loved ones. Even strangers performed a aspect in lifting my spirits. Just one afternoon, battling with Elizabeth’s wheelchair by the muck of an upstate New York county truthful, I felt myself sinking into a melancholy simply because small children had been staring at my tiny lady who could not even hold up her head. “She looks amusing,” youngsters stated loudly to their embarrassed mothers and fathers. In the midst of my dim views, a heavily tattooed carnival guy, who looked like he experienced been drinking for a long time, ran from guiding his match booth and came appropriate up to me. My alarm melted into tears of gratitude when he handed me a big, brown teddy bear from his stash of prizes and mentioned, “I want your daughter to have this.”

A person very long-term nagging trouble, on the other hand, commenced the working day my older daughter, Jackie, asked, “Can I have a doggy?”

I cringed. The dreaded day was right here-all little ones inevitably ask for one. And why wouldn’t they? Motion picture pet dogs like Lassie drag you from burning buildings and maintain you warm when you happen to be missing in a blizzard. But by the time we are older people, we have learned the truth about them: they urinate on your new wall-to-wall carpets, dig holes in your leather recliners to cover their rawhide bones, and chunk your neighbor’s kid.

“No, you won’t be able to have a canine,” I reported, bracing myself for the age-previous argument. “We just are not able to hazard a canine all over your sister.” I hated admitting that. I did not want her to blame Elizabeth for remaining so fragile. But using care of Elizabeth was by now ample function with no incorporating a dog that may well playfully nip at her.

I know! I am going to give Jackie the “lip-severing tale.” That’ll encourage her we are unable to have a pet dog all-around her sister.

“When I was 13,” I began, “I talked Grandma and Grandpa into letting me have a Weimaraner. His title was Bogie-small for Humphrey Bogart-and he was a nipper. 1 working day, my two-yr-previous cousin Suzannah was actively playing on the ground beneath the desk with a Popsicle stick in her mouth. Bogie snapped at the adhere and bit her lip off! My grandmother received the lip off the carpet and wrapped it in a paper serviette to choose to the healthcare facility. But it could not be sewn back on. A surgeon fixed Suzannah’s face, but when we obtained home, my mom loaded Bogie into the back again seat of the auto and took him to the vet’s. I by no means noticed him once more. He took the ‘long walk’ as they say in the Woman and the Tramp movie.”

I paused so Jackie could let the horror of the incident sink in.

But all she wished to know was, “Where’s Suzannah’s lip now?”

“Gosh, I you should not know! The very last time I noticed her lip it was caught to the serviette, all shriveled and mummy-like on my grandmother’s bookshelf. But that’s beside the place can’t you see how perilous a dog could be for your sister? She cannot communicate-how would she contact out to us if she was in a further space and the puppy was bothering her?”

If there ended up a Lassie-like dog out there, Elizabeth far more than any person could use 1, but I just couldn’t choose that kind of a prospect on an animal that could live up to 13 several years.

After many tears and arguments, I at last made Jackie a assure: “If God provides one to our door, then you can have it. How’s that?”

“Actually?” she questioned, a smile spreading across her face.

“If a person displays up at our door, I will presume it is a sign from God that it is really a special dog who will be mild all-around Elizabeth.”

“Mom, I really like you!” She threw her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek.

I felt terrible-all I had seriously offered her was a bit of hope. Jackie essentially imagined a dog would demonstrate up.

Probably there was a compromise to a puppy? There should be a pet out there that wouldn’t harm Elizabeth. A goldfish? I indicate other than a freak incident, like it flipping out of its bowl and hitting Elizabeth in the confront, the thing couldn’t maybe harm her. A hamster? They are entertaining-working all-around and all-around in a hamster wheel with no clue they aren’t likely everywhere. Probably Elizabeth could appreciate a hamster also. She was incapable of keeping it, but she may well come across it amusing to watch it operate in its wheel.

Perhaps a spinning hamster would make Jackie forget about a doggy-the way my mother and father considered acquiring me Bogie would support me fail to remember about boys…

Of class what occurs up coming is a full other story!

Lisa Saunders