Motherhood is Not for Wimps

Mare and Ren are each getting one activity this summer. Mare picked ballet right off. Ren did, too.

“I don’t think you really like ballet, Doodle,” I said.

“I DO!” she said.

“Really? — I think you like it because Sissy likes it. But I’m not sure you actually enjoy the class much. I think you like being big, like Sissy. And I cna’t blame you there, she’s great. But she’s not YOU. I want to know about you. What does Ren like?”

“Ballet.”

“How about gymnastics?”

“I like gymnastics.”

“Want to do that instead of ballet?”

“Is Sissy doing it?”

“No, she’s definitely doing ballet.”

“Then I want to do ballet.”

“You won’t be in the same class. She’ll be with the older girls.”

“Dat’s okay.”

“How about swimming lessons?”

“With Sissy??”

“ARG!!”

And then I am loading her into the Loser Cruiser outside the school. It’s getting warm, and I am not dressed appropriately and the baby is screaming and Ren won’t get in her freaking seat and then …

“LING!!” Ren sticks her head out the door of the Looser Cruiser and waves excitedly across the parking lot. “Ni hao ma shi shi Ling!!”

I stare at her for one long stupid moment.

“Dat’s my Chinese teacher,” she says. “Ling.”

“Ling,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“Chinese,” I say.

“Uh-huh.”

“What does … Ni hao muh …”

“No, no,” she shakes her head. “Not ‘muh,’ ‘MAH.’”

“What does it mean?”

“Hi.”

“Oh.” I look at her, watch her watch Ling pull her car out of the parking lot.

“Ren. Would you like Ling to visit you? At our house? Come and sit with you and play with you in Chinese?”

A bright smile - the best kind, the mega-wat Renny grin, and she hugs me.

“Can she visit Sissy, too?”

“No, baby. No. She’d be coming just for you. To give you Chinese lessons.”

A happy clap of her hands and another hug.

Momma’s little dork.

Dr. Button has had to give me bad news twice — first, when he called to tell me I had tested positive for Lyme. Second, when he called to tell me there was a problem with Eden’s blood work.

I’ll let you off the hook — she’s okay. We’re pretty sure it’s over. But it was a long two weeks from that first phone call until today, when Eden is looking plumper and pinker and her blood work is almost back to normal.

The anomaly was high liver function. Paired with a baby that wasn’t gaining weight, it was pretty bad news.

I am always surprised when people speak of parenthood as a job of mindless banality. No meeting I ever had in professional life carried the stakes of Eden’s medical appointments. No professional relationships were ever more critical to me than those I maintain with her care providers.

Eden has a medical team, and her Dad and I are at the head of it. That is complicated work.

We start with an agreement not to ask Dr. Google, not to take this thing any faster than it needs to go. Dr. Button runs some additional tests and takes her off Zantac and puts her on Prilosec and I stop taking pain medication as an extra precaution. We agree to supplement with formula after every feeding.

He consults a couple of pediatricians, and refers us to Children’s Hospital to a GI specialist. And then we are instructed to sit tight. We need a week and a second blood panel.

This is an odd week. The bigs still have school and homework and the laundry continues to pile up. I still have papers to grade and– of course — a newborn to care for.

And at least four times a day this conversation:

“She’s beautiful! How old is she?”

“Six weeks.”

“Wow, what a peanut!” (Never, “Petite” or “delicate” or any other word. Always always with the peanuts.) “How much does she weigh?”

“Eight pounds, three ounces,” I answer, bracing for the next question like a bad actor telegraphing a coming slap.

“WOW! What did she weigh when she was born?”

“Eight pounds, four,” I reply in a tone the smart ones take to be the end of the conversation.

As long as I live I will never ever ever again question a mother about her newborn. I’ll tell her the baby is beautiful, congratulate her, shut my mouth.

And then the week has passed, the second blood panel is in, and Cute Husband and I are sitting in a little cement cell of a room with colorful animal cut outs on the walls. The only sound is Eden sucking on her pacifier.

I have one ear bud from Sunbeam’s iPod in my ear.

“Who are these people?” I say of the music pouring out. “And why are they screaming?”

Cute Husband is adorable — the picture of a Dad. He has come from work in his suit with the silver-blue tie that sets off his eyes behind his glasses.

The specialist walks in, sits on the little stool, and flips through the pages that contain the record of Eden’s small life: 19 weigh-ins, 7 blood-draws, an ultrasound and a partridge in a pear tree.

“I can see why Dr. Button was concerned,” she says, frowning at the paper. She looks up and fixes her eyes on Eden. And here it comes, the thing that makes me crazy and saves my sanity all at once, every freaking time. “Wow, she really doesn’t look sick, does she?”

Eden coos and almost-smiles and lifts her head up in baby-wonder.

“With these numbers I would really expect a much sicker-looking baby,” she mutters, going back to the papers. “I wonder what her thyroid was?”

“It was normal,” I say. “He ran it on the 26th.”

“Oh, yes, here it is. This chart is different from the one I am used to looking at. Now I am wondering about glucose?”

“That’s in there, too.”

“What was her discharge weight?” she asks.

“7 pounds, 11,” I say. “She was 8 pounds, 4 at birth and went down to 7 pounds 3 at week two. She was back up to 8 pounds, 3 last week — week five — and today measured 8 pounds, 4. She was 20 inches at birth and measured 21 1/2 here in your office.”

I, who can’t add and subtract, who easily forgets quantities and dates and can’t be trusted to reliably double a recipe: I have these numbers and I know they’re right.

She is reading a constellation of chemistry and physiology I can’t even see. I am reading the wrinkle of her lip, the uncomfortable squirm of her toes poking out of the peep-toe flats. I know she thinks something is wrong.

Here in a cement honeycomb of a building, with similar conferences going on above and below us and to the sides, with children living and dying, we three are trying to communicate. Cute Husband and I hold weeks worth of evidence that might be helpful. She holds a headful of possible diagnoses. We’re trying to trade, and it’s harder than it looks.

Together, we paint a picture of what’s happening to this child, and pictures are always as much art as science.

“Biliary atresia,” she says, “is a condition where the valves connecting the liver and gall bladder don’t work properly.”

She tells us more — about tests and lab work and surgical fixes. I have learned that doctors only tell you what you need to know. What you can stand to know is up to you, and is a matter of asking questions.

Cute Husband and I ask about the tests, the chemicals, crack a few lame jokes. Neither of us asks about prognosis.

She tells us she will call when she can get us an appointment for the test in the nuclear medicine department. The surgical fix’s chances are best the sooner it’s done.

We decide to call it “Billikerficklegruben” and ask anyone who knows anything about it not to tell us.

But that night I Google, and I sleep badly, and want to be back in the life where bills and laundry are my worst nightmares.

And then something wonderful — good weather. An anniversary weekend. A second opinion, another blood panel.

Eden is looking better. She’s looking lots better. The numbers no longer support Billikerficklegruben. And it can’t be Cystic Fibrosis or Hepatitis, either. We play mini-golf and make cod and kiss in the rainbow and the next day we see Dr. Button again.

She has gained five ounces in four days and hasn’t cried uncontrollably or thrown up in over a week.

“Maybe she never had reflux,” Dr. Button says. “An inflamed liver could have made her cry and throw up. So she’s naturally slow to gain anyway, like her sisters, and then picks up this odd virus somewhere.”

“If her immune system were working overdrive, it would burn more calories,” the specialist adds. “And make weight gain even harder.”

Sounds good to us.

One more blood draw and we wait.

2009 … There was fresh cod at the market, so I cooked it up with lemon and capers and rice pilaf and we ate at the big table and talked about Mare’s first piano recital and how Renny wants to take Chinese lessons. The late spring night turned gray and a warm rain spatted down into the garden green. Nursing Eden after supper, I glanced out the window and saw a rainbow, and the five of us poured out of the house into the mist and Cute Husband kissed me while the girls ooh’d and ahh’d at the vividness of the colors in the slate gray sky. Moonlight the Cat followed the girls, as he always does, and he stood looking at the rainbow, too, even though he had no idea why.

2008 … We spent the night in Providence, drank champagne and played air hockey at Dave and Buster’s.

2007 … Ducky had died just four weeks prior and I couldn’t stand it. Cute Husband brought me flowers and kissed me quietly and we left it at that.

2006 … Cute Husband was back from Holland and everyone was in town for his law school graduation. We ate pizza in the living room at The House and reveled in calling him “counselor.”

2005 … I was pregnant with Ren. We left Mare with a sitter and went to dinner and he bought me turquoise sandals and we looked at diamonds and pretended we could afford them. Four days later they found the lead dust in The House.

2004 … Mary’s first ever overnight without us. She stayed with Aunt Emily and we went to the Red Lion Inn in Lenox. Emily let us take the Miata. We ate appetizers and listened to a local band at the bar and drove around the countryside with the top down.

2003 … Mary was six months old. We left her with our friends at the Coffee Shop in Beaufort and went off alone together for the first time since her birth. We played mini-golf and drank horrible rum drinks on the beach. With our last pennies, we bought a hot dog for dinner.

2002 … I was pregnant with Mare. Cute Husband came back from a mini-deployment just in time for us to eat steaks at Beaufort Grocery.

2001 … The steaks at Beaufort Grocery tradition began.

2000 … At the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters in Norfolk, Virginia. I left work in Washington, drove three hours in the convertible. When I got there, he had Our Song playing on the laptop, votive candles flickering throughout the room. Horrible pina coladas in cheap flowered glasses from the PX. And Uncle Ben’s rice bowls in the microwave. The room smelled like beach cottage and camouflage paint.

1999 … We cashed in the coupon for a free “top tier” replica of our wedding cake — chocolate covered in marzipan with fresh flowers. We ate it out of the box with two forks, on the East Lawn of the Capitol under a cloudless blue sky. The Marine Band was giving a concert, and just as Cute Husband went to kiss me, they struck up, “The Marine Hymn.”

“Sorry, hon,” he said, getting to his feet and standing at attention.

1998 … The sun has set. We clasp hands and walk down to the flowered arch under which we were married a few hours ago. The photographer follows us. I lift my dress carefully — it was Ducky’s mother’s — and we stand under the arch still as we can while the photographer adjusts the camera. This is the shot we wanted, silhouetted against the stars and the flowers and the night, all filmy lace and quietness and dreams.

“I hope it’s not the best day of our lives,” I whisper.

“What?” he asks. He was always the romantic of the two of us.

“I hope it gets better. I hope eleven years from now, we wouldn’t trade where we are for where we were.”

“Eleven? Why eleven? Why not, like, ten or fifteen?”

“Because it’s more than ten. And it’s not quite fifteen –when we’ll be really old.”

“Stand still, you two, if you want this shot to come out.”

We stand still, but the shot never really does come out, or maybe it did, I don’t know, the photograph is in a box somewhere. Best days and worst days mingle along the ribbon of time that brought us here — each in its time and space, and each gone forever in its turn.

And I wouldn’t trade now for then.

Much of what the children say to me these days gets all garbled like snow on an old television screen and I have to kind of prick my ears up like antennae to get the signal through.

And sometimes, even then, it’s not getting through.

“Wah,” Eden says. I am struggling to get her skinny chicken legs into a onesie. Milk is leaking, I am uncomfortable, the phone is ringing.

“WAH,” she says.

Mare is talking to me.

“… please? Just one?”

“Um. NO,” I say. I have no idea what she’s asking me for, but I can’t deal right this second and no is safe and she leaves and that’s good and now I’m still wrangling this irritated chicken.

“WAH!” Eden says.

“Momma?” It’s Ren.

“Yeah, Babe?”

A few long seconds pass and she’s staring at me and I adjust the atenna and dig into my memory and it’s in there.

“Tootsie Rolls?” I ask. “You want some? Yes. Fine,”

“YAY!” Ren says. She skips out the door and that’s when I notice Mare standing in the doorway. They clasp hands and cackle.

“What?” I ask.

“I KNEW IT!!” Mare says.

“IT WORKED SISSY!!”

“What? What worked?” I ask.

“Ren! I sent Ren in to ask you! She always knows just how to ask so people give her stuff!”

That’s, like sixteen kindsa wrong. I need to fix that.

After several hours of wondering, I open the cheese drawer in the fridge and get the answer to where the freaking sponge went.

I can’t remember any of their names any more. It’s like, “Oh, hey, you … that one. I’ve forgotten your name, and I’m super-sorry about that. Could you grab me a diaper? And are you old enough to reach the fizzy water? No? That’s not you? Oh, whatever, hand me the diaper and be on your way. Oh, and ask the other one about the fizzy water, would you?”

“You parked too close!”

– The man mouthing this to me through the closed window of the mini-van is in his late sixties, standing behind his Mercedes convertible, glaring at me. It is the third time he has said it, and I have pretended not to understand.

Even though I know perfectly well what he is saying.

On a full night’s sleep, free of ache and anxiety, I would not get dragged into this. I would just stare blankly and drive away. But today, I roll the window down.

“You parked too close,” he says in a tone of deeply satisfied annoyance.

“That’s because you’re over the line,” I say.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, y’are.” I close the window. He’s mad and he starts his car and I start mine and I pull the Looser Cruiser cleanly out of the spot — because, folks, don’t mess with a chick who drives a mini-van — and he is looking over his shoulder to pull out and cut me off and BAM!! — He hits the car in front of him.

Wrong gear.

“MOMMA!!” Mare says.

“I KNOW!!” I say.

Eden wakes up almost every hour. I feed faithfully. At the clothing store yesterday the attendant assumed Eden was a preemie.

So I feed and I try not to worry.

She’s finally learning to nurse lying down. I stroke her hand and she squeezes mine and these gigantic eyes peer up at me and blink slowly. And that gets through the fog, like a light sweeping a beach.

(“ARDT! ARDT, ARDT!!” — Keep this, you’re going to need it later. It is the sound a trained seal makes asking for treats after a successful task.)

On the drive to Target it occurs to me, this is not the family I signed on for.

“MAAAAAAAAAYER!!” Renny shouts. She has a gift for this — a squeal that would curdle paint.

“NoooooooooOOOOo, Renny!!” Mare answers, then cries.

“Wah,” adds Schmoop. “Wah.”

I hate them. They’re horrible. I grip the steering wheel as the noise rises to a high crescendo.

I have no idea what they are fighting over. I don’t think that they have any idea what they are fighting over. It has been like this for weeks. No one has expressed any direct hostility toward the baby so far — just toward everything else they can possibly think of.

We arrive at Target.

“Can you get us a treat?” they whine in the entryway.

“Do we have to be here long?”

“What are we getting?”

“Can you get us a treat?”

“Can we ride in the cart?”

Then they fight over who gets to get in the cart first, and who gets to sit at which end and who is taking up more room.

“Wah,” Eden says.

And then we are going up and down the aisles and despite my telling them there will be no treat if they ask again, they’re asking.

“Candy? Can we have candy? How about ice cream? Oh, Momma, how about that great big slide can we get that?”

“Wah,” Eden says.

This is it. This is my life, now. I’m wheeling a cartload of whiny kids around, begging for a shot of liquor and some really tiny straitjackets.

I’m so tired. My diet of bland carbs and mother’s milk tea isn’t cutting it, and the nights of nursing and worrying and cleaning up barf are taking their toll. I need a break and instead I got this.

And then I see myself in all my absurdity — complaining about a situation I have created. Blaming the children hanging from the shopping cart because no one is stopping them.

I stare at them, they stare at me, and then I know for sure: I didn’t come this far just to suck at it.

“Wait here,” I tell them. I find the candy aisle and grab a bag of Tootsie Rolls. I rip open a box of Ziploc baggies and slip out two — one for Mare, and one for Ren.

They hold the bags and blink at me.

“Okay,” I say. “Mare — what happened to you when Ren was born?”

“I went crazy,” she says with a wide-eyed nod. I have told her this story before — how for three months she was a brat, refusing to do anything the first time she was asked, stealing toys on playdates, pitching fits when she didn’t get what she wanted.

“And what’s happening now?” I ask.

“Oh, we’ve all gone crazy,” she says.

“Right. TOTALLY INSANE,” I say. “We’ve forgotten the rules of our family. And I don’t think our family is as much fun without those rules. So we’re going to play a little game to remind ourselves of the rules and see if we can’t make things fun again. Here’s how it goes:” I drop five Tootsie Rolls into each bag. Their eyes light up.

“You can’t eat these,” I say. “Until tonight. And you may end up with more before then. Every time I see you girls doing something unusually good — like offering to help before you are asked, or being kind to each other or someone else — you get another Tootsie Roll.”

“YAY!!” they cheer.

“What do you think happens if you break a rule of our family?” I ask.

“You’re going to take them away?” Mare shrieks.

“One. One Tootsie Roll for each rule you break. So, let’s go over the rules. Do we ever fight with sisters?”

“No.” Two slow head shakes.

“And what happens when Momma says ‘no?’”

“No means no,” Mare responds.

“Right. What else?”

“We do not ever punch our teachers!!” Ren pipes up.

“Right, yes, that’s a good one. What about whining?”

“No whining,” Mare says.

“No whining,” I say. “Let me be very clear: Anyone who whines loses a Tootsie Roll. Okay?”

“Woah,” Ren says.

They nod, and we’re off.

It takes about fifteen point two milliseconds before it begins, with Ren’s shoe slipping off.

“Here, Sissy, let me help you with your shoe. Is that better? Who’s my cute sissy? WHO’S MARE’S BEST CUTE SISSY???”

“Good job, Mare,” I toss her a Tootsie Roll. (”ARDT! ARDT, ARDT!!”)

“Thank you, Sister. Next time could you please not tie my shoe so tight? It hurts a little.”

“Good God, Ren. Here’s one for you.” (”ARDT!! ARDT ARDT ARDT!!!!”)

At the checkout, no one asks for candy. No one whines and leans against other people’s carts. I have all kind of volunteerism going on.

“Momma, let me load the paper towels, I can carry those. Ren, you better grab the napkins. I would hate for my Sister to lose a Tootsie Roll for not helping.”

They thank our checker, they smile, they hold hands and wait patiently for me to start the cart moving.

I chuck them each a Tootsie Roll. (”ARDT!! ARDT, ARDT, ARDT!!”)

The checker stares in awe.

“I so reaking rock,” I say.

“Enjoy it now,” says an old woman standing in the next checkout lane. She is lanky, bitter-faced with a stern set to her mouth. “It won’t always be this easy.”

Shut up, you old hag, I make my own destiny.

“We’re outta here, girls!” I say, motoring past her with my cart and my children and my bags of stuff.

And now here I am at last. Mother of Three, making my way in the world with my girls, doing head counts, answering questions, watching for traffic and predators, and Things They Should Not Be Touching. And it’s all okay.

Predictably, Ren is the first to lose a Tootsie Roll. It happens in the Whole Foods, at the gelato bar.

“Can you get us ice cream?” she asks.

“Not this time, Sweetheart,” I say. Her face instantly contorts into a red-faced squeal. Really, I have no idea how she does it, but she goes from sunny to squashed tomato in the merest flicker.

“Ren — remember the rules of our family. No means no, and we don’t cry to get our way.”

Her face wavers for a second, and then she does it.

“I WANT ICE CREAM!!” Without a word I walk over to her baggie, dig my hand in, fish out a Tootsie Roll.

“NO MOMMA NO I’LL STOP I’M SORRY I’LL STOP.” I drop the Tootsie into my purse and proceed past the ice cream. She weeps into her sister’s shoulder. I say nothing.

By the time we are at checkout, she has stopped weeping, and they are both offering to help with the bagging again.

“Let me help you, Sissy,” Ren says. I drop her a Tootsie and she grins.

“Momma,” Mare says. “I really do like this better. Our family is nicer like this.” We smile at each other and I think what a great woman she will be some day.

They both lost Tootsie Rolls for fighting at bed time, and again for not getting their teeth brushed the first time I asked. Ren lost another one for getting out of bed.

So I can’t say everything was suddenly perfect, but it was all much, much better. We stopped needing the Tootsie Rolls the next day, and everyone was just in a better mood.

And the moral of the story? — a kid will prostrate herself for 2.2 grams of sugar without ever considering whether it’s really worth it. (”ARDT!! ARDT ARDT!!”)

Or maybe the lesson is just the reminder of that absurdly simple rule: our own happiness depends upon how we approach the world. Positive action yields positive results. Inaction, bad behavior, negativism yield bad results.

Life is settling into a pleasant early-summer routine. I am starting to really be able to do things again. Gran’s good work holds — the laundry is going on an efficient cycle. Eden always smells sweet and fresh, no matter how many times a day she pukes. The Bigs have clean sheets and fresh nightgowns and plenty of choices before school in the morning. I finished the semester’s grading, and even planted flowers. I am sleepless and achy, but picking up speed.

Eden has gained six ounces and peers out at the world with alert eyes. Her sisters love her.

Last night I filled the clawfoot tub higher than I normally do, and I added baby wash to make bubbles. Mare and Ren piled in and when they were sitting nice and still, I brought Eden in and floated her beside them. Her little arms and legs flapped and her eyes lit up. They rubbed her belly and her downy head and kissed her and she squirmed and almost-smiled.

This is the family I signed on for.

I have a new post that should be ready tomorrow. I did not want anyone to take the delay in posting to mean that there is a serious problem with Eden.

In fact, she is slowly gaining weight and her last round of blood work looked better. She’s nursing pretty constantly which is — quite literally — sucking the life out of me. I am eating bland complex carbs and drinking tons of mother’s milk tea.

More tomorrow.

We have ruled out dairy and wheat as culprits. I am down to a diet of Cheerios and bagels, and unseasoned proteins and vegetables. No fruit. I stopped taking Tylenol for post-surgical pain and headaches. I can’t take anything else.

I am not sleeping much. I am worrying lots. And then feeling bad about myself for worrying about things I can’t fix.

No coffee.

And then in a super-genius move I managed to double-pay the mortgage. That’s right, folks, I sent the payment, forgot I sent it, sent it again.

The bank, of course, cashed both.

And now we are overdrawn. And I am having a complete meltdown on the phone with Cute Husband.

“Everything hurts. I am so tired. I can’t eat anything I want and am going to get fat eating cake and bagels. And oh, lucky me, the finances are screwed up again and the house is a pit and somehow we are behind on laundry and I get to spend my whole life fixing that and it never gets better and this headache is un-freaking believable.”

“How about some tea?”

“I don’t really feel I have the energy to leave this bed to make some,” I say in the saddest, near-death, cue-the-violin voice.

“You know what I hear helps? — Ginger.”

Here streams a series of obscene invectives out of my mouth and in the general direction of the man I have professed to love for all eternity.

“Good,” he says. “Just wanted to be sure there was some fight left in ya. You were scaring me there.”

This year, I got a birthday walk.

In past years, I’ve had a dinner or even a little party. But this year, I got a walk.

It was a good walk. Cute Husband and I found some beach, a sun set, even a warm breeze. We walked hand in hand and talked about all the beaches we had walked together — an astonishing number of them in our 15 years as friends and then partners.

We walked because no one feels much like celebrating. We know in our gut that she’s okay, but there are now abnormalities in her bloodwork, and despite our best selves, we’re scared.

I am astonished by the number of people who have made it a point to remind me that today is the day of my birth, that my daughters are valuable, yes, but I am here, too, a person in my own standing, who watched her own first sunrise over the city of Boston 34 years ago.

Not the least of these people is the Doodle.

“It’s my Muver’s birthday,” she told anyone who would listen. “For real! It is!”

“Happy birthday!” they all said. I laughed. Tucked into my arm, sucking her paci, Eden seemed to be laughing, too.

I planted flowers. I lost my temper more than once, felt bad about it, made pancakes for dinner. They gave me a cake, and a charger for my iPod and I got flowers from Emily and three beautiful serving platters from Mom and Tony.

And now we are walking, and remembering the beach in Virginia, and how the dog chased the crabs that scampered across it. And the beach in North Carolina where the wild horses ran, and the one in St. Croix where Mare got her first dip as a tiny baby.

“I woke up this morning,” I said, “and couldn’t believe I am 34.”

It’s not that I feel old. It’s not that I feel young. It’s that there is so much more than I dreamed of.

“Do you know when you make a batter, and you pour it into the pan, and the bowl seems empty, but it isn’t? If you scrape, it’s a surprise how much is in there. So much more than it looks. That’s how I feel. Like I am discovering how much more there is in things than it seems. Like making dinner and planting flowers and being called ‘Muver.’ — There’s so much more there than I ever realized. But it’s finite. When it’s gone, it’s really gone.”

This last is more of a birthday downer than I meant it to be. I am tired, the worry has taken its toll.

We sit for a while before doing what we do — turning for home, to make lunches, do laundry, plan for another day.

“She really looks good,” we say to each other. “Really good.” Cute Husband falls asleep with her wrapped in his arms, her little fuzzy head against his nose.

And I consider how all I want in the world is in this tiny house and how very very much that is.

Dr. Button and I have a routine.

After years of seeing each other once or twice a year for checkups and chest colds, we have seen each other approximately 19 times in four weeks.

So here’s the routine: the nurse weighs Eden and logs the information into the computer, and then leaves me in the exam room to wait for Dr. Button. Dr. Button finishes with his previous patient and then swings by his desk to log in to Eden’s chart. Then he comes into the exam room grim-faced to deliver the news that I have a very sick infant.

But when he opens the door and makes eye contact, I smile. Because I am not worried. Because the baby I am holding is not sick. I am her mother and I know she’s okay, she’s just small is all.

And then we talk and he watches her closely and then he examines her and scratches his head and agrees that she sure doesn’t look sick.

She looks fantastic. Great color, alert, responsive.

And then we talk and I say that I want to ride it out, I think her weight will resolve. He agrees that it’s no fun to send a newborn for tests if they don’t need to happen. We decide to do nothing, to visit again in a few days, to get aggressive if she’s not radically better then.

This is what we do. This is what we have done for four weeks.

But this time the routine changes. When he knocks on the door and we make eye contact I don’t smile. I try not to cry.

“Yeah,” he nods. I pop the iPod ear buds out. I have spent the last twenty minutes listening to music, fighting guilt and panic.

I was just too clever. I had to get cute. I really believed I was smarter than Big Medicine and that I could just keep her home and avoid tests I knew she didn’t need. I have allowed the child to get really sick.

“So it’s time to start getting aggressive,” Dr. Button says.

“Yes,” I nod.

“A ten-ounce loss in four days is pretty serious.”

“Whatever you want to do,” I say. “You tell me what needs to happen and I’ll do it.”

“I know,” he says. But it’s my only contribution and I have to make it — No more resistance. I’ll give her formula, I’ll make her sleep in a crib, I’ll wear a freaking bunny suit and run through the streets. Just tell me what to do.

He tells me the next steps — to Boston Children’s to a GI specialist. Blood work. Urine tap.

I nod.

He puts her on the table and looks at her. She gazes up at him with curious blue eyes.

“She just looks so good,” he says. “She’s crying after every feed?”

“Yes,” I say. “Like she’s in terrible pain. All night long, too.”

He smooshes her belly, feels around in there.

“It doesn’t seem to make her uncomfortable,” he says.

“It makes me wildly uncomfortable, does that count?” I ask. While he runs his own checklist of things to look for, I am running mine. I need coverage for the Bigs. Mare has piano. Doodley needs a snack. What do we have in the fridge for someone to feed them? Who can I call? I should get an overnight bag for Edeny and me. I need the iPod and cell phone charger and better shoes.

“Okay,” Dr. Button says. “I’m going to go make some phone calls and get this started. Before we do that, let’s just weigh her again to be sure.”

He brings in the scale and I set her on it and turn away. I can’t stand to look.

“Elizabeth,” he taps my arm. “Look.” He’s laughing.

Holy God — Eden’s not down ten ounces. She’s up two.

(Why did I put you through that? Because I had to live through it, why the hell should you be spared?)

I have completely lost my composure and am repeating “Holy shit” multiple times. We’re both trying to breathe again.

“Okay, well, yeah, that’s different,” he says.

I hug Edeny and she looks all happy that I’m happy.

“I still think we should move forward with tests,” Dr. Button says.

“Oh, sure, whatever you want,” I say with a generous wave of my hand.

The day is still hard.

I have always thought that a person is who she is when she is born. Even if her lifetime will radically impact how she functions in the world, she is a complete person at birth.

When you have a sick or unhappy child, you get an insight into her character.

I nurse Eden until they have the tray prepped, everyone gloved and ready to go. Then I trade out for the pacifier, hold her close, take her hand. When the needle goes into her arm, she wimpers. There are people holding each of her limbs and she resists for only a second before closing her eyes, sucking furiously on the pacifier, squeezing my hand.

One nurse digs around that tiny arm with a needle, another squeezes blood out to fill the vials. Eden keeps sucking, eyes closed, gripping my fingers.

“She’s so good!” the nurse said.

“Hey … is she asleep?” the other nurse asks.

“I think she is,” I say. Edeny has decided she does not like her current circumstance and will just sleep through it.

At the ultrasound, she fusses only briefly on the table before passing out. I check her breathing, but no, she really is just completely asleep. It’s very odd that we are ultraounding her and it’s not going through me. Her name is on the little screen and the transducer comes down and is revealing her stomach, which to me looks like a petri dish swimming with tadpoles and meteors. To the doctor it looks like an organ that is processing food appropriately, so that’s good.

Dr. Button calls me at home late that night to tell me that the tests have come back normal. Of course.

So we’ll go for another weigh-in in a couple of days. Next time, I think I’ll dress her in the bunny suit. Just to mix things up.

Because someone has to wear a bunny suit before this is all over.