I feel raw and empty and open. Not wanting to write of Teddy but always wanting to write of Teddy. I just got a text from Justin. "Guess who sat up on his own?" My hot tears are gathered behind my eyes now.
I didn't know
I didn't know
for so many days
if he would even ever develop
head control
I thought what kind of assistive technology does someone need without head control? I observed quietly in the waiting room at the children's hospital, scoped out the set-ups of the kids with cerebral palsy. I held my newborn to my chest, his floppy neck easily supported in my arms and considered what to do when it got too heavy and awkward to do that. I looked at their parents. Were they happy? Teddy clutched to my chest. I wrote in the waiting rooms.
My strategy in those days was don't look up till the appointment is over. Write or read every single second except when you're talking to a specialist. It's how I managed the panic attacks. My legs like jelly, the room spinning, a ringing in my ears. Fight or flight on the sixth floor, I imagined the whole building disintegrating and Teddy and me falling to the ground. One time, someone dropped a book like a gunshot, and immediately, an intrusive image of Nat down in the sibling center, shot in the face, a bloody mess where his face should be.
Those days of total uncertainty behind me.
Teddy just sat up on his own.
That takes so many muscle groups, so much brain power, so many things fired at the right time, and in the right way to enable him to do that. There is curiosity and memory and learning involved in that. For trauma informed birth work, you are supposed to ask the person telling the traumatic birth story--and when did you know you were ok? And when did you know your baby was ok? That question has haunted me for the last seven months.
Will Teddy be ok?
Will Teddy be ok?
Wait and see