The ersatz worshipers

My wife's gone religious.  Or at least is threatening to do so.  But even now she's beset by consternation at the obligation apparently engendered.

There may be little for me to do but follow suit or suffer eternal damnation burning in hell for my transgressions.

I'm as yet undecided.

Three weeks into this whole second child thing, Amy and I are breathing joint sighs of relief.  Slowly.  The astounding health of Number Two (frequently evinced these day by his amazing lung power) wasn't a sure thing.  It had us up nights during the latter half of the pregnancy, to be frank, and not always due to flailing limbs making a morass of my wife's innards.

Amy had her first ultrasound somewhere around the 20th week, right on schedule.  She got a phone call a week later from the doctor's office telling her that she'd need to come in for a second, more detailed, exploratory ultrasound as a result of some concerns raised from findings in the first.  On that same phone call she was informed of those findings:

Two cysts.  On the baby's brain.  It was explained that there was an outside possibility of one of several chromosomal disorders.  She was cited some examples:  Edwards Syndrome; Downs Syndrome; some others.  Mostly syndromes.  And not the megalomaniacal sort prone to seek revenge on Mr. Incredible for snubbing his obsequious adulation as a child.

Downs we can handle... we said to ourselves as we digested the information.  Downs babies develop into highly functioning members of society, and damned if they're not some of the happiest members of the human race I've ever seen.

Edwards babies often die in utero in the late stages of pregnancy or, elsewise, within hours of birth.  Outside shot at life is a year. 

Pregnant, alone at home with a toddler, and impersonally over the phone: this is not the best way to announce to my wife that there is a chance her precious second baby may never see the light of day.  I don't care how slim the odds are.  Several minutes later I received the single most hysterical phone call ever to grace the four walls of my office.

In light of my wife's emotional outbursts, made poignant by their rarity, I am wont to descend into a sort of calm void and talk her through it while my brain spins up in the background.  I found out second hand that we had to wait three weeks before the next available appointment and in me was sparked an alarming amount of rage for the modus operandi used for dissemination.  Ring, Ring!!  Your baby has a couple cysts; might die; come back in three weeks, mmm'kay?  Regardless of how else the doctor may have tried to placate my usually stoic better half, that was the message she took away.

Fucker.

Three weeks can really drag.

The purpose of the second ultrasound was to delve for physiological anomalies that would substantiate the possibility of a chromosomal defect hinted at by the cysts.  Hoping fervently to see none.  This would show itself, we were told, in abnormally formed fingers, toes and internal organs.  If they found that our baby's heart was beating outside of its body, that would be bad.

A short while later, warm blue goo cleansed from Amy's girth, we both started to feel better.  Seeing no evidence of a foetus reminiscent of Dr. Seth Brundle's first simian teleportation experiment, we were relieved to hear that there were odds less than 1 in 400 of anything adverse turning up at birth.  (This was also the point where Amy thought she accidentally saw some manly bits on the screen, convincing her that her erstwhile androgynous blob was a boy.)

Sitting at a table with the older grey-bearded doctor and the young resident with the pierced tongue, statistics started rolling around in my head at hearing those numbers.  1 in 400 is 0.25%.  That's one quarter of one percent.  Odds of winning ANYTHING in Tim Horton's Roll Up The Rim To Win contest is staggeringly higher at 1 in 9.  Which is more than 11%.  Over 40 times greater than the odds offered by the doctor.  In the past four or five years that I've participated in that contest, I've only EVER won a single prize; and I've purchased a lot of coffee from Timmy Ho's over the years.

I breathed a cautionary sigh of relief at the peace of mind brought about by my statistical prowess.  Amy dried her tears.

The doctor duo continued their reassuring schtick.  They would have to perform an amniocentesis to completely rule out any and all possibilities, but that too carried a risk.  Given that Amy was well past her first trimester, there were odds of 1 in 200 that the procedure would terminate the pregnancy.  The baby would probably survive at this stage of prematurity, but there are, of course, unforeseeable potential complications with any preemie birth.

We elected to play the odds, to continue living a while longer in the unknown, and left the hospital with most of the oppressive weight lifted and a vastly heightened awareness of mortality.

-----

A coworker of mine just saw his son pass his second birthday.  The boy wasn't supposed to live this long, but still probably won't see three years.  I can't quite wrap my head around that.  My newborn infant will surpass this two-year old's motor and cognitive functions within six months.  I forget the name of the exceedingly rare disorder that afflicts him.  I deleted the e-mail his boss sent out informing the rest of the company that Andrew was going to be away sporadically through the rest of his son's short life, and I haven't the courage right now to ask him what it is that is inexorably killing his firstborn.

Another man I know bid farewell to his toddler before Christmas, having quite suddenly reached the end of more than a year's struggle with Cerebral Palsey.  To this day, with an older daughter already in their lives, he's said that he doesn't know how he's going to answer the question, when posed, of how many kids they have.

Our own first boy was born with a pinhole in one lung, of which all evidence was erased after spending his first eight hours of life in an oxygen incubator, where I alternated between holding his hand through a porthole and reporting on his condition to my wife, still abed, a short walk down the hall.

-----

Like the three weeks waiting for that second ultrasound, the last months of Amy's pregnancy really dragged.  So what did she do?

She prayed.

She prayed for the first time since her father's battle with throat cancer, which he won through some combination of dumb luck and sheer bull-headed, red-neck obstinacy.  And in her prayers this time she besought some higher power for the preservation of the life growing in her.

As fair trade for a healthy baby (and yes God, a Downs baby is A-OK!), she promised, in her prayers, to attend church as her sign of thanks for being delivered of a second child.

Tavish, more than three weeks out of the womb, is healthier than we could have hoped.  He's just getting over a case of oral thrush, which is the most we have to complain about.

So now we have to find a church to attend.  My wife, after all, did promise.  But, man!  It's been, like, 14 years for me.  Not to mention the fact that Amy's never attended and always asserted that she'd probably singe if she ever tried to cross herself with holy water.

I thank God every day for the unfettered joy that has inundated our lives since our first, and now our second, sons graced us with their presence.  When not consciously, then I hope indirectly through my words and actions, especially as they relate to and are percieved by our two boys.

I eschewed organised religious worship some time ago for reasons that are still valid for me today.  I think that, for now, our church will be the one of our family, in our home.  I'll just try to be a little nicer to the dogs.  But who knows, things may change as we coalesce into a more cohesive family unit over these next formative years.

I'm not one to cast things in stone.

Comments

[Linda]

Simon,
Wow, what an emotional post. You never let on. That had to be excrutiating, waiting for tests, wondering. I said prayers but mostly for Amy to hurry up and deliver a healthy baby. I should have included parental stress relief... I know you appreciate Tav all the more. As for church, sounds like a fair price for what you got. I'm not into organized religion (hate that catch-all term) but my faith is way strong and me and God talk daily. He laughs mostly, but we do talk.

[Jim (of Brazil)]

Wow... that's pretty terrifying. All three of our children were born healthy, and we never had any indication of a possible problem; nevertheless, a vague uncertain fear both for our unborn babies and my wife was constant during all three pregnancies. I can't imagine how we would have felt if the doctor had given us any *real* reason to be worried.

Seriously, I think your doctor deserved a punch in the face for the way he broke the news to your wife.

Come to think of it, he probably deserves two punches in the face: was it the same doctor that sent your wife home when birth was imminent???

[Simon]

Linda,
if God laughs while you talk, knowing you as much as I can, it's always with you and never at you.

Jim,
two different doctors, so we can keep the number of face-punches to a minimum. Still gets me a little riled if I think too hard.

[marian]

We refused all tests when I was pregnant. Just made a kind of "this is our child, and we'll accept whatever comes" decision. Fortunately it turned out okay.

I think God's mercy and forgiveness and sense of humor and lack of fussiness about formalized worship (nor do I believe he needs to be worshipped -- that's more what the ego enjoys) far surpasses our own mercy, forgiveness, etc.

So me, I like what the Dalai Lama says about religion: "My religion is kindness."

[rick]

There's meat and music here, as the fox said when he stole the bagpipes.

It would be a mistake to assume that God is interested only, or even chiefly, in religion, according to a former archbishop of Canterbury. Or in old Willy Blake's words, a good public house has much in common with a church, except that the public house is warmer, and there's more conversation. God's probably just as happy to be lifting a pint with you or sitting in the family room while the terrier does laps around the boys to spending a couple of austere obligatory hours in a straight-backed Presbyterian pew....

[Paula]

I love a story with a happy ending. I think your household is blessed (with or without divine intervention).

[Tasha]

Doctors sometimes forget that patients are human, I think. I had a similar story. About 7 years ago, a vein in my dad's brain broke, and he had to have brain surgery. After the operation, the meds they were giving him were making him...shall we say...have a different personality. When my mom called the family doctor we'd been going to for decades, he said, "Well, you never know with those fancy brain operations. They may have missed something. He might never be the same again. You never know." That was the only time I have ever received a seen my mother panick like that. I ALMOST wrote a letter to whatever board you write a letter to in those situations. I decided to let it go.

They stabalized his meds and he's fine. We found a new doctor.

BTW, I also renounced organized religion many years ago, but should I decide to go back, I really liked the Unitarians. Less religious, more spiritual.

[Mark]

Simon,

This had my wife and me glued to the CRT. How on oit did you keep that bottled up inside all this time?

I, too, have been down on organized religion for a long time. I was brought up in a fundamentalist church (Church of Christ), quite the polar opposite of the trappings of a Catholic church. I'm anxious to read your post on why you left. Not right now, though. The little lady is trying to get the lid off the ice cream.