Being a mother, does not come with a set of instructions. Before becoming a mother, you may look at friends or family who have just had their first child, and assume that they know something that you don’t about parenting. However, the truth is that there is no magical wealth of knowledge that is deposited into your brain the moment you give birth. You roll with the punches, and you figure it out. As a new mother, sometimes you feel that you know exactly what you are doing, and other times you are filled with mountains of self-doubt. Probably just about every parent is familiar with the idea of a mother’s instinct, but since it is not exactly tangible, it is hard for some to grasp. It brings to mind a recent news story I saw on CBS Evening News several weeks ago where a 30 year old woman from Mississippi was trapped in her home in the midst of the tornado with her three children. She was not trained in how to properly respond during a natural disaster, as most of us likely are not. However, her instinct was to place a mattress over her three boys, and lie on top of it to shelter them from the flying and dangerous debris. Hers was not a happy ending, and very sadly, she died protecting her children, who consequently all survived thanks to her actions. However, without her maternal instinct that served to protect her children, their fate may very well have been the same as hers. One thing is for sure, mothers do know best.
I am the proud mother of an 18 month old son. He is my world, and has the deepest blue eyes that are reminiscent of reflections of the Caribbean Sea. His smile lights up a room in an instant, and he has the most contagious laugh I’ve ever heard. Of course, as most mothers would claim, I too believe that my son is the most beautiful child to ever walk the face of the earth. But wait…he can’t yet walk. Further, he cannot yet hold a rattle or a bottle. He doesn’t yet crawl or stand unassisted, stack blocks, self-feed, or speak. In fact, he was diagnosed as having “mild hypotonic cerebral palsy” at the age of thirteen months.
Leading up to that diagnosis, I learned a most valuable life lesson that ultimately increased my confidence in my parenting abilities, and taught me to trust my own judgment. Regardless of the number of hours, days, months, or years that a woman has been a mother, her intuition is an extremely powerful tool that should not be ignored.
My parenting journey was atypical from nearly the beginning, and was an ongoing emotional rollercoaster. Beginning at 6 months of age, I began to notice that my son was a bit different than other infants of that age. Given that he was my first child, I had no others to reference beyond that of my friends’ children of similar ages. Two children in particular were within a month of my son’s age (one older, and one younger,) and they were the only children that we saw on a regular basis. Amanda, the older of the two children, once came to my house for a visit when she was around 7 months old. I will never forget the moment when, amidst our constant battles with feeding and weight gain with my son Nicholas, Amelia was placed in our highchair, and proceeded to grasp a full bottle of milk, bring it to her mouth, and drink the entire 9 ounces before throwing the bottle on the floor with authority. I was floored (no pun intended!) At this age, my son was barely drinking three or four ounces in a sitting, and was about as likely to hold a bottle as he was to climb Mt. Everest. As the influential American philosopher from the 1800’s, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, once stated, “Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.” Well, in this case, I had seemingly very little reason for my feeling, but my “mommy instinct” certainly kicked in, and this was one of the first times that I started to really have concerns about my son’s development. Regardless, I shrugged them off, justifying to myself that she was an entire month older than my son, and that she was particularly advanced for her age. However, the worry grew more intense when Isaac, the other child who was a month younger than my son, came to our house for a play date. He was already sitting and crawling on his own, actively engaging with and handling toys, and was also able to hold a bottle all by himself. The red flags were really waving now, and my concerns rose to a level at which I could no longer ignore them.
Childhood milestones are not created and published to merely keep parents informed about what will inevitably happen next in their child’s development. For me, they were validation beyond just my own observed comparisons with other children that my son was not developing properly. These milestones are not inevitable, and I learned this the hard way. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, by seven months of age, my son should have been sitting without the support of his hands, reaching with at least one hand, transferring objects from hand to hand, and using a raking grasp for objects in front of him. He was doing none of these things. At this point, as a mom, there was no doubt in my mind that there was a serious problem. Of course, the older generations of our friends and family dismissed my feelings entirely and concurred with each other that “parents over-react to everything these days,” and that the medical professionals are “always trying to pin a diagnosis on every little ailment just so that they could just to avoid law suits.” Some brushed aside my concerns in different ways, for example, by repeatedly telling me anecdotal stories of people they knew who did not walk until they were two years old, and how they are perfectly fine today. The implications of their words were that I was simply an overprotective, overly-sensitive, inexperienced parent. In sharing my suspicions with other members of my family and friends, I continued to hear the same responses: “Don’t worry, every child develops at his or her own pace, “or “You just need to relax. You are overreacting.” My husband, at the time, would become angry and very verbally combative when I would share my concerns with him or with others. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he insisted that my concerns simply could not be true. His defense mechanism, denial, is apparently fairly common in situations where a person is faced with an idea that is too difficult to accept, and therefore one simply rejects it. I could not accept his denial, and the tension between us rose. In my online research, I had come across a small article written by psychologists who specifically help couples who have special needs in their families. This article pointed out that while and already staggering 57% of all marriages end in divorce, there appears to be an even higher significance of marital distress among families raising a special needs child. “Great,” I thought to myself, “just what I need to hear.” As a result, I began to keep my concerns to myself simply to avoid any further conflict. Nonetheless, my gut was telling me that I should prepare for a rocky journey.
Eventually, after weeks of living in my secret and isolated hell of worry, the weight of the lonely cross I was bearing was finally lifted. We had a nine month check-up with the pediatrician, and he finally confirmed that my concerns might just be valid. This was not good news for us to receive, yet for me, it was somehow liberating. It almost felt like what I imagine it might feel for a homosexual to finally, for the first time, openly share their sexual preference with the world. The need to mask the truth, and censor my feelings to appease those around me suddenly vanished. The doctor suggested that we see a neurologist for an MRI, and have the local special education program through the school district evaluate my son to see if he would qualify for services. This would only be the beginning. “Finally,” I thought, “my family and friends won’t think I’m just an over-reactive first-time parent.” Unfortunately, it took many more months, tests, specialists, and tears before that truth became a reality
Surprisingly, relief is not always accompanied by good news. Shortly after my son’s first birthday, we received the official diagnosis that I had already suspected and grieved about during the many previous months. During those months, I had spent hours reading, researching, investigating, communicating with complete strangers, and crying about what I had feared all along. The evidence was overwhelming, and as a mother who spends every waking moment with her child, the fact that we would not receive positive feedback from the doctor was obvious to me. I was as mentally prepared for this moment as a mother could be. And the moment came. The doctor said aloud the words “cerebral palsy,” and oddly, it was as if a ton bricks had been lifted from my shoulders, and instead hit my husband square in the face. I finally had what I needed to move forward: a diagnosis. My family, on the other hand, who had questioned my thinking and suspicions all along, now finally understood the severity of the situation, and was just beginning to grieve the loss of the idea of Nicholas not being a “typical” child. Through my online research, particularly through a website called the National Institute of Neurological Disorders, I had already learned that cerebral palsy is a non-progressive disorder of movement, balance and posture. It usually stems from damage in the brain typically during fetal development, and has a huge spectrum of severity. Children with this condition sometimes have only minor symptoms as adults, such as issues with balance or coordination that are barely noticeable. However, some have much more severe symptoms which could result in their being confined permanently to a wheelchair due to lack of muscle control and inability to walk. These are the two extremes, and no one, not even the medical professionals, can predict at such a young age how cerebral palsy will affect a child or his ability to function in a physical capacity as he grows to adulthood. It is simply a waiting game. I had been grieving this fact for months already, and at some level, had found a way to accept this uncertain future. I was not glad to be right about my suspicions, but I was glad that I had already passed the point at which everyone else now stood.
In the end, my maternal instinct had not only been right on, but had, in a way, protected me. It had provided me with a kind of inside information about my son that no one else had been able to see. It was like having a window into the future that I had the privilege of looking through, even though the image had not been a particularly pleasant one. My instincts had, in effect, softened the blow of the doctor’s news that my son was born with a life-long disability by allowing me to see this for myself long before it was visible to anyone else. It eased me into a way of thinking about my son’s future, and helped me consider both positive and negative possibilities of how his life may be affected. Effectively, it gave my mind and heart time to slowly absorb a reality that would have otherwise been very difficult to swallow whole, as my family had just been forced to do. For this protection, I was grateful, and it is clear to me now that I never again will doubt my instincts when it comes to my children. Intuition is powerful, and is the most important tool that a mother possesses.
