He Takes My Heart With Him

The Guilt

From the first time that the doctors suspected a neural tube defect, they asked. "Were you taking vitamins?" My oldest daughter is eight years old and I had been a subscriber of parenting magazines since before she was born. I knew what they meant. A deficiency in folic acid can cause neural tube problems, specifically, spina bifida.

The ironic thing was that my oldest son was only eight months old when I got pregnant with Jack. I was still nursing him, so I was still taking prenatal supplements. But, you know, that doesn't take away the guilt.

I went over and over in my mind whether I had missed taking my vitamins some days. Whether or not that could have had anything to do with it. My older son was a voracious eater and nursed a lot. I hadn't known I was pregnant for the first month. If I had known right away and quit nursing right away, would that have made a difference?

I read an article that said that nursing one baby while pregnant with another baby could cause a deficiency in another vitamin that also causes neural tube defects. What had I done?

For the first month or two after this new information, I would feel like I was getting through this. That things were calming down, emotionally. And, then, the thought, "it's probably my fault," would rip through my mind. My mind would clamp down like a vise on that thought and push it harder and harder against my heart. Looking back, maybe I was trying to punish myself for what I might have done. The more it hurt me, the more penance I was paying. The pain would be relative to how sorry I was. Which was everything.

Jack. How I love him. His big blue eyes and his toothless grin. His chubby thighs and his blond hair that has just the hint of curl. His one ear that sticks out the littlest bit farther than the other. The way he grabs onto me when I pick him up and rests his head on my shoulder. How he grabs at my shirt and pulls at it when he wants to nurse, sometimes giving anyone around a good peek at what color bra I'm wearing. How he squeals in delight when his sister gets right in his face and goes, "Boo!" The tiny dimples in his hand. The way he quiets down when I pick him up, no matter how upset he is. He feels safe with me. And he is.

Now, we face more surgery. In September, we'll be at the university hospital for an operation to untether his spinal cord. I'm scared to death. Sometimes, I want to just pick him up and carry him away from all of this. To let him be a baby without tests and ultrasounds and operations and evaluations.

I thank God for every moment with him. Because there was a time when I wondered if I would get even a few minutes. Every moment with Jack is a reminder of how great our Lord is to us. How miracles happen in the lives of just the average family. Where would we be without the Lord? We would be without Jack.