At some point during this hazy, undocumented second summer of Maia’s life, she went in for a routine check-up and round of immunizations. During this, our family doctor decided that Maia had “breast buds” and needed to go for an ultrasound to determine whether or not they were made of normal breast tissue or if there was some underlying cause to their existence that we needed to be worried about.
During the ultrasound, we had two barbarian technicians who snapped at me as Maia screamed and squirmed and shrieked in my arms. ”Just hold her still,” they growled, and I, with frustration enough to put theirs to shame, told them to get away for long enough for me to try and calm our beautiful daughter down. It was an exercise in patience for us all, and when we left, I don’t know if any of us thought anything had actually been accomplished other than pissing Maia right off.
A week passed without word on ultrasound results. Everyone told me don’t worry, no news is good news. And I, being scared, not wanting to do anything to jeopardize the fragile certainty of if there were something wrong, they’d call me immediately, didn’t call to follow up either.
Time passed. I forgot about it. Until one Friday afternoon in mid-July when a simple envelope from our family doctor’s practice arrived in the mail, holding a single-sided business card. It listed the name and address of some other doctor at some other practice we’d never heard of, followed by an appointment time and date — Dr C, August 19 @ 2:30pm.
I freaked out. Chris tried to keep me calm. We called the doctor listed to see what this was all about, but they knew nothing other than that our family doctor had made a referral after some ultrasound results came in. We called our family doctor, desperate for information, but she doesn’t work on Fridays and all the secretary could tell us was “If anything were wrong, you wouldn’t be waiting until the middle of August to find out.”
I lost my shit.
I.
Lost.
My.
Shit.
I screamed and cried and hugged Maia until she started screaming and crying and shoving me away. Chris tried to calm me down, and we ended up in a massive fight over the fact that he wouldn’t validate my fury, my fear, my overwhelming how-could-i-be-such-a-bad-mother guilt. We waited out the weekend in terse silence and anger, and first thing Monday morning I was on the phone to my family doctor, demanding answers.
The only answer she could give, via her secretary? ”It’s about ultrasound results. We can’t discuss them. If there were anything seriously wrong, we would have told you right away.”
Fuck.
More time passed. BlogHer passed. Nagging at the back of my mind was the knowledge that we were in limbo with our daughter’s health and well-being. I let it slip away; sometimes, I forgot. Maia’s perfect and healthy and active, breast buds are normal, and nothing will happen to my child, things only happen to other people’s kids, but everyone thinks that until it comes for them, children act normal until their very last days when a sickness suddenly and dramatically leaves them an empty shell of who they were, when the monster that’s been lurking within them suddenly takes control of that perfect little person and steals them away and all we can do is scream why isn’t it me suffering, why does this happen, why her, why why why why…
And then last night, before Chris went to bed, he reminded me: Maia has her appointment tomorrow.
I slept like shit.
I woke up sick.
I drank two cups of coffee, too thick and too sweet and too syrupy with too much of my favourite hazelnut creamer.
I forced myself to eat a quarter of a bagel, then gave the rest to Maia.
I looked up the bus route to the pediatrician, reminding myself the entire time that Maia simply had to be fine. If she weren’t, we would know. My friends reassured me. My mother reassured me. Chris reassured me. DMs started arriving on Twitter with suggestions for dealing with my anxiety.
The fear we feel for our children is a suffocating force. I’ve been scared in my life, but before Maia I’ve never felt such abject terror, never had a pit in my stomach so deep I could spend decades tumbling down it head-over-heels and still not reach the bottom, yet expect that bone-crushing, life-ending impact to come each and every second.
We arrived at the pediatrician’s office ten minutes late. Dr C saw us almost immediately. ”You’re here because you’re worried about your daughter’s breast buds?” she asked.
Words began spilling from my mouth: “No, our family doctor, Dr S, was, I wasn’t worried until she told me I should be, I thought it was normal for a baby to have breast buds. I mean, a breastfed baby. I had them when I was little, and I’m fine, and everything I read said that Maia should be fine too, but Dr S wanted us to take her in for an ultrasound just in case.”
“Well, there’s certainly nothing wrong with you developmentally,” Dr C cooed at Maia, who smiled like she’d just found her soulmate. ”You’re perfect! Look at you!” Dr C swept my daughter up in her arms, and although Maia’s certainty wavered for a moment, I smiled at them both. Dr C looked at me seriously. ”Your doctor sent Maia in for an ultrasound?”
Yeah.
“Does Maia have hair in her armpits?”
No.
“Down there?”
No.
“Vaginal bleeding?”
No.
“Lots of acne?”
No. Probably will when she’s a teenager, judging by her parents’ skin, hahaha ohmigod why did I ever pass on these genes…
“If she’s not showing any of those symptoms, I don’t understand why Dr S would refer her for an ultrasound. I don’t even have any ultrasound results.”
The words that had come so easily earlier were hard to find now. I helped the Dr undress Maia so she could have a look for herself. Maia decided they were no longer friends with one another, but I was rapidly falling in love with the woman myself. I didn’t stay quiet, I just wasn’t sure how to put words to my anger. As Maia screamed and squirmed and shrieked, and we both tried to soothe her with words and playful touches and distractions, I managed explained the whole situation — ultrasound, silence, mysterious business card, lack of answers — to Dr C. She was aghast. ”I always call the patient when I get test results. Even when it’s good. That’s your child. I always — we always, everyone here — call. We don’t want you to be worried.” Finally, she pulled away from us. ”She looks fine. I’m going to call Dr S’s office right now and get them to fax over the ultrasound results. But you shouldn’t be worried, because I’m not worried.”
I smiled. I wasn’t worried, and I felt that calm because she genuinely wasn’t worried either.
Two minutes later, she peeked into the office. ”They’re faxing over the results right now. Do you want to wait here or in the lobby?”
“We’ll wait here,” I said.
Fifteen minutes later, she peeked in again. ”They have an odd idea of ‘right now’,” she said. “Do you want to keep waiting?”
“Yeah, might as well,” I said.
Fifteen minutes after that, she walked into the office. “Well,” she growled, “apparently they have a very different idea of what ‘right now’ means than I do. If you two want to go home, I’ll call you as soon as the results are here and we’ll talk about them then.”
I could have asked her to marry me (hey, it’s perfectly legal in Ontario). Instead I said: “Sounds good. Um, are you or anyone else here accepting new patients? Even just a pediatrician, for Maia.”
Dr C told me she only handles referrals and doesn’t do primary care for families, but, she’d find someone in the office to take us on. So as I got Maia ready to leave, she left. A moment later, she ducked back into the office with a piece of paper in hand. ”Normal breast tissue,” she read. ”See, everything’s fine! Oh, and Dr D is accepting new patients. She’s a family doctor.”
When we walked out into the lobby, Dr D introduced herself to Maia and I both.
I’m so in love.
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