As Long As It’s Healthy

Part 1  

When I got pregnant with my third child, I never tried to hide the fact that I was hoping for a little boy. I loved my two daughters more than anything, don't get me wrong, but still - I dreamed of having a little boy to add to the family. Whenever the topic arose and I mentioned my hopes of buying blue this time around, I was bombarded with the trite "That doesn't matter, as long as it's healthy."

I began to resent this little phrase and quietly gritted my teeth every time it was muttered. Of course I knew that health was most important. I was a nurse. I saw people struggling with their health all the time. I took care of special-needs children and was very grateful my children were born without any complications, despite the love that was shared between my patients and their parents. I would love any child I had, regardless of gender. Still, it was the boy section that I found myself looking through in the baby name book time and time again.

I went in for a routine ultrasound and saw right away that I was carrying another girl. The "hamburger" sign is hard to mistake, especially for someone who has had two girls that she knew the sex of prior to giving birth. (OK, and for someone who cruised the Internet searching for ultrasound pictures showing the baby's gender.) Perhaps I was a bit obsessed.

I left the doctor's office with some beautiful pictures. This was the first 3-D ones I had seen and I was impressed to be able to note the baby's beautiful features. Still, somewhere deep inside my heart, there was a little disappointment. My dreams of having a son were crushed.

The weeks went by and I adjusted to the thoughts of having a third baby girl. I bought matching outfits for the three of them and reveled in the bonus of having another girl - the clothes were so much cuter.

When I was 6 months pregnant, a doctor's appointment that I had made for my 4-year-old, Mikayla, changed my world. She'd had a lymph node on the side of her neck that hadn't seemed to go away for a long time and the doctor was concerned enough to refer her to an ear, nose and throat surgeon.

With her age and a gland that size, there was a 10 percent chance that it was cancerous. It had to be removed and a biopsy preformed ... and quickly. I tried to tell myself that there was a 90 percent chance that it was not cancerous. Still, a 10 percent chance of your baby having cancer is 10 percent higher than any mother wants to think about.

Part 2

When my daughter was having surgery, I was a nervous wreck. The doctor tried to convince me that she would be OK, "she was in good hands" and he "did this all the time." It sounded familiar - I had told others the same thing when they were in my position. Still - this was my child that was being cut open, and that was hard to deal with, especially being pregnant and emotional anyway.

Mikayla made it through the surgery with flying colors. The lymph node ended up being non-cancerous. A pocket of infection had gotten trapped inside from a recent ear infection, and everyone in the family was overcome with relief and began looking forward to the birth of the newest little girl.

Between 5 and 6 weeks before my due date, I started to feel water trickling down my legs. It wasn't a big gush like with my second child, but the doctor thought I should come in and get checked out anyway with my history of preterm labor. By the time we got to the hospital, my socks were soaked. The next morning one of the three most beautiful baby girls to grace this planet was born.

She was small - 5 pounds, 3.5 ounces, but perfect in every way, with a head full of black hair. I didn't get to hold her, and only got to see her for seconds, though, before they whisked her off to the NICU. She had some fluid in her lungs and was having trouble breathing. One of the postpartum nurses came in that evening to find me crying because I wanted to see my baby. This wasn't like my other two, where I got to hold them and nurse them soon after birth. She immediately took me to the NICU where I got to see the tiny bundle that Mikayla named Melody. A NICU nurse took a beautiful snapshot of Melody that got me through the hours between visiting times.

The 12 days that Melody was in the NICU were some of the hardest of my life. I had a foot that stayed numb for 3 weeks from the epidural and walking was painful, but I came up every day to see her and bring her the milk that I had pumped. It wasn't until she was home and I could nurse and hold her whenever I wanted, that I finally began to really feel like Melody's mother.

Looking back on this experience, and looking at my three daughters (Miranda is the other), each unique and talented in their own ways, I realize the true meaning of the phrase I didn't like to hear. Worrying about the health of Mikayla, then my newborn Melody made me realize how unimportant the gender of my newest baby truly was. I wouldn't trade my beautiful, curly-haired toddler for any boy in the world. Sometimes lessons come the hard way, but we can all use a reminder of the importance of health sometimes ... even nurses.