Honesty

A trait that I think is essential to good writing is honesty. There is something about an honest work that is recognizable and makes that work — whatever the genre — amazing. Take Maya Angelou‘s book, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. She admits to pulling a gun on a teenager in a gang that was bullying her son. Or another of my favorite authors — Anne LaMott, who wrote Traveling Mercies. If all psycho-christians were as honest and forthright as Anne and did not continually use “church-speak” and say things like, “George Bush prays every night so I trust him,” or take Ann Coulter seriously, then, well, I might actually listen to them.

But they don’t. People, in general, are not honest.

I say people, and that certainly includes me. That’s why I admire truly honest people. Take the Dooce blog. It’s full of raw, blatant honesty. I like to read it because it’s a window into someone else’s soul — their pain, their joy, their failings — the whole shebang. I wish I could be as honest as that, but I fear others. I grew up in a small town and am well aware of the lobster-in-a-pot mentality. As an adult, I rediscovered joy — that’s what yoga is about. Taking a couple minutes to breathe through each nostril and feel the wood or carpet or dirt beneath you and smelling whatever smell there is — feet or pine or last night’s curry. I’m not sure why this is so hard to do. I mean, this is it, there is no other life, but it’s just so damn hard to sit still. But anyway, I digress. I’m talking about honesty.

So here it is — my moment of honesty. I would rather put this off for a time when I am better, when I know everything is okay, but as I grow older I try to have faith in other people and to even lean on them from time to time. So here we go.

Two weeks ago Marti and I went in for our second ultrasound to see if the baby was okay. Well, the baby wasn’t. Isn’t. Okay. She’s not okay. There, I’ve said it.

Our little girl (and we know she’s a girl now) has a birth defect. She has a cleft lip. This is different from a cleft palate. Oddly enough, cleft palates are more common in girls, cleft lips are more common than boys, but a cleft lip it is.

The scary thing is that this may not be all. Now I have to go in for an amniocentesis test. This tests for “chromosomal abnormalities,” which is a fancy term for names like “Down Syndrome” and “mentally and/or physically challenged.” It could also mean other chromosomal abnormalities, which the doctor delicately said were “incompatible with life.” It means that our little girl’s cleft could be from a chromosone problem and that she might not live to see her first birthday. Or it could mean that she would spend the rest of her life as a child. Or it could mean nothing at all — the cleft could be just that, a cleft, and nothing more.

I can’t take the test right away, however. I have to wait until I am 32 weeks pregnant. I am 26 weeks pregnant right now. This means we have to wait 6 weeks for this test, plus 10-14 days for the results. People (we have told some close friends and family) are continually asking me if I have taken it yet. The answer is no. No, no, no. I am aware of it every minute that no, we don’t know yet. Don’t know if our child will live or die the first few months. Don’t know if or how much we will have to change our life to accomodate a special needs child. Don’t know if our kid is going to be that kid that gets tormented on the playground. Don’t know if we will have to live with hurtful comments from sometimes well-meaning friends and family. Don’t know, don’t know, don’t know.

This is the hard part, the waiting. I am trying to savor every moment, because once we know, that knowing will change everything, one way or another. And here’s the honest part — I desperately want this to be just a cleft and nothing more. I don’t want my little girl to be sick, or to be challenged, or to be anything other than normal.

I feel mean-spirited about this. I frequently work or have worked with special needs children, and I know how wonderful they are. How amazing they can be, with their innocence and their faith in others. It is also a terrible burden, though, having a child like this, because they are vulnerable. They can be hurt, like children, but for their entire lives. I know of the things that happen to special needs kids, and it makes my heart clench up. I am already neurotically protective enough, and my son is as sturdy and independent as a 4-year-old gets.

But that’s not all. It’s also a matter of pride. I’ve never looked at someone with a special needs child and thought, “There must be something wrong with them.” I am smarter than that — I am aware of the uncertainties of life and of genes. But I am also terribly, painfully aware that I am in the minority. I can just see some redneck relative of mine saying something like, “That Michelle, she thought she was so special, runnin’ off to college like that, and look at her now, with her hairlip Mexican baby.” That’s what it’s called back home — not cleft or even defect. It’s hairlip. And I fear that people will use this to humiliate me, to step on me. That’s what I mean. My pride is out there for the destroying.

I fear them. These people, who are probably imaginary, who will say these things to me. I have always feared words. There is no truth to the saying, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Words cut worse than knives, at least for me. I sometimes pretend I am stronger now, and my pretending is good. I am a good actor. A number of people have said to me, “Missy, you never care what anyone thinks.” I only wish they were right. Truth is, I care, and care deeply.

One of the most defining moments in my life happened during a Philosophy class. We were reading the existentialists — I don’t remember who, Heidegger, Sartre, someone unintelligible — and there was a section about “the negative chorus in our heads.” It was all about how we live our lives in fear, not of what people actually think but of what we imagine they must think. Or say. Quietly, when we are out of earshot. I realized I was living my life according to what I thought my highschool classmates might think of me. Success was what I thought they thought it was. Convoluted enough? It is the honest truth. Once I realized this — and this realization was huge — I finally started actually living my life. It was a turning point for me.

Probably nobody is going to be mean-spirited enough to say what I imagine they will, not even my meanest, most bitter redneck relative.

Of course, if they do, I plan to blog it immediately. Along with their full name and address.

Regardless, we are trying not to spend our days worrying about what might be to come. Some days I feel fine — I am sure that whatever happens, we can handle it. Other days I feel that there will be nothing to handle, that the baby will have surgery on her cleft at 12 weeks and then we will settle down to the normal hectic schedule of any family with a new baby. And days here and there, I feel like I am drowning, I feel like dying, I feel like I can’t possibly deal with this, that I barely dealt with Ben as an uber-normal child and clearly God hates me and wants me to suffer. Yes, those are the bad days, but they are fewer now than that first week, and I’m sure, as the weeks go by, I will get used to the uncertainty until we finally know, one way or another, and then we can stop worrying about what the baby will be and begin preparing for what she is.

Until then, pray for me, in whatever language of prayer you have to whatever God you believe in. And I will continue to try to stop and smell the curry.