a decision {Too Large} for us

As time passed, my worries only increased. 

Everything at his 2-week check up went perfectly, but my mind was relentless.

That night, I felt like I was losing it. I changed David's diaper and noticed that the diaper rash he had since birth was only getting worse despite my best efforts. Then I noticed he was swollen to one side and worried he might have a hernia.

I remembered reading in a medical journal about a very rare syndrome (I think there had only been 2 confirmed cases) in which both hernias and craniosynostosis were associated with a form of severe mental retardation.

The words severe mental retardation glared blindingly in my mind.

I then remember Chris asked me what was wrong. I folded onto the ground by our bed and told him I was so scared that there was something seriously wrong with David and I was the one who caused it.

Chris is my strength. He approached my worrying in this like he had counseled me 100 times in this before. But it was the first.

We called and talked to the pediatrician on call, who happened to be Chris's childhood pediatrician (thank you again for your provision, Lord!). He assured me that even if it was a hernia, it would be just fine...but it was probably what is called a hydrocele, which is very common and goes away on its own (it was the latter).

I slept okay, but woke up and cried all morning. I was so scared for David. He was too young to smile, so I couldn't even get that response from him. I felt that if he could just smile at me, it would be my sign that he was okay. But he was only 3 weeks old, so I just prayed that God would let him smile on time.

I went that afternoon to see my OB. I wondered if what I was experiencing was hormonal. It just isn't like me to worry - especially in such a desperate way. She was so sensitive toward me and even shared with me some of her post-baby struggles. She assured me I was normal and that it’s very common after a having baby – and with a stressor like this on hand, it is only amplified.

I knew I had to put everything aside but dealing with David.

I made appointments for a CT scan and for consultations with both surgeons. I figured that seeing the surgeon our pediatrician recommended would at least give us a good baseline on which to compare Dr. Jimenez.

We saw her on David’s 4 week birthday. We were going in there just to check it off of the list. We had no plans of liking her, let alone choosing her for the surgery.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. We liked her – a lot. She was good, smart, thorough, and really seemed to adore David. She told us a lot of details of his condition, gave us a play-by-play of her surgery, then broke out a huge binder.

I’m not squeamish – at all; I can watch as somebody draws my blood with no problem and wished I could have watched when they did my c-section with Daniel. But when she opened that huge binder of intraoperative photos, I saw pictures of tiny babies with shaved heads, scalps rolled back into clips and their skulls cut apart.

My heart sank. I firmly told myself right then that David would not be going through that.

But the more we talked, the more we liked her.

There were major pros and cons to both surgeries.

With the endoscopic surgery, he would have an easier surgery and recovery, but he would have a huge hole in his skull and would have to wear a helmet for 12-15 months. That helmet would require weekly appointments for the first 6-8 weeks, then they would taper down to twice a month, then monthly as time passed.

With the traditional surgery, he would go through that awful process and have a huge scar, but once the surgery was over, there would be no gaps in his skull, and no helmet.

This surgeon also took the liberty to tell us that she had never lost a patient in this surgery, while Dr. Jimenez had.

We met with her on Friday, November 13 and didn’t meet with Dr. Jimenez until Wednesday, December 2. That doesn't seem like a long time, but when the hours crawl like weeks, it's brutal.

Our decision went from 100% to more like 50%. We wavered back and forth, and each day leaned a different way.

I couldn’t think of anything else. I even dreamed nightly about the surgeries and weighed the decision in my sleep.


There were mornings when the first thing Chris said to me was, "Which surgery are you thinking today?"


I didn't know.

Even as his parents, this was a choice we could not make for our baby.

We prayed for clarity. We prayed for peace.

But at this point, all we had were pros and cons.

I remember rocking David in his nursery with tears rolling down my cheeks as I earnestly prayed:

Lord, you love this child even more than I do. I don’t know how, but I know you do.  I give him to you, because as backwards as it seems for a mother to admit, I know you’ll take better care of him than I ever could.