Meeting Lily
We
find the house with no difficulty. The
walk from the car to the house seems to happen in slow motion.
No labour pains, no groaning, no pushing, but this journey is just
as hard.
The
front door opens, but I’m unaware of people there, of words spoken.
I find myself looking into a pushchair at a baby.
A fat puffball of a child, wearing layer upon layer of lace and
frills. She has a fat moon
face with tiny Down syndrome features crowded into the middle of it. She
lies there awake, but unresponsive. She
may be ignoring us, but we stare at her, because however unbelievable it
may seem, this is our daughter.
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I
don’t want to be meeting her like this.
I want to be seeing her first in that peaceful, exhausted lull that
follows the turmoil and pain of labour.
I want her to be naked, red and screaming.
I want to hold her skin to skin, put her to my breast and comfort
her. Just Paul, the baby and
me alone in our own little world.
Instead,
we sit in this comfortable living room, making polite conversation,
holding this over-dressed, fully established baby.
It’s such an unnatural situation to sit for two hours in a
stranger’s house, knowing that the baby is not yet ours and we must
leave her behind.
We
travel home in silence. No
qualms about accepting this baby, just exhaustion at the sudden lifting of
the tension that has filled the last few months.
On
the next visit the baby looks much prettier, maybe because we’re used to
the Down syndrome features now. She's
also more alert and spontaneously smiles at us.
Before
we leave, I’m able to change her nappy.
It's a dirty one, and it makes me realise that the picture I’ve
lived with these past months of a sweet, ethereal baby will need drastic
modification. This baby is so
real, fat and smelly with such pronounced Down syndrome features that she
anchors me to solid ground. For
a second, I feel I’m seeing her as her birth parents must; she seems so
different to a typical baby, she seems to represent part of the world’s
suffering and sorrow. Then my
vision changes and I see her vulnerability and for the first time my
feelings towards her are something like love.
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Next
day our children are finally able to meet her.
They are so excited and march boldly up to the foster parent’s
front door, asking immediately where the baby is and if they can hold her.
None of the reticence that Paul and I showed.
As they thrust the gifts they’ve brought upon her, the baby opens
her eyes and placidly accepts them.
The
children fight to handle the baby, they hug her, twist her round, bounce
her. She looks more animated
now and smiles at them. I
think their rough handling gets through to her in a way my gentle touches
cannot.
We’re
allowed to take her on our first family outing.
The boys love watching planes so we head for the local airport.
As we approach, our son says,
“I'm
so excited, I don’t know whether to look at the baby or the planes.
I’m glad I’ve got two eyes!”
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