bell’s palsy

Months One, Two, and Three

/ sugaronsnowmom / 3 Comments

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The days immediately following the birth were intense. I was manic, high from the adrenaline rush of the birth, from precious little sleep, and from never seeming to be able to find time to eat. My wife was recovering from a tear and she had been given strict instructions from our midwives to rest. I ran around cleaning the house. Wiping counters, scrubbing dishes, sweeping floors. I couldn’t help myself. In between tasks, I would snuggle Baby, sing and dance with her to Bob Dylan (“How does it FEEEEEEL”), stare at her sweet face, and bring my wife food, water, and tea.

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Our friends put together a meal train, each bringing us food every few days. We enjoyed homemade spring rolls, chili, kale salad, ratatouille, sweet potato tacos, and hot falafel. We felt so cared for; so loved.

 

I will never forget the first time we put Baby to my breast. Baby had been alive less than 24 hours when my wife asked, “Do you want to nurse her?” I was overjoyed. After nearly seven weeks of pumping every three hours, this was my reward. I held Baby to me and smiled as I watched her shake her head around and grunt while sniffing out the nipple. Then she latched – heaven! This is what I was meant to do.

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My wife and I took turns nursing Baby. We had my wife do most of the nursing at first – we wanted Baby to get the colostrum and we wanted to make sure my wife established a good milk supply. As the days progressed, I nursed her more and more. It felt like magic.

With each passing day, we learned more about Baby. First lesson: she hates being swaddled. Okay. Lesson two: she loves bath time. Wonderful!

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We took her outside and showed her the backyard. We took her on walks through the neighborhood. We took her to our local farm to pick up veggies and learned that two goats shared her birthday. We took her to watch the sunset at a nearby lake.

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My wife’s parents came to visit Labor Day week. They were thrilled to meet their first grandchild. Baby enjoyed having two new bodies on which to sleep, and we enjoyed spending time with my wife’s parents. We strolled through our hometown and checked out the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

 

We began cloth diapering when Baby was around three weeks old. I thought it would be difficult, but it turns out that for us it is just as easy as using paper. Once we switched, Baby no longer got diaper rashes. We also felt good about reducing the amount of trash we produced for the landfill. Today, we’re doing a combination of cloth diapers and Elimination Communication, working hard to pay attention to Baby’s cues and respond accordingly.

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We celebrated Baby’s one month birthday in Maine, hiking Acadia National Park. I carried her the entire time. I have always loved hiking, but it was even more special to be able to hike through gorgeous terrain while simultaneously hugging my daughter.

 

During the second month, Baby began to smile and respond to our voices, which was just precious. We would call her name and her face would light up with joy. Baby’s eyes became brighter; we loved engaging with her.

However, while our second month with Baby included more sweetness, it also brought more challenges. I returned to work, which was outrageously difficult. I cried hard for several days. I had always thought of myself as a person who liked to work; who would want to work over staying home with a child. The pull of Baby changed that, and walking away from Baby each morning feels like someone is stabbing my heart.

My wife’s face remains paralyzed. We haven’t seen any improvement since it first happened. By this time, we’ve seen a variety of doctors and a naturopath. She was being treated for Lyme, even though we had already had three negative Lyme tests. Eventually, a new diagnosis appeared: Ramsay Hunt Syndrome (RHS). A complication of a Shingles reactivation, RHS facial paralysis can be permanent. We made an appointment with a neurologist who confirmed that my wife’s facial paralysis was severe – she may never regain function of her face. We are devastated.

To make matters worse, my wife’s breastmilk supply began to dwindle. It may have been due to stress or due to allowing me to feed Baby too much. We decided to make a breastfeeding schedule and my wife decided to add pumping into her daily routine. Now a month into these changes, I am happy to report that they are working.

Shortly before Baby’s two-month birthday, Baby’s cousin was born. My wife’s brother and sister-in-law had a little girl. And all that jealousy that I had previously harbored disappeared. I was instantly in love with my new niece.

We celebrated Baby’s second month in San Francisco. We flew out west for my brother’s wedding, and Baby did great on the plane. My brother and his wife were thrilled at the opportunity to meet Baby, and took to her right away. My parents, who also live out west, were able to meet Baby, too. Of course, everyone adored her – how can you not?

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We spent some time at my parents’ house, where my sister and her boys also got to know Baby. My nephews are 9 and 7 years old, and they adored Baby! I thought for sure the novelty would wear off, but it did not. They would get up early with Baby each morning and coo to her as she rolled around on a blanket. The 9-year-old would rock Baby gently in a swing and sing her songs. Baby even went swimming in my parents’ pool!

 

Baby accompanied the boys to their Fall Festival, where she rocked her pumpkin outfit from Nana as well as her California shades.

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Today Baby is twelve weeks old and officially out of her fourth trimester. In a way, that seems appropriate. I feel as though I have known her my entire life. In another sense, time has flown by. Baby grows and changes with each passing day and somehow, in spite of all logic and reasoning, I love her more every minute.

 

 

 

 

 

Paralyzed

/ sugaronsnowmom / 2 Comments

52311054767__8C9EBC3F-2533-4B0C-9184-CDA4B5E55399“I can’t close my eye.”

I lift from my pillow and look over at her. Her eye is puffy and red. Her face is awash with fear.

“What’s happening to me?” she asks.

I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening to her.

What I do know is that her mouth barely moved when she spoke. What I do know is that I am worried.

We call the midwives, who urge us to go to the hospital. We go.

Hospitals are so strange. Simultaneously sterile and sickly, I find myself using sanitizer every two minutes. I don’t like that my wife is here. I don’t like the idea of her getting sick or the baby getting sick. I also don’t like what is happening. I don’t understand what is happening, but I know that I don’t like it.

One half of my wife’s face is completely paralyzed. She can’t blink and she can’t move her mouth. One eyebrow lifts slightly higher than the other—the left side of her face alert, the right, drooping.

We are called into triage where a friendly man asks my wife what is happening. She can’t talk. I explain how yesterday her ear hurt. Her ear still feels clogged. Her head hurts and last night her mouth started to tingle. Today, terror.

He asks her to squeeze his fingers, to press her knees up against his resistance, to kick her feet. Good, good, good. Most likely not a stroke. We breathe a collective sigh of relief. So what is going on?

We are escorted to a room. We wait. The waiting is both frustrating and a relief. If they aren’t treating this as urgent, maybe it isn’t so serious. I send a quick text to update friends and family. My wife reclines on the bed, sits up, stretches, paces. She’s anxious, and this clinical setting is doing nothing to allay her fears. “I’m so glad we’re not planning to birth in a hospital,” she says.

Eventually a doctor comes in. Thank goodness.

“Bell’s Palsy,” he finally proclaims after examining her. “We have no idea what causes it. It usually goes away on its own, but we have some meds that might help. I have to check and see if they’re safe for pregnancy, though.” He leaves the room.

Our heads are spinning. Bell’s Palsy? Out of all the complications we feared, this was not one of them. Neither of us know very much about it. At least it isn’t a stroke, we tell ourselves. At least it’s not Lyme. At least they’re not forcing us into an emergency C-section. At least.

The doctor comes back in the room with a clipboard. He tells us about the medication he’s prescribing. He tells us that facial function may return in six months to two years. Two years. The words hang in the air like smoke.

We leave the hospital and head to the pharmacy. We drop of my wife’s prescription. We pick up an eye patch. We start driving out to pick up our farm share. My wife cries silently beside me. I know this is not what she had hoped, not what she imagined. She’s in pain, she’s in disbelief. She’s unable to use half of her face.

Next day, we head to Northampton, Massachusetts to get my wife a prenatal massage. We tell the massage therapist about the Bell’s Palsy. We tell her we hear it’s more common in pregnancy. She tells us that in the twenty years she’s been offering prenatal massage, this was the first she’d heard of it. She tells my wife she’s afraid she’ll fall off the table due to lack of depth perception. Then she tells my wife to relax. Right, I think. Because this conversation has been really relaxing.

I walk around town while my wife gets massaged. Northampton is known as a lesbian haven, and I pick up a cute onesie that reads: Proud of my moms. I browse a few more shops then head back to pick her up from her massage so we can browse together. The difference between walking the streets alone and walking with her is striking. I can feel her distress and embarrassment. She struggles with whether to wear the eyepatch as her increase in physical comfort directly corresponds with her increase in emotional discomfort. I sense her anxiety as we walk. I sense the eyes of others, darting toward her then darting away. Mind your own business, I think. I hold her hand tighter.

We head home and decide to beat the heat with a dip in our local river at the dam where the water pools. When we arrive, my wife panics. The shore was teeming with children. “They won’t bother us,” I assure her. She apprehensively follows me to the water. She dips in.

For a moment, I can see her relief. For a moment, I watch as the cool water washes away her stress. I smile. She looks back at me through her non-eyepatch eye. It’s impossible to hear over the roar of the rushing water spilling over the dam, so she signs “sorry” and “I love you.” I sign back, “I love you, too. You’re beautiful.”

Just then, a pre-teen boy runs over. “I like your eye patch, pirate lady!” he shouts. Embarrassment floods over me. I’m appalled. “You need a sword!” Before I can do anything, the boy chucks a stick at my wife, runs to a nearby rock, and crows like Peter Pan.

I look over at my wife, thinking she will break down, worried she will start sobbing and that I will be unable to help her in any meaningful way. But she doesn’t cry. She just stares.