Not Exactly As Planned

by Linda Rosenbaum

  I was pleased that my mother seemed excited about seeing Michael too. She told me how much she was looking forward to the visit. But I prepared myself emotionally. My mother was critical of her daughters, and I worried I’d be giving her fodder with my inability to keep Michael content and settled. I was already beating myself up, I didn’t need another punch.

  “Don’t get yourself worked up in advance,” Robin said, trying to ease my worries. “Your mother has her own way of showing love.” He was fond of her, but saw how tough she could be on me. “And sometimes you have to ignore what she says.”

  As it turned out, my mother said very little, positive or negative. I kept waiting for her to criticize me, especially because Michael was his usual fussy self, but she didn’t. She was pleasant and pretty much stayed out of everyone’s way — mine, Robin’s and even Michael’s. She offered little advice and looked on from what seemed to be the sidelines. I had to ask her if she wanted to hold Michael or give him a bottle. She answered yes to both.

  What stood out noticeably was how stiff my mother was around Michael, as if she didn’t know what to do. When she was holding him, she extended her arms out, a short distance from her body, as if she was holding a broken egg she didn’t want to ooze on her clothes. It made her look like someone who had never held a baby before and was afraid it might bite if it came too close. She never made goofy sounds or faces at Michael. She didn’t run her fingers through his hair, smell his wonderful baby scent or caress his skin. No spontaneity, no sweet nothings. “It makes me wonder what she was like with my sisters and me,” I said to Robin, who was also a little shocked at how ill-at-ease my mother seemed. “It’s not like she’s new to this. She raised three daughters.”

  I wasn’t mad at my mother’s disconnect, but I was chilled. It was scary to think how cold she might have been with the three of us girls when we were young. It may explain why her criticisms during our childhood were so stinging. We weren’t sure there was love behind them.

  After they had left Toronto and headed home to Florida, I continued to ruminate about my mother. For the first time in years, I began to think about her own mother, my grandmother, and the disturbing news I had learned about her. Perhaps, it had something to do with how my own mother was with her children. Possibly she hadn’t learned how to mother.

  I was ten when I learned my grandmother was living in a mental hospital, too young to feel compassion for the shame and sadness my mother must have been living with. Instead, I was only furious about the secret, and swore that I would never ever keep secrets or lies from the people I loved.

  How wrong I continued to be.

  6.

  Michael’s First Year:

  One Mohel, Seven Doctors

  Toronto Island, 1991

  WE RECEIVED THE GO-AHEAD for a bris when Michael was one month old. He hadn’t grown or put on weight, but was definitely sturdier.

  As a surgical practice, circumcision had come in and out of fashion for the general North American population, but for most Jews, circumcision wasn’t a fashion or subject of debate. You just did it. A bris, performed by a trained practitioner, mohel, was considered more than a simple medical procedure. It was a honored historical commitment to the faith. Blessings were said and prayers recited as the child took his place among peers as a member of the Jewish community. It was a happy occasion and an important milestone in the first days of the Jewish life cycle.

  I knew all the medical pros and cons. I was aware of ethical concerns about putting a child though an involuntary surgical procedure and even listened to one person hector me about possible long-term psychological consequences. Nothing made me budge. Jewish males have been circumcised for thousands of years. I never heard one complain about it.

  When the time finally came, most of my Jewish friends were shocked by my determination to go ahead with the circumcision. The non-Jewish ones remained relatively mum, probably trying to show open-minded tolerance towards another culture’s tradition. But I knew they were secretly asking how an otherwise intelligent, seemingly progressive friend would subject her son to a Byzantine ritual of debatable medical merit.

  I warded off comments as best I could, suggesting good-heartedly that if anyone had a problem with my son’s bris, they should take up the cause of female genital mutilation in sub-Saharan Africa, instead.

  Even Robin found my commitment to a bris a bit surprising, considering Jewish life in my childhood home was more cultural and culinary than religious. My childhood rabbi called us Chopped Liver Jews. “You think all you have to do is eat a little chopped liver, go to shule on Yom Kippur and you can call yourselves Jews?” he asked. Well, we were wrong. It wasn’t good enough to keep the religion alive, he told us. The warning signs were already there in the 1950s. Intermarriage was looming.

  So it was strange that my culturally Jewish home became the breeding ground for my lifelong love of tradition and ritual. My parents went to shule on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur only. We celebrated Jewish holidays by eating latkes or matzo brei. Yet for me, Judaism was poetry, drama, inspiration and comfort. I loved Bible stories of sibling rivalry, jealousy and heartbreak; the Hollywood-style spectacle of an arbitrarily cruel and vengeful god smiting whole armies in retribution. I cried when the cantor at my shule wailed ancient melodic lamentations during Kol Nidre on Yom Kippur; I daydreamed to love poetry in the Song of Songs and took comfort in “forever is mercy built,” a line from King David’s Psalm 89.

  I began going to synagogue on my own on Saturday mornings as a young teenager, but was already hooked on Shabbat by the time I was eight. I was invited to my friend Beverly’s house for Friday night dinner, and watched in awe as her mother lit Shabbat candles and sang the blessings. She explained that females are given the role of lighting candles as part of their duty to bring light into their family’s heart — and home. What on earth could possibly be more beautiful than that, I thought. In the first flicker of the flame, I felt engulfed in the warmest, coziest, most peaceful glow imaginable. It momentarily separated me from all that was mundane. Mystery, magic and mythology trumped matter for me. It left me longing for more.

  As well as being a religious ceremony, a bris was a celebration, and Jewish celebrations of course mean family, friends and food. And for a bris, food meant “trays,” as in “So you’ll order in a few trays,” as my mother would say. It meant platters upon platters of fresh bagels, lox, cream cheese, sliced tomatoes, cucumber and onions, cheeses, creamed herring, tuna salad, egg salad and loaves of rye bread, challah and pumpernickel. To follow, cinnamon-crusted rugelach, a little sponge cake and a few nice cookies so you shouldn’t go hungry.

  But getting trays to the Island would be as easy as bringing over a mohel. Impossible.

  I called my friend Ellie for help.

  “Just have the bris here,” she said, offering her city home.

  “I’ll owe you big time, forever, for this one.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m doing it.”

  I was thrilled my sister Barbara and family came from Detroit for the bris, but disappointed that my parents, particularly my father, couldn’t make it. I had always imagined my tallit-draped father there, his deep blue eyes moving from twinkling to tear-soaked as he held my son in his arms and recited blessings with the mohel. Yes, it was from my father that I inherited my sloppy sentiments and tender heart. But his arrival was not to be.

  After welcoming the guests and mohel to Ellie and Bob’s, I ducked for cover in the kitchen. It was the traditional hideaway of a long line of chicken-shit Jewish mothers like me who didn’t want to be anywhere near their baby while the surgical cutting they, including me, had specifically asked for took place in another room. In this case, Ellie and Bob’s dining room.

  I was told that with Robin by his side, my nephew Steve donned his bar mitzvah tallit and held Michael in his arms while the mohel dipped a white linen cloth into syrupy sweet red Manischewitz wine. He then placed it in Michael’s mouth to take the st
ing from the brief surgery. Manischewitz the anesthetic, as it were.

  Meanwhile, I was in the kitchen surrounded by a bevy of females. I squealed when I heard Michael wail from the incision. When done, I joined the men and held Michael. My son was officially circumcised, named and welcomed into his new community. And the trays! They were to die for, though the fabulous raisin-studded rugelach were wolfed down long before I even got a taste. Divine retribution for not being at my son’s side, no doubt.

  Later that evening, back at home, my sister asked if she could speak to me alone.

  “I was wondering,” she started, in a near whisper. “Do you think maybe Michael could be going through withdrawal or something?”

  My mind was blank. I was incapable of saying anything.

  She continued. “You know the way he cries so much, jerks his body and thrashes around. Maybe he’s so agitated and sensitive because he’s going through cold turkey or the DTs. Maybe his birth mother was taking drugs or drank when she was pregnant.”

  She was right. Michael had not yet stopped his long bouts of crying, and frequently seemed uncomfortable in his skin. Yet I could feel the back of my neck heating up from what my sister was saying. She had tapped into every adopting parent’s worst fear. We are all scared out of our minds that something might be wrong with our children because of the genetic stew and nine-month gestation period that we have no control over.

  I didn’t know what to say or do. My sister would never say anything that would hurt me unless she thought it vitally important. Nevertheless, I was devastated. She had planted seeds that couldn’t be unsowed. She couldn’t take it back. The harm was done. My post-bris euphoric bubble had been burst. Pandora’s box of worry was now open.

  “Sure, Michael’s having a rough go,” I said, dismissively, “but Kira said she didn’t do drugs or drink much during the pregnancy. Plus, the doctors at the hospital ran all sorts of tests on him and said he’s fine.”

  We went and joined Robin. The issue wasn’t mentioned again.

  As part of my routine with Michael, I took long daily walks through the community. Whichever route, I made a point of starting my walk past one particular neighbour’s house. Jean had been a pediatric nurse at the Hospital for Sick Children for many years. If she was out puttering, I’d stop for a chat. Her warm smile and calm presence made me think of a fluffy white pillow I wanted to sink my head into.

  I always asked Jean for advice about Michael. No matter what the question, her answer was the same: “A nighttime sherry for mum.”

  On Michael’s first birthday, I found Jean outside, pruning her forsythia. She was her usual warm self, though noticeably earnest. She walked over and put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Linda, I want to congratulate both you and Robin. The power of your love is extraordinary. You’ve done a beautiful job with Michael. That little guy really had me worried. It’s a miracle Michael made it through his first year.”

  I burst into tears and clasped Jean in an unexpected bear hug. Then my brain clicked in. Had she thought Michael as vulnerable as I too thought? What made her think so? Why hadn’t she said anything? Were Michael’s doctors secretly thinking the same?

  I could barely speak. “Really?” was all that came out. I had never let on to anyone, not even to Robin. I too thought it a miracle Michael was alive.

  Jean said she was aware Michael wasn’t growing and hadn’t put on much weight the whole year. She had other concerns too, but thought it too early to say anything. She could see we were doing okay day-by-day and didn’t want to worry us. Encouragement was what we needed. She believed the most important thing during the first year was to maintain the bond we had with Michael, and build on our attachment to him.

  “I was keeping a watchful eye, though. Don’t think for a second I was ignoring you.”

  I took her painfully sobering thoughts as affirming, almost comforting, in a strange way. It had been a terribly rough year with Michael. Maybe his difficulties really weren’t of our making. Close friends relentlessly reassured us, suggesting Michael’s particular temperament and tiny, undersized little body were the source of his problems, not our parenting. But I was still hearing Island scuttlebutt, all with the same theme. Not enough tough love. We had to be stricter about feedings and sleep, let Michael cry until he wore himself out, if necessary, and ignore steady demands for milk and comfort. He had to find out who was in charge.

  Were they right? Two parenting bestsellers counselled parents to get feeding and sleeping routines set early on, no matter what it took. But would they have given me the same advice if they knew Michael? Or could he be an exception? The only book I related to during this time was The Difficult Child, about children who had particularly sensitive temperaments. I was selfishly and secretly pleased that the book had a market beyond our family.

  My own instincts were telling me that the parenting books weren’t about Michael. I felt he was different, a vulnerable soul who needed nurturing and compassion above all else. Yet I continually questioned myself. Perhaps I was being weak-willed and defensive. Perhaps I was insufficiently firm with the little guy. If so, I wasn’t doing anyone a favour, not me or him.

  Jean’s words that morning were bittersweet, making me seriously question if there was something really wrong with Michael. It was still a thought I was willing to take only so far — just far enough to think if there is something wrong with Michael, we could find out what it is and fix it.

  Nothing was pointing in any clear direction, though. A neonatal specialist we took Michael to when he was three months old suggested he might have attention deficit disorder. It was too early to tell for sure, he said.

  Fortunately, soon after we brought Michael home, a friend introduced me to the words “easy” and “difficult,” replacements for “good” and “bad,” the common terms of the day when talking about babies. Like me, Mary bristled when someone asked if her daughter was being a “good baby.” How do you answer that question if you’ve got a kid who cries and fusses? Do you say, “No, she’s a ‘bad’ baby?” And what about a sick baby? Also bad? How, pray tell, could a baby be bad? Our hearts broke for our babies. We’re going to tell people they’re being bad?

  It’s a good thing I learned these new terms. It gave me an answer to use when my mother phoned from Florida each week asking if Michael was being a good baby. I could respond without making my teeth clench and body tighten. I could say, “No, Ma, he’s being difficult.”

  As Michael got older, we seemed to be acquiring a new medical specialist every week for his growing number of physical problems. At six months, enter the dermatologist. Michael had a constant urge to pick at his skin and nothing we did could stop him. When I couldn’t stand watching him anymore, I asked our pediatrician for a referral. Michael was never without a bleeding sore or a scab somewhere on his little white body. He even began to scratch any sore, loose skin or scab that Robin or I might have that he could feel when we were holding him.

  We kept his nails clipped and hands away from his face to minimize damage. We often gloved him, but it agitated him so much we had to take them off except at night. His picking was so compulsive we worried what might happen if Michael came down with chickenpox or measles.

  The dermatologist asked Robin and me a few questions, then barely glancing at Michael’s sores, provided the following useless information: “You’ve got yourself a picker,” she said matter-of-factly. “Some people are pickers, some aren’t. This little one is. Nothing you can do about it.”

  When I looked at her quizzically, she added, “You probably know some adults like him. People who love to pick. They’re everywhere.” Clearly, we were on our own.

  Then to the eye specialist. The corners of Michael’s eyes had been crusty and oozing for months. The pediatrician initially thought it might be a cold virus and suggested we wait it out. Eventually, a specialist performed surgery to open Michael’s tear ducts. Problem solved.

  Michael had continual bouts with ear
infections, one after the other. Neither antibiotics nor herbal remedies nor warmed oil helped keep them from coming. Then an ear specialist conducted a small operation to insert tubes for drainage, stopping the marauding bacteria in his Eustachian tubes dead in their tracks. When the tubes fell out, a second operation.

  Two ailments down, new ones kept cropping up with horrifying regularity. A few nights before his first birthday, Michael’s breathing suddenly became laboured. We took the next boat to the city and an ambulance to emergency at the Hospital for Sick Children. They gave him oxygen, said they thought it was asthma but suggested we wait and see. A year later, same thing. He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs to breathe. We were so frightened watching him strain, we called the on-Island firemen. They rushed to our house and gave Michael oxygen, which improved his breathing temporarily, then drove us to the ferry docks where a police boat was waiting. With incredible speed, they ferried us across the bay to an ambulance waiting city side. Then off to SickKids again for a full-fledged diagnosis of asthma.

  Our pediatrician referred us to a cardiologist for a thorough review of the heart murmur Michael was born with. Though he pronounced the condition mild, he recommended that Michael always and forever be administered prophylactic antibiotics before undergoing any surgery, even dental, to avoid possible infection and damage to his heart.

  When Michael was eight months, an endocrinologist assessed his growth — or more accurately, non-growth. “It will be important to follow closely his development in coming years,” he said, “since Michael isn’t yet growing or putting on weight.” Providing minor relief to our fears, he thought Michael would soon start developing.

  The rest of his diagnosis was less reassuring. “Unfortunately, I don’t think he will ever make up the lost growth from his first year. But I’m predicting that if he continues to get good care, he will grow at a normal pace hereafter.” If later tests found Michael lacked sufficient growth hormones, they could administer them then. “Until then, just wait.”