Parenting, in Sickness and in Health

We sat, Carly and I, in the hard plastic chairs, staring at a reflection of our family in the large rectangular mirror occupying the opposite wall. Our concern was hidden by the cloth masks covering our noses and mouths; maybe our eyes betrayed our worry. We were, more than any time I can remember as parents, genuinely scared.

Mayla, our 21-month-old daughter, had woken up the previous night, a few before Christmas, crying and coughing so hard that she threw up. But what worried us the most was her breathing: it was scratchy, clipped, labored, especially when she got upset because of the pain caused by coughing. It sounded exactly like what preceded my adolescent asthma attacks, the ones that invariably ended with me sitting in a camping chair, a clear mask over my nose and mouth delivering albuterol to my compressed airways.

It was the first time of her life that we contemplated calling 911; instead, we tried to keep calm and called, around 4 a.m., the on-call nurse, who relaxed our worry and advised us to take the normal measures to calm a cough: honey, steam, humidity. We tried, without much success, to all go back to sleep, Mayla, for one of the few times of her life, laying between us in our bed. The sun rose and we tried to get her to eat breakfast, eat and drink anything; she mostly refused, preferring to do something she almost never does: lay on the couch and watch Daniel Tiger (“Da-tah” to her). We didn’t really care what she did, as long as she didn’t get upset, because that’s when the wheezing began. We just wanted, needed, to keep her calm.

By the time we got to the doctor, she was so tired she nearly fell asleep on Carly. To pass the time and soothe our anxiety, Carly and I started flipping through old photos of her, of us, on our phone. And as I looked back and forth between the digital representation of my daughter on my phone screen and the physical one laying on Carly’s shoulder, struggling to keep her eyes open, I struggled to determine which one was real. For the first time, the pictures of her seemed more true than reality. There she was, smashing her first birthday cake and rubbing it all over her face. There she was, running through a hose in the front yard, squealing with glee. There she was, sleeping on my chest when she was just weeks old. This girl sitting next to me? No, that wasn’t our daughter: She looked so sad, tired, lifeless. They didn’t seem like the same person. I almost started crying: In those moments of high stress you start to fear the worst, and you want, more than anything, for your child to be OK, to find again that joy that you saw on the screen you held in your palm.

And that’s when I remembered coming to that pediatrician’s office almost two years ago, before Mayla was born, and walking into that room or one designed exactly like it. We were there only to meet the pediatrician and discuss Mayla’s first appointments, and thus felt relaxed, light. Our eyes then often squinted above our masks, the universal sign for a hidden smile. But I specifically remember thinking, sitting in those chairs and staring into that giant mirror, One day we’re going to be here when she’s sick and we’re going to be scared. 

That day had arrived, and it was a not-insignificant comfort to remember that visit two years ago: It didn’t heal Mayla, of course, but it offered something of nearly equal value in those frenzied, anxious minutes, hours, days when you are worried about your sick child: perspective—perspective that this is part of the deal of parenthood, especially in the snotty winter months, that your marriage vows of in sickness and in health apply, too, to your children. It was helpful, as ever, to zoom out.

The rest of that doctor’s visit was not fun: Mayla did not enjoy, in fact actively fought against, the albuterol pumped into her nose and mouth and all of the probing swabs up her nose for the various virus tests (and no one could blame her on the latter). But she got some medicine to loosen her airways, she never had trouble breathing again, and she was better in a few days.

It was, as parents, our first true medical scare, and for that I feel fortunate because I know some parents experience scarier, more severe issues far earlier than we did with Mayla. And I’m sure those parents, as we did, at times felt helpless, wishing they could simply take their child’s pain away, transfer it to themselves, do anything to make their child better. Having a sick child is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, but it’s perhaps one of the clearest, most powerful manifestations of a parent’s love.

Mayla will get sick again, as will our second child, due to arrive soon, so our worries will likely only increase. It is simply a part of life. Which, of course, exemplifies the ceaseless oscillations of life as a parent, which can bring you the most uncontainable joys and the most genuine scares. Neither can exist without the other; they are both part of the deal.

So, yes, we’ll be back in those hard plastic chairs, gazing into that immense piece of reflective glass once more. And we will remember, hopefully, those anxious December days, when our daughter helped us remember that parenting is never easy, but it is always worth it.    

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