Pathology report is in and stitches are out.

Turns out that I was wrong all along.

It was an encephalocele. My daughter had part of her brain hanging out of her head. Thank God it’s over for now. We’ll know more as she does or does not reach her milestones.

Jesus.

I’ve never been so tired in my life.

When Alex was about 10 months old, I realized that I was suffering from Postpartum Depression and was promptly seen by my doctor and treated with some excellent mood enhancers (sadly not MDMA).

Every now and again, even knowing better like I do, I’ll get this bright idea that I need to go off of them for some reason so I do. The results are always predictably bad, save for when I was badgered into going off them at 8 weeks pregnant with Amelia. Then, for a good 20 odd weeks, I did remarkably well all things considering.

But, what goes up must come down and at 20 odd weeks pregnant, I realized that I Was Not Handling Life Well. Crying whenever a commercial came onto the television–even aquadoodles! which may be annoying but certainly not sob-worthy–wasn’t my standard MO and I made the executive decision to resume taking my Vitamin W.

So, one weekend while shopping at the hallowed halls of the beginning and end of my current social life (read: Target), I had The Daver pop over to the pharmacy to request the refill on my Vitamin W while I peed or something equally pregnant-like. No sooner had he walked away (as I walked up behind them), but I hear my name booming over the loudspeaker to “return to the pharmacy.”

Since I was already there, I popped my head up and addressed the no-nonsense looking pharmacist who appeared to be glaring at me.

“Hey, I’m Rebecca Harks, what’s up?” I started in.

“Didn’t you go OFF this medication?” She accused me, her voice dripping with…anger? Could that REALLY be anger? “Because it says in the system that you stopped taking it.”

I was momentarily shocked as this woman had immediately put me on the defense, not a common reaction I have to people talking to me. (IT IS NOT A COMMON REACTION, INTERNET!) (see, that’s a JOKE. Because I was being defensive about being defensive. God, I crack myself up. I should be a comedian.)

“Well,” I sort of sputtered, taken completely aback and somehow now on the verge of tears. “I did. But I need to go back onto it now.” I wondered why my fucking pharmacist was making me justify something that she personally had no reason to do so. She, as I knew, couldn’t write me a prescription, so what does it matter WHY I take ANYTHING?

Answer: it doesn’t.

“Well,” she angrily spat at me, “you ONLY have a script for 10 more pills. THEN you’ll need to call your DOCTOR.”

The tears were welling up as she accused me again and my throat became lumpy as I tried to swallow.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll call them on Monday. But in the meantime, I want my 10 pills.”

Internet, hand to heart here, the woman then rolled her eyes at me. No, really, she did. Daver even saw it, so you know I’m not being hysterical here.

While I’m aware that being on an anti-depressant while obviously pregnant isn’t perhaps the best thing on the planet, trust me, I struggled with being on it for that reason, it’s not the end of the world. My own mother was on Lithium while she was pregnant with moi and look at how well *I* turned out!

Okay, bad example.

I guess what I’m saying is this: if you have to be on something to help you make it through your life, that’s something that’s between you and your doctor, and God not you and the Target pharmacist. I wasn’t asking for Viagra, I wasn’t asking for meth, I just wanted my fucking anti-depressant. More than anything, I wanted NOT TO NEED IT.

But if I do need it, I’d prefer it without the side of Judgmental Bitch.

It should have come as no surprise to me that last week, when I called in a refill for my Ativan (with one clearly left according to the jaunty label) I attempted to do so through the computerized system. Immediately as I hung up, the phone rang. Guess who?

The natty haired Target pharmacist!

Immediately she launches into, “Did your doctor change your dosage?”

“Erm, no,” I sputtered, upset to begin with.

“Well, I can’t give you this. You can’t have it for another 2 weeks.” She stated flatly, but with an accusing tone to her voice. I must add that the first and only time I’ve needed this medication was after Amelia came home with a cyst on her fucking skull. And even then, I was so upset that I had Daver call my doctor and request this FOR me.

“Can I pay full price?” I asked, thinking it was an insurance thing. Money was not an object here. Sanity was.

“NO. You can’t have this for 2 more weeks.” There was no budging her. And now, of course, I’m in tears. While everything set me off into a crying jag last week, this was especially brutal.

She finally agreed to call my doctor to request a dosage change for me once I started hiccuping hysterically into the phone as I explained the situation with Amelia to her.

And while I don’t fault her for doing her job–shit, my dad is a pharmacist, I respect that stuff–it’s become clear that she has a bias against psychiatric medication. That’s what makes me so sad.

If she couldn’t practice empathy, at least she could have been less I’m all gonna judge you for needing medication YOU WEAK, SPINELESS BITCH, YOU.

*sighs*

Perhaps I should act REALLY crazy and go and take a poo on her car or something.

So tell me, wise Internets, has someone done something similar to you? Accused you in their voice and actions something that you didn’t deserve to be accused of?

I woke up this morning more calm than I’ve been all month. It was like all my worrying had already peaked and I was left to deal with my more standard and rational self (shut up. It’s my blog and I’ll call myself rational if I want to). It was a damn good thing because last night as I gave my daughter a pep talk reminding her that she had to be a strong baby girl and kick this surgery’s ass I broke down. And I mean I BROKE THE FUCK DOWN.

But today, with some Valium on board, I was nearly calm on the way to the hospital (I am as surprised as you undoubtedly are). Stupid, yes, as neither The Daver or I could remember which was the psychologist with the bells and the dog (answer: Pavlov), but pretty calm. I was calm as we walked my shrieking, starving daughter up to the surgery wing and checked in.

Hell, I was even calm as we were marched back to the surgical prep area. I signed the consents using my real name, I allowed my nervous husband to cuddle and pace with his daughter rather than keep her firmly ensconced in my arms, and I only broke down marginally when she was taken from us back to surgery.

Breakfast and the company of both my father–who contemplated throwing on some scrubs and heading back to the surgical suite to direct the surgery (he has a degree, he claims, from the Internet that he got two weeks ago. He’s an Internet Doctor now! We’re so proud)–and Nathan–who promised a jaunt with me to the gift shop killed the half an hour before surgery began. We’d been strongly instructed to NOT leave the waiting area, The Daver and I together, as the doctor didn’t approve of it so any stuff gathering or pacing had to be done without one another.

In our frazzled state, however annoying that sounded on paper, perhaps being separated was a plus.

After eggs were firmly tucked into my belly and an additional Valium swallowed, Nathan and I took off for a cup of coffee. While down at the coffee shop, I decided to make this More Of An Adventure and explore the gift shop as well. Do I know how to live on the edge or what?

A half an hour passed before we headed back up to wait in the uncomfortable waiting room chairs for the next four to six hours. I knew I had some Super EZ crossword puzzles to muddle through and figured I should probably get started on it.

The elevator banks opened to my husband whizzing by in the company of another dude.

“OHMYGODTHEREYOUARE.” He panted in my direction.

Without having a moment to react, he nearly shouted “SHE’S DONE! SURGERY IS DONE!”

Turns out that by four to six hours, the doctor meant 45 minutes. My daughter, it seems, was an easy case. This was an even better outcome than I could have imagined. Turns out that The Thing on the back of her head, jutting out of her posterior fontanel was not a cephalocele (SPOILER ALERT. IT WAS EVEN WORSE THAN THAT. IT WAS AN ENCEPHALOCELE). It’s sitting down in Pathology now waiting to be determined what The Thing is.

Could be fat, could be not fat, could be that third eyeball my brother and father seem convinced it is (my father is, after all, an Internet Doctor now).

(Here’s hoping it’s benign)

But now we’re happily ensconced here in the PICU where I’ve blown an insane amount of money buying out the gift shop of pink balloons and fluffy things. It’s like I’m finally able to celebrate it. I’m finally able to breathe again for the first time since my OB informed me while I hung in the air like a contortionist that my daughter had “something” on her head.

My daughter, my cherished, dreamed of daughter, the daughter I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have. She’s here. Welcome to the world, Baby Amelia, my only cinnamon girl. I couldn’t be more proud to be your mother if I tried.

She’s done! She made it! Fuck yeah!

I remember it happening when my father had his unexpected heart attack last winter and wound up in the ICU for nearly a week. A day like any other, a day like today, in which my biggest concerns went quickly from “Man, I hope Alex goes to fucking sleep tonight” to “Man, I hope my dad makes it through the night.” The shift in thinking here is vast and it’s frighteningly quick.

Suddenly, even news that on a normal day would be some of the worst news you could hear “he had two clots, one of which is threatening to kill him, but we’ve removed one of them” sounds rather…good. It could always be worse, you tell yourself as you pace up and down those hospital corridors peeping into rooms whose occupants, well, HAD it worse than you do. But somewhere in those dark recesses of your brain, you remind yourself that even though for now, for RIGHT now, things are going as well as you can expect, they can sour without warning.

Yesterday, The Daver and I took our week old daughter to a pediatric neurosurgeon after we picked up her MRI films from the hospital. We sat there in the waiting room, me with a baby on the boob while he filled out the piles of paperwork and received the kind of pitying looks from the other patients as they walked by that made my heart swim with tears.

Yes, it reminded me, it is this bad.

After the neurosurgeon, ranked one of the best in the area, bounded into the room, filling it up with a sort of ebullient energy that only someone who abso-fucking-lutely loves his job has, he flicked through the massive stack of films to find one to show us what was wrong with our daughter. In cross-sectional picture form.

And for some reason, despite my incredible love of anatomy, my utter lack of horror for things like internal organs and dissections (I am, apparently, my father’s daughter), I could hardly handle looking at these films that showed my daughter’s head. In ways I never wanted to imagine it.

It’s funny–I know HOW these things work, I could probably give you a dissertation on reading an MRI of the brain without much prep–and yet seeing these parts of brain, parts of my DAUGHTER’S brain, made me cry and feel revolted. It felt unnatural to be looking at these films. In several, I could see that she was crying, or at least her mouth was open and neck arched backward and I ached. I physically ached for her.

Sure enough, right where some brilliant tech had put some of the measurements on the films, the brilliant and kind doctor pointed out what we can easily see from the outside: her cyst. In medical terms, as I alluded to by the title of my last post, it’s called a cephalocele, and it’s sort of like a hernia on the skull where the bones of the skull didn’t properly fuse together while in utero.

I’d known all about cephalocele’s before I’d birthed Amelia, before I married Daver, and I knew enough to know that the one that my daughter has been born with is really pretty minor. Typically, they cause all other sorts of neuro symptoms and retardation, but by the grace of God, Amelia seems to have none of those. We will, of course, know more as she ages and appropriately (or not) hits all of her milestones.

The upside to her cephaolcele is that it’s not an ENcephalocele, which means that the cyst is full of cerebrospinal fluid WITHOUT brain matter. The bad side is, of course, that she’s still going to need brain surgery in the following weeks. And no matter what way you try and spin this, it’s fucking scary.

The bounding doctor would like her to have this surgery in the next couple of weeks so she won’t remember it when she gets older, and while it makes sense to me, I’d still like to cocoon myself away from the thought of my daughter going under the knife for the next, oh, I don’t know, 60+ years? By which time I’ll be dead and I won’t have to sit in the PICU for several days while she wakes up, my breasts aching and full.

Unfortunately, the doctor whom I adored on sight, does not take my insurance and although I have a PPO, I’m not sure we can swing the thousands of extra dollars it’ll require to have him specifically do the surgery. Besides, he argued, this is a minor surgery. It’s not like it’s REAL brain surgery (his words). So, he referred us to a colleague of his whom we will see on Wednesday of next week and form a Plan Of Attack.

I only wish this Plan Of Attack included leaving my sweet baby girl’s head unscathed and eating a bunch of Funyons while sitting on my bum, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get out of this one.

And so I sit here, waiting again while freaking out quietly, and trying to remind myself that things could always be worse. Always.

It doesn’t help much, but it’s all I have to cling to right now. Well, that and my brand new bottle of Valium.

I’ve been going back and forth and trying to decide if I should talk about what’s been goin’ on (with apologies, of course, to Marvin Gaye) and I’ve decided that tentatively yes, I will do so. Between the precipitous drop in postpartum hormones that always leaves me sputtery, spineless and weak and the Very Real Fear that something is wrong with my newest daughter, I’m kind of a mess.

Okay, fine, you’re right Internet, just like you always are. I’m really a HUGE mess right now.

By trade, I’m not A Worried ™. I tend to be more cautious and careful while I’m gestating a crotch parasite, but after they pop out and are alive for about 6 or so months, I tend to stop worrying. I’d only invest in one of those video baby monitors to perform hilarious Stupid Human Tricks on it while Dave is on an Important Work Call and while I see the need for a bedside apnea monitor in many situations, having the damn thing in my house would freak me out and my thinking would get all skewed and I’d convince myself that because I had it, my baby would stop breathing.

See: not rational. So I ignore it.

I worry when I need to, like when Ben is dealing with a bully or a super-crazy-liberal private school, or Alex comes into the room holding an empty pill bottle and not usually other than that. It’s probably one of my better features, along with my shiny hair and impeccable powers of observation.

I fully expected to be worried from the start of labor until I pushed Amelia out, you see, because while she was cooking, I couldn’t SEE her. Once I could see her chubby face I knew I’d relax and begin to prepare myself for the inevitable poo I would have to take before I left the hospital to come home to Casa de la Sausage.

But it didn’t happen that way at all. Suddenly, the room was swarmed with neonatologists and specialists while I hung 34 feet in the air, crotch on display for all to see and I wept. I sobbed, I wept and I shook. Had The Lump been on her arm or leg or somewhere other than the back of her head, I’d have apologized to her for the plastic surgery she would invariably require, promise her a boob job–or a nose job–as a booby (get it!?!) prize and move the hell on with my day.

Over the following 12 or so hours, despite being filled with The Panic AND The Hormones, I managed to convince myself that it all was okay. That the cyst was full of fat or goo or hair or gold something.

Then the dreaded phone call post CAT scan prompted a flurry of people coming into my room and forcibly removing the baby from my boob. Which may or may not have happened quite like that, but you get the picture. From out of nowhere.

The NICU time wasn’t nearly as brutal as it could have been and I thank God for that each and every minute I breathe, but it served to remind me of just how not in control we are. I’d prophetically made a comment about that a couple of days before Amelia was born–how parenthood strips us of our control–and it rang true once again. Despite all of the ultrasounds and folic acid and all that shit, these things just…happen.

The neurologist, while seeing something unfavorable on the CT scan and thereby ordering an MRI without so much as seeing my daughter, has let us know remarkably little, save for the fact that he doesn’t accept our insurance. We have an appointment on Friday to talk about the MRI results–which he claims are not dangerous or urgent or anything else. But the whole time we were there, he appeared to be in surgery for patients with Real Problems.

Which reassures me more than it might someone else. As does the fact that she seems to have no visible neurological issues and manages to both eat, shit, and scream up a storm. Being home with her is awesome but waiting and seeing what the hell is going to be the next steps is sort of like torture. But I don’t exactly feel comfortable pulling the doctor–apparently an amazing MD–out of Real Brain surgery to hold my hand. Dave spoke with him while I was in a drug-induced coma and seemed to be reassured.

I’m aware that whatever is going on with her is not currently life-threatening, and while that does bring me some peace, not knowing exactly what is going on or what will be going on is slowly driving me bonkers. I’m hoping like crazy that I’ll look back on this and while I doubt I’ll laugh, be able to say, “Wow, Becky” *bitch-smacks self* “You have a degree in Freaking The Fuck Out!” Because that would beat the fcuk out of the alternative which is that something is really and truly wrong with my sweet and feisty daughter. Something I’m pretty sure I’d never recover from.

So now I sit here in Hermit Mode waiting for Friday and unable to do much besides care for my kids and my overactive boobies while avoiding talking on the phone or to anyone besides Daver lest I break down completely, unable to pull myself back out of the fit. Sleeping is not going so well–me, not her–as I seem to flip out and imagine Worst Case Scenarios, up to and including Daver getting arrested for human trafficking–and the fact that I’m not an emotional eater means that I’m literally forcing myself to eat fatty food.

If my dieting self could see me now…

*sighs*

Hold me, Internet? Don’t mind the spit-up on my shoulder–it’s dried. And ignore the boogers, Alex sneezed on me but I wiped it up as best as I could. Oh, and that smell? Probably more spit-up. Don’t worry, it’s not catching.

Oh, and BONUS!! for listening to me whine. Here’s Amelia!

It took me all this time to actually log onto my blog after I posted because all of your sweet comments made me weep with appreciation. Amelia is a lucky cookie to have so many virtual friends out there, and I plan to let her know just how fortunate she really is. Because she is.

I’d offer to tongue kiss you all individually, but I’ve been crying all day long and cannot breathe out of my nose any longer so it would be gross. That said, thank you to each and every one of you who prayed for us. Believe it or not, it made today just that much more bearable. And trust me, I needed anything to make today more bearable.

So, WTF, right?

Let me back up a second so you realize how out of left field this whole situation was.

Yesterday, at 4:27 my daughter Amelia was born after about 10 minutes of pushing. Let’s not say a thing about what that means about the state of my girl bits, okay? When she was born, my OB said the words that no one really wants to hear upon pushing out a child: “Becky, it looks like she has some sort of cyst on her head.” Then she called neonatology.

Well, shit. I had an US last week and it wasn’t picked up, so that’s good, right? Her color–despite being covered in cheese–was pink and rosy, she was screaming bloody murder and moving around like no one’s business.

I didn’t catch her Apgars because I was too busy hyperventilating, but I’d assume that they were good. After she was de-cheesed somewhat, she was brought into my shaking arms where she looked around at the world for awhile. Just taking it all in. Before she dived head first into the old boobies for some delicious treats.

The neonatologists ordered a Cat Scan for today and overall seemed remarkably unimpressed by her cyst. Apparently, these things DO happen, and are typically superficial. While the prospect of sending my 10 minute old child into a tube wasn’t exactly my idea of a party, I was somewhat placated by their nonchalant attitude.

Well, Daver and I reasoned, it was a good thing she’d have some hair to cover that up, right?

No big deal.

This morning, after being up half the night in pain and the other half either nursing or throwing things at my snoring husband, my attitude was slightly more nervous. The alternative to having it be a fatty cyst was decidedly less pleasant. It could mean that there was some sort of breakdown in the formation of the skull where some of her brain could be hangin’ out.

While I have frequently been called a “boring” “idiot” by some of my blog trolls–a charge I would not deny, but would plead down to simply obnoxious–I have never exactly had my brain anywhere but firmly inside my skull. Where it belongs.

Around 10:30 this morning, my daughter who had been nursing like a champ (or her brother Alex) was wheeled away from her panicking mother and accompanied by her doting father down to get a picture of her skull. Always the way *I* want to start my day.

Afterward, since no one rushed around yelling “STAT” or even making any sort of big deal out of anything other than my overzealous use of ice packs on my aforementioned girly bits, I began to sort of calm down. She acted just like any other normal baby, and shit, it probably WAS just a fatty cyst. Good thing she’d have some hair to cover it up, right?

I’d claim that the joke was on me, but there was nothing remotely funny about what happened next: the phone rang as I nursed her for the 40th hour that afternoon, and on the other line was her doctor. Begging Dave to talk for me so as not to have to juggle my nursing daughter we got some news. Suddenly, NICU, who I’d had no contact with, was on their way up to take her down. To the NICU.

Down to the NICU for a consult with a pediatric neurosurgeon.

I’ve said before such lofty things as “xxx ranks up there with things I never wanted to say” (xxx being something like, visiting my father in the ICU, the last time I shit my pants, or my favorite Rush song), but nothing could possibly compare to the thought “my daughter’s possible brain surgeon.”

Not only was she not even 24 hours old and not only was this not detected previously, now she’s suddenly in need of a NEUROSURGEON?

F-C-U-K.

No one took the time to explain much of anything, and I was stuck juggling the needs of Alex who misses his mommy desperately and vice versa, but juggling the needs of my new daughter who needs to eat for 50 hours a day. So Dave and I did precisely what mature parents do in situations like this: we both flipped the shit out.

And continued to do so until about an hour ago when, discussing the MRI that the neurosurgeon ordered for tomorrow morning with one of the NICU nurses, it came out that the ped was being cautious (= good), that Amelia was looking awesome (=good), and that our worst case scenario (death, major brain surgery) was probably a little drastic (= extra good).

Music to our addled ears.

Whatever may or may not be in the cyst (fluid, fat OR the ever popular BRAIN) is “small” and the neuro was so unconcerned that he won’t be around until tomorrow to read the MRI/CT SCAN results.

More music to our ears.

While we’re certainly not out of any woods yet, nor do we have anything really specific as a diagnosis or treatment plan, this is certainly better than things appeared to be this afternoon. I will continue to worry, stress, and pray, but I’m feeling slightly better. So is The Daver.

Please, if I haven’t already asked enough of you all already, could you do whatever it is that you do tomorrow that my wee daughter will check out to be more fine than not? If you do, I’ll give you pictures (just as soon as I figure out how to do so on Daver’s lappy).

I’m off to try and con a sleeping pill from a nurse and hopefully conk some zzz’s before Amelia comes back for more boob time. I can’t wait to see her again. She’s just…awesome.

As with anything else, we have hit a snare. On the back of my daughters head is a cyst. It appears fluid-filled but she is due to have a cat scan in an hour.

I’m terrified.