The Child I Need

I thought I knew what to expect when I had my first. But from the moment my son arrived, nothing went according to plan. Letting go of the child I imagined, I discovered this truth: You’re given the kids you need, not the ones you wish for.

I didn’t expect anything about my child… starting with his birth.

My husband and I were heading to Home Depot to pick out a new carpet for our apartment. My due date was still over a month away.

“Should I pack a hospital bag?” I asked my husband, Yitzy, as we were getting ready to leave the store. “Shani was telling me about how important it is to be ready early…”

My husband laughed. “Everyone says first babies are late. We have plenty of time.”

That night, 2:30 in the morning found me frantically calling my OB.

“Are you sure, dear?” the OB asked me calmly. “Your due date is more than a month away.”

“Yes!” I cried into the phone.

“Alright, then you can come to the hospital and we’ll check you out,” she said.

I could tell she thought I was just panicking, but I knew I wasn’t.

Time to call my mother.

“What’s happening, Dassi?” she asked, her voice groggy with sleep.

“My OB says we need to come to the hospital now. Yitzy’s going to pick you up.”

“OK, Dassi, I’ll be ready.”

My mother was always calm in a crisis, which was good, because both my husband and I were hyperventilating. Yitzy could barely steer the car straight as we careened through the quiet, traffic-free streets.

By the time we got to the hospital, I was so overwhelmed, I forgot my name and address when the nurse at the desk asked me for my information. My husband had to answer for me, and I was whisked away to a room in the maternity ward.

It was a long night, but morning brought my beautiful baby.

When the nurse told me it’s a boy, I burst into tears.

“How big is he?” I heard my mother whisper, but I was too busy marveling at the tiny, exquisite perfection of the bundle in my arms.

At five pounds, he was small, but big for a preemie. He did very well, and after a few days of monitoring in the NICU, we were able to bring him home.

Those first few weeks were a blur of feedings, crying, and learning what it means to take care of your own baby.

After his bris, I held him the whole day, reluctant to put him down.

“He looks like a little doll,” my mother-in-law marveled, and in his beautiful outfit, snuggled in my arms, he really did.

The hard nights and hectic days soon smoothed themselves out. Meir outgrew his preemie stretchies, and by six weeks, he was clearly a sweet, easy baby. He slept through the night and cried for his feedings at predictable times. I was so grateful because his easygoing personality worked perfectly when my maternity leave ended and I was back to babysitting my group of babies.

But I soon noticed something troubling. I wasn’t new to the world of babies. I’d watched my younger siblings. I’d been babysitting for a few years. I knew preemies often develop more slowly than their full-term peers, but even for a preemie, Meir seemed exceptionally delayed.

At six months, he wasn’t turning over. He batted toys but couldn’t quite grasp them. He wasn’t moving anywhere, and he seemed perfectly content to lie on the floor and look around.

I called Early Intervention, and we scheduled an initial evaluation.

“The criteria require delays in more than two areas,” the therapist told me after the evaluation. “He’s not delayed enough.”

Insurance wasn’t covering any therapies, and there was no way we could afford to pay out-of-pocket. So we waited.

Right after the evaluation, I noticed that Meir’s eyes were turning inward.

“Doesn’t he look cross-eyed?” I asked my husband at supper one night.

“Maybe a little,” he said after examining our baby carefully. “It looks like his eyes keep sliding to look at his nose.”

“I think he needs to be seen by a doctor,” I answered grimly and took out the phonebook to make another round of calls.

We took him to a pediatric ophthalmologist, who recommended glasses.

“Isn’t he a little young for glasses?” Yitzy objected.

“Well, he might not like them very much,” the doctor conceded. “But it can’t hurt.”

We decided to wait. And watch. And worry.

By 12 months, we were finally eligible for services. Meir was finally ‘delayed’ enough get therapy, and I was torn between relief that he was getting help and dread for what his next evaluation would tell us.

It was worse than I imagined.

“Your son is quite delayed,” the therapist said after the evaluation. “I see he still isn’t crawling or turning over. Sitting looks hard for him, and his muscle tone is weak. He also has trouble picking up objects, and his eyes are very unfocused, so his fine motor skills are very underdeveloped.”

As she listed the different therapies we had to start right away, I tried to process everything. It was painful to hear, even though I knew she was only telling us the truth and all these therapies would only help Meir.

But it was even more painful to visit my sister-in-law and watch my nephew, who was two months younger than Meir. Every time I went, I became an anxious mess. I tried not to compare the two babies, but the differences were glaringly obvious. Sruli was furniture walking, babbling, and playing happily with his toys, while Meir would only watch from his prone position on the floor.

Meanwhile, I was Meir’s manager, scheduling all the therapists who started coming to our house several times a week. Physical therapy. Occupational therapy. Speech therapy. Developmental intervention. It was a whole new world for me, and I had to learn quickly.

Our living room became a therapy room, and my life revolved around appointments.

At 18 months, we went to another ophthalmologist to get Meir’s vision checked out.

“We need to try glasses right away,” the doctor told us.

But 18-month-olds don’t keep glasses on. Meir pulled them off constantly, and in the end, all my efforts didn’t matter.

When we went for his follow-up visit a few weeks later, the ophthalmologist examined his eyes carefully and then said, “It’s clear to me that your son can’t see properly, even with glasses. He needs surgery to strengthen his eye muscles.”

It sounded frightening, but according to the doctor, the alternative was even worse. Meir was slowly losing his sight.

I was due with my second, and I wanted to wait until the baby was born to schedule the surgery, but we couldn’t push it off any longer. Meir needed to see.

The day of the surgery, I was tense with fear. Meir, on the other hand, seemed relaxed and happy as he crawled around the hospital waiting room. After the surgery, though, Meir’s eyes were red and swollen, and it took a long time to calm him down.

“It’s Mommy,” I kept saying, holding my little boy close. “I’m right here.”

The surgeon told us that for five days, Meir couldn’t touch his eyes.

“And no baths or showers either,” he said sternly. “Make sure nothing goes near his eyes. We want them to heal properly.”

Meir wasn’t impressed by the doctor’s order, and we had to watch him every second to make sure his eyes stayed untouched. We bought him a teddy bear in the hospital gift shop to keep his hands busy, but those five days felt like forever.

Three weeks after his surgery, something miraculous happened: Meir took his first steps.

“Meir’s walking!” I cried, and then I called both of his bubbies so they could join in the nachas.

Once Meir could finally see, we realized just how poor his vision had been. He’d been navigating a world that was little more than a blur, unable to focus on anything clearly. No wonder he couldn’t grasp toys or develop his fine motor skills. It seemed like almost overnight he started walking, talking more (he was able to copy our mouth movements), and showing more interest in books and small toys.

All his therapies continued right through his year in playgroup, until Meir started school.

Everyone knew he needed support. It was clear that he struggled with writing, fine motor skills like cutting and painting, and speech. Cognitively, he understood everything, but he couldn’t express himself. He couldn’t keep up with the other kids when it came to making cute parshah projects or completing worksheets.

And then the bullying started.

Kids taunted him and excluded him from games. Socially, he struggled. And we didn’t have a diagnosis beyond “anxiety and difficulty with transitions.” There was nothing to do but target his areas of weakness.

Day after day, Meir would come home with his little shoulders slumped, his eyes full of pain. I would ask him how his day had gone, and he would mumble a quick nothing before escaping to his room. My sweet, happy boy was disappearing, and I felt helpless.

“He hates school,” I told my husband one night after the kids were asleep. “I spoke to his teacher, I spoke to his principal, I spoke to his therapists…what else is there?”

Yitzy shook his head. “We know he’s making progress with his therapies. We just have to keep going.”

“But can Meir keep going on like this?” I burst out.

The most painful thing in the world was watching my child suffer and not knowing what to do to help him.

Eventually, we decided to move to a different neighborhood and switch Meir to a smaller school, hoping it would help. Meir benefited from more individual attention, and the kids were nicer to him. He even started playing with the neighbor’s kids. But his challenges didn’t disappear.

I know he will always have to put in more effort than other kids. Our job is to support him as best as we could.

And as Meir gets older and we start thinking about mesivta, I know the journey isn’t over.

But somewhere along the way, I’ve learned to accept who I am as Meir’s mother and who he is as my child. Working with Meir has given us perspective. We have empathy for him, for other parents walking similar paths, and for anyone struggling with invisible challenges.

You’re given the kids you have, not the ones you wish for. That’s a truth I had to learn through countless therapy sessions and doctors’ appointments and moments of worry.

Meir taught me patience and that love isn’t about having the perfect child, but loving the child you have, completely and fiercely.

We celebrate victories other parents might not even notice, like the day he finally held a pencil correctly and when he came home from school and said he’d made a friend.

And we believe that Hashem has given us a gift.

This wasn’t the child I expected. But he’s exactly the child I needed.

Every day, I’m grateful for him and for the journey that’s made me the mother I am today.