Sick

My baby is sick. She gets ear infections, I never did, so it’s hard to imagine how it feels. Yesterday we had to take her to the doctor for the 4^th or 5^th time since early October. 

For the past couple of days she wraps her legs around my waist so she cannot be lowered into her crib, crying in pain as she is laid down. She has a look in her eyes of an old man who’s lost some of his faculties. The dark circles under her glossy eyes and a pale pallor seem to point to a dangerous illness. I race to the doctor’s office from work after Guy calls me, very worried. He’s been watching her all day. He’s nonchalant, so when I hear his concern, mine rockets to the moon.

She reaches for me immediately and clings like a little monkey when we meet at the doctor’s. The nurse retrieves us quickly. They need to weigh her, and she won’t allow herself to be lowered onto the scale. They have to tear my shirt out of her clenched fingers. She begins to cry. She turns red and looks devastated like her world just fell apart, as she reaches for me. It seems to take forever for the electronic scale to register her weight. She continues to reach for me the whole time, begging me with her eyes, “Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?”  The nurse tells me to stand behind her, a whole person away from my baby. With each passing second Rx looks more and more desperately into my eyes, tears running down her face. It becomes torture, it’s been at least 15 seconds. I don’t care what the nurse says. I repeat over and over, “I’m right here, sweetie, I’m right here.” I decide that weighing her right now is stupid and unnecessary. I wait one, two, three more seconds…they can’t stop me, I’m going to pick her up off the cold stainless steel machine. I go in closer and suspend my hand inches from hers, knowing any second the scale will register her weight – any second now – and I can plunge forward and grab her. Her hair is wet from tears when it ends and I pull her to me as she thrusts her head into my shoulder. 

I won’t let her go again.