Beginnings, Endings and Peace

Tonight, I held my friends' newborn son for the first time. I looked down upon his peaceful, sleeping face. There's nothing closer to perfection in this world than touching the velvety soft skin of a baby's head. Welcome to the world, little baby Elias Jack, I thought. My thoughts were immediately interrupted by sadness: When I started getting sick in 2009, I first thought I was pregnant. I was convinced and I was overjoyed.

Dizziness, nausea, painful breasts, exhaustion, check! But things went downhill quickly, and it was unmistakeable that, despite the initial similarity in symptoms, I was very much not pregnant. Bizarre symptoms popped up and the dream of a baby was shattered like a miscarriage.

In place of happy baby news, the test results were not good: I had late-stage Lyme disease. Then came the worst part: Because I had gone mis/undiagnosed for so many years, the Lyme disease had crossed the placenta during my two pregnancies (in 2003 and 2007), and I had unknowingly exposed my precious babies to the most controversial disease of our time. Both children are positive, not only for Lyme disease, but for multiple other tick-borne diseases.
 
I had a deep internal struggle tonight about whether or not to hold baby Elias. I knew that it would tug at my heartstrings and if you take one look at the picture below, you will see the look in my eyes. We wanted one more child. Our family wasn't finished. Lyme disease took that from us.

I am blessed beyond words to already have my two wonderful sons. Had I had a name for the ridiculously long collection of symptoms that I had been dragging around with me for years--Lyme disease--my children would not have been born. I would not have taken the risk of passing on Lyme disease and multiple other tick-borne infections to any child. 

While there's nothing closer to perfection than feeling the velvety soft skin of your own sweet baby's head, sometimes it's enough to hold onto someone else's dream for just a moment, touching the velvety soft skin of their baby and breathing in all of their hopes and dreams for that little baby. Sometimes it's exactly enough to remind you just how perfect and beautiful life truly is. That little baby put a band-aid on my heart. 

 You are amazing, little Elias J.! Now, go conquer the world!

"Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies."  ~Erich Fromm



FOR MORE INFORMATION ON PEDIATRIC AND CONGENITAL LYME DISEASE, PLEASE CLICK HERE.