Hi, my name is Sonya and I have an eight month old daughter who was born without her right hand. Maddax was born on June 17, 2004. The birth was uncomplicated and we already knew about her hand, which made our situation a little easier than some of the others that only found out at the birth. Still, something like this is never easy.
On January 21, 2004 my husband and I went for my twenty week ultrasound and we were so excited to find out the sex of the baby. My husband thought it was a boy, but I knew it was a girl- sure enough I was right. We were so thrilled. The next day on my way to work I cried so hard I had to pull off the road. I was so grateful to be carrying this beautiful baby girl. I passed out lollipops at work saying its a girl.
A couple hours later I checked my cell phone and there was a message from my doctor and he wanted me to call him back, I really didn’t think much of it. I knew he had to look over the ultrasound photos and they told me he would call me back good or bad. I honestly felt in my heart that she was going to be okay so I wasn’t worried. I went into the bathroom to call back and he told me he couldn’t see her right hand, but that she could just be lying on it and that he scheduled a level 2 ultrasound for us the next morning. I held it together for about 15 minutes and then I lost all control. I thought I was just going to keel over and die. I left work and don’t know how I made it home I couldn’t see through my tears. I tried to think positive, but I knew in my gut it was true. I got into bed and cried all day and all night- I just knew it was true and I kept thinking , but I was so sure she was going to be okay. Anyway the level 2 confirmed my suspicions and if that wasn’t bad enough they told me she may have a heart problem – again I thought I was going to die. I thought I did everything right in my pregnancy, nothing meant more to me than this little girl and now there might be something even worse wrong with her than what they told me yesterday. They told me I would have to wait another 2 1/2 weeks before they would know for sure. The absolute worse 2 1/2 weeks of my life!
My emotions were so mixed up, you blame yourself and you feel like you can’t go on but you can’t end it all because how could you hurt the most precious thing in the world. I know this probably sounds crazy unless you have walked down this path. If someone said this to me and it hadn’t happened to me I wouldn’t understand what they were saying because it sounds ridiculous. But anyway, we had the test and her heart was perfect. Now she’s here, she’s healthy and she’s the most beautiful, smart, happiest baby in the world and I love her more than anything in this world. Finding out about her hand was hard enough, but finding out she might also have something wrong with her heart put this whole situation in perspective for me, that gut feeling I had that she was going to be okay really was true, not having a hand may not be what we expected but I will take this any day over having her be terminally ill and seeing her go through surgery after surgery and watching her suffer. Health is all we can really ask for, it truly is the most important thing.
I know she can overcome anything, she is right on target with her learning ability, even a little advanced, she sits up by herself, she pushes herself up with her arm, she even uses it to play with her toys. She is amazing and I can’t wait to see what she accomplishes in her life. I thank God for Maddax every day.
