Sometimes I regret that I ever decided to give birth at forty. Everyone told me not to, except my husband, and I went along with him, even though I thought it was too late for us to have a baby. We already had two relatively grown-up children, but it just so happened that I got pregnant for the third time. Even at that time there were suggestions from doctors not to have a baby, to save my health, but I was already living with the idea of having a third child.
Pregnancy went well, and the birth itself, as it seemed to me, too. It was the fastest delivery of my life, but what followed undermines my faith in all that is good and just in this world.
My baby girl was born very frail and small – a little over two pounds – and the doctors diagnosed her with left heart hypoplasia syndrome. She was immediately rerouted to the intensive care unit and for the first six months my husband and I saw her in fragments because of surgeries and an endless string of doctors. In total, she, so tiny, had to endure three surgeries, and even with the fact that we were finally able to take her home now, we dread facing a stroke and constantly worry about our daughter’s every breath.
I often wonder why other families have ten children at a time, but they are all healthy, and we are so unlucky. The little girl has done nothing wrong in life, but she has suffered since birth. Maybe it was my fault after all and I shouldn’t have agreed to give birth at that age. I really don’t want my daughter’s life to be kept on oxygen machines and medications, because that is no life at all. If only a miracle had happened and she had fully recovered one day, with doctors or on her own, it didn’t matter, as long as she was healthy.
