Louis

A woman posted on my parenting chat forum (where all the posts are anonymous) about her difficulties accepting an unexpected disability in her four month old infant. She posted about a month ago, and I just saw her post, so I guess the baby is around five months old now. She was a little incoherent, or maybe I just didn’t really understand her post, or there wasn’t much actual information. She said her baby would probably never walk and might have intellectual issues and he couldn’t open his hands. It all sounds rather vague, like he failed to pass some newborn screen and she was concentrating on the worst possible outcomes. They were waiting for the results of genetic testing but the MRI was normal.

She felt she just couldn’t bond with the baby at all and she wanted to give it up for adoption or foster care. She was scared to see a therapist because she thought she might be reported to Child Protective Services. Her husband wants to keep the baby. So she wrote that she wanted to divorce and get custody of their older, typical child.

She sounded like she had full-blown post partum depression. It was hard to tell what was actually going on with this child. A lot of it sounded like worst-case scenario anxiety. There were pages and pages of posts trying to reassure her that she would come to love the baby. That a therapist would not report her and she needed to seek therapy and get on a good antidepressant. Or, posts trying to diagnose her baby and so forth. The whole thing of course could be a troll posting.

Anyway, I started to fantasize about adopting her baby. It’s great to have a fantasy to get yourself through the day. She could just drop the baby off here, either permanently or for some respite while she gets over her PPD and gets some therapy and works on her marriage. Max and I will love on the baby and stimulate him appropriately for all his special needs (whatever they are) and get him to Kennedy-Krieger for assessments of his little closed hands. Hopefully he’s sleeping through the night.

It’s fun to imagine him snuggled up in a little baby wrap or sleeping in Sarah’s room, but I have my doubts about whether I’m really equipped to start over with an infant at my age. So maybe we’ll just be respite parents for him for a little while. Just sort of Tante and Uncle. I can’t decide whether or how much disability he turns out to have. I guess it doesn’t really matter. As long as I get to love on him a little bit. It’s nice to have a fantasy. I think I’ll call him Louis.