Unshakable Love

Our family's life-and-death struggles tested whether we had this "Unshakable Love."

Susan Shelley

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I lay flat on my back, just moments after giving birth to our third child, a daughter named Mandy. The intense pain of childbirth was mingled with relief that the labor and delivery were over. I wanted to rest, but first I wanted to hold my baby.

"We need to measure that head," the doctor said.

"Why?" I heard my husband, Marshall, ask. "Is something wrong?"

I couldn't hear the reply, but the doctor's voice was calm so I wasn't alarmed. He said something about "possible microcephaly," but that term was meaningless to me. I was concentrating on seeing and holding our daughter, and she looked perfect.

After several moments, Mandy was taken away; and I was wheeled to the recovery room. Marshall stayed with me for a while but then said, "It looks like you should rest; and I'd better get to the airport. Mom's due to arrive in an hour. We'll come straight back." I nodded and closed my eyes.

Before Marshall could get back from the airport, I left the recovery room and the doctor stopped by the maternity ward.

"Your daughter has a condition called microcephaly," he said. "That means she has a small brain. Normal head circumference is 35 centimeters, and hers is 31 centimeters." He went on to say that some people with microcephaly live normal lives while others have mental limitations.

My brain was still cloudy. I didn't understand what he was talking about. Small head. Was this dwarfism? I recalled being told that one of my relatives had such a small head he couldn't find hats that fit. Was that related?

But when the doctor talked about possible retardation, I began to panic. Why isn't Marshall here? There's something wrong with our baby, and he's off being a responsible son when I need him here! My husband's absence during that traumatic moment was only the first of many strains that the next two years would place on our marriage and our trust in God.

For the first few weeks, we prayed that Mandy would be "normal." But we eventually realized that her retardation was severe and profound—she would never talk, walk, sit up or use her hands. She suffered frequent seizures, and soon we were squirting three different medications down her throat.

When Mandy was three months old, her doctor discovered cataracts clouding both her eyes. She had surgery to remove them, but even with her thick glasses, we never knew if she could see. Neither did we know if she could hear. She didn't turn her head to the sound of my voice the way our other babies had. The only time we saw her respond to stimuli was when her body occasionally would relax in a warm bath.

Suddenly, our family life centered around Mandy's care. Her health was fragile—she endured a series of pneumonias and "status epilepticus" (prolonged seizures), all of which were life-threatening. Virtually every month she had to be hospitalized. After a while, we were able to smile about our lifestyle of ongoing emergencies. Trips to medical facilities happened so frequently, Marshall jokingly called them "our Club Med vacations."

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 1996, Winter

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