The Fighter
After several miscarriages, my first daughter, Ella Caroline, came to me almost twelve years ago. I have a heart-shaped uterus, an ailment that makes it hard for a fertilized egg to receive a proper blood supply. Yes, there is such a thing, as strange as it sounds. A fighter from the beginning, Ella hung in there, despite the likelihood of miscarriage. Not only had she remained intact, she subsequently kicked my uterus into the proper shape so that her sister could make it to me three years later.
Two years ago Ella was in fourth grade. Her father and I had separated at the end of the summer and all of us were reeling with the changes such a great loss brings. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t remember things I should. I managed to keep the children clothed, fed and got them to school on time, but the effort was like moving through mud. Shaken and guilty already, that November I went to Ella’s school conference. She was failing almost every subject, her teacher informed me.
“I think something’s wrong,” the teacher said.
My silent scream – yes, something is wrong.
For years I’d known something wasn’t right. I just didn’t know what. Although obviously intelligent and gifted, she struggled academically. She was late to read and spelling retention was impossible. Math was easier but not as it should be, given the way I observed her logical mind putting things together. I was flabbergasted each year at conferences that not only was she not at the top of the class, she was not even considered average. The conferences I expected never happened. They did not tell me how intelligent, insightful, and creative she was. Instead, they told me she was quiet and well-behaved but disengaged, detached, distracted, disinterested. “It’s like she’s given up,” he fourth grade teacher said, as I fought back tears.
No words have ever hurt as much.
But at least, for the first time, her teacher agreed with me that something wasn’t right. She suggested I get her tested for learning disabilities.
I cried that day in the school parking lot. Then I called my parents and cried some more. But afterwards, I went into action mode. I called our pediatrician and set up testing. A month later – it was several weeks before Christmas – she was diagnosed with ADD and prescribed a drug that our doctor felt might help her. “You’ll know if it’s the right diagnosis and medicine because she’ll immediately start doing better in school,” our doctor assured me.
The first day she took the drug, Ella came home from school, and said, “Mom, the buzzing stopped.”
Buzzing? My God, I thought. There was buzzing?
How did I not know this? What kind of mother was I?
When the doctor suggested medication, I did not hesitate. I did not listen to anyone who told me that doctors over-medicate children. I did not listen to anyone but my own mother instincts. I knew my child. Something was wrong. I knew she was gifted, creative and intelligent. I knew she was a fighter who would never give up because I’d looked into her eyes the day she was born.
It turns out I was right. And guess what? My doctor was right too. The drug worked. We know because she started doing better in school.
Today, I attended her sixth grade conferences, meeting with her math, language arts and science teachers. We had the conversations I always expected to have. Straight A’s. A star. A sweetheart. One of my best students. Stays on task. Great in groups. A giving lab partner. A leader. Asks questions when she needs to. Mature for her age. An example for the other students. Nothing for you to worry about.
Nothing for you to worry about.
No words have ever been sweeter.
My mother instincts had told me from the beginning of her school years that something was off, but I never, not once, stopped believing in her, no matter what the reports said. I knew my daughter was in there, behind the buzzing. I never stopped feeling flabbergasted about her lack of progress. Until today. Today, I nodded my head, and said, “It’s great to hear, given where we’ve come from.” When I explained what I meant, it was the teachers who were flabbergasted. “I would never have thought she struggled in school,” they all said.
I walked out of those conferences today feeling like the the day I was accepted to USC Drama School – grateful, humbled, happy. We beat the odds, I thought. My little fighter is thriving. I immediately texted several friends with the news, standing in the middle of the common area of the middle school, fighting tears of joy this time.
My baby girl fought and won.
Despite all the ways mothers feel we aren’t enough, or are too much, or everything in between, the truth is we are. No one knows our children like we do. No one studies them like we do. No one loves them like we do. Our instincts, gifts from God, will prevail, despite the odds.
As I finish this post, Paul Simon’s, “The Boxer” comes on my Pandora station. Yes, the fighter still remains.
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev’ry glove that laid him down
And cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame,
“I am leaving, I am leaving.”
But the fighter still remains
