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When my son Jack was four days old, I had to take him to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto to be fitted for a hip brace.
Anyone who has had a baby can attest to a mother’s fragility in that first postpartum week: the painful healing process, the hormonal re-regulation that has to occur, the trials of breastfeeding on little sleep.
I’d had a difficult pregnancy. First I had endured five months of non-stop vomiting, which was helped only slightly by a prescribed nausea remedy. Then the baby was in breech position, causing constant back pain and discomfort in my ribs. There was a scare at 35 weeks that he was going to come early, and I was put on bed rest for 28 agonizing days.
The pregnancy was so rife with complications that I never really believed I would meet my baby. When I made it to my cesarean, and finally saw Jack, my first words to him were: “I’m so glad you are okay.”
I had never loved anything that completely before. It was terrifying.
I didn’t get the “baby blues” in the traditional sense. I was overjoyed, amazed by his every hiccup and squeak. But I did feel paralyzed by anxiety. What if something happened to him? How could I be so blessed, so lucky? He seemed too good to be true.
It was while I was still in the hospital after delivery that the doctor first expressed concern for Jack’s hips. “They appear to be out of their sockets,” I was told. “You should schedule an appointment at the hip clinic, to be sure.”
Two days later, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and with my abdomen held together by staples, I brought Jack, along with my husband, Erik, to the pediatric hospital for an ultrasound scan.
Everywhere I looked were children ravaged by illness, accompanied by their worried parents; kids hairless from chemo being wheeled around on gurneys. I tried to stifle my panic. It was our first acute realization that we couldn’t protect our baby, that the world is a tragically unfair place.
It turned out that Jack was going to need a Pavlik harness, an oppressive Velcro brace that engulfed his tiny body. Two straps reached around his shoulders and joined at his chest, then connected to lower leg straps and booties.
“This will be harder on you than on him,” the orthopedic surgeon told us.
The alternative was unthinkable – likely a couple of childhood surgical operations, a hip replacement at the age of 40, a pronounced limp. If we put him in the Pavlik harness for 12 weeks now, he could be completely cured. It was a no-brainer, really.
But it was a cruel experience. The harness chafed his little feet, dug into his dewy skin, left angry red welts and kept his legs splayed out like a frog on its back.
I cried for two days. We cut up a T-shirt and wrapped it around the straps to make it softer against our baby’s skin. We were not allowed to remove the brace for any reason – not for a bath, not for snuggles. No unimpeded skin-to-skin contact.
“He looks like a little hockey player!” my mother said.
It bothered me when well-meaning visitors asked about his brace before they remarked on anything else. Even though his condition was curable, to us it felt like the end of the world.
In truth, we were lucky. He was a healthy nine pounds and a good-natured kid, preternaturally alert. And he loved to nurse right from the get-go.
At each of our weekly doctor’s visits he showed steady improvements.
“He’s doing well,” a kind physical therapist told me. “This will all be worth it in the long run.”
I had all sorts of fantasies about what I would do to the brace once my son was liberated. “I’m going to burn it in the backyard and have a glass of wine,” I told my husband.
After three months, with the once-white Velcro now brown from diaper explosions and spit-up, we counted down to the brace’s removal with the same giddy excitement we did for Jack’s birth. “Two more days!” Erik would cheer.
But once the doctor had done the final X-ray and told us the harness had done its job – Jack’s hips were safely in their sockets and we wouldn’t need another follow-up appointment for months – I felt strangely grateful to the brace.
I said a silent thanks to the universe for lobbing us a softball. What we had faced was difficult, especially in our postpartum haze, but it was nothing in comparison to what some other parents have to endure.
I never ended up setting the harness on fire. In fact, I didn’t even have the heart to throw it away. It now resides in Jack’s baby box, a token of his first few weeks, and a physical reminder of our introduction to the growing pains of parenthood.
Alannah O’Neill lives in Toronto.