Sweet Hands

Yesterday I was feeding Matthew and he reached up and stroked my cheek with his hand.  He does this pretty frequently but yesterday it struck me how much I love his little hands.  They are as unique and beautiful as he is.  I love the way he touches my face, the way he links his hands together, the way he grabs his toes, the way he sticks all 4 of his fingers in his mouth at once, and even when he plays with my hair.  

 

These hands began our journey into the unknown.  I'll never forget the pediatrician saying "you know about his hands, right?"  Ummm...no.  His 4 fingered hands took us totally by surprise.  I'm thankful we found out in the way that we did, with this totally strange pediatrician (it was the on-call, weekend pediatrician). It didn't taint our relationship and fondness for our midwife or our regular pediatrician.  Matthew was born in a very quick 2 hours and had a hard time regulating his temperature.  (After reading brain development books, this isn't a surprise as temperature regulation is kicked off by time in labor.)  So instead of counting fingers and toes, we kept him swaddled, next to my chest, sitting in front of the heater.  If my midwife had noticed his hands, she would have made us go to the hospital.  I'm thankful that she was concentrating on his temperature!  In the end, we did end up in the hospital, but we had 2 beautiful days with the 5 of us adjusting to our new family and dealing with this shock. That time and that discovery transpired just as it should have.  All part of the bigger plan.

If Matthew had been born with thumbs, I'm sure that we would have uncovered his uniqueness but it would have taken much longer.  Without thumbs, we knew right away, and we've been able to get care and services that Matthew needs from day 1.  

Matthew has good function in his hands and has been using his index finger as a thumb in many instances.  He'll wrap 3 fingers on one side of a toy and his index finger on the other.  We call it his 'index thumb'.  He's a good candidate for pollicization, which is where they reposition the index finger to a thumb position.  Matthew has been approved for that surgery through the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas and we'll decide whether it is right for him when he turns 2.  We had the initial consultation there a few weeks ago and it was nice to think about quality of life issues instead of the current life issues (heart, head, etc).  

These hands have taught us so much, but I think most importantly they have taught me that the imperfect is unbelievably beautiful...in hands and in life.