In which I paint myself in an unflattering light

When Marie was born, the first thing that Jacob and the doctors noticed was her copious amounts of dark hair. The first thing that I noticed when they placed her on my chest was a mysterious blob on her cheek. "What is that thing?" I wondered to myself. I felt ashamed as soon as I had the thought. I had just given birth to a baby that we had hoped and prayed for, and instead of marveling at the miracle that we were given, I was noticing an imperfection.

The blob on her cheek turned out to be a skin tag, one of five on her face. The other four were located right by her ears, two to a side. Her right eyelid was also formed slightly incorrectly; the top and lower lids weren't attached and formed a curved shape instead of a point.

These two factors -- the skin tags and the eyelid -- caused the doctors at the hospital to tell us Marie may have a condition called Goldenhar syndrome. We were told the syndrome is associated with kidney failure and hearing loss, and they ended up whisking Marie away to conduct a renal ultrasound.

Want to stress yourself out? Try Googling "Goldenhar syndrome" alone twelve hours after giving birth while your husband and baby are elsewhere in the hospital. Tears streamed down my face as I saw images of children with facial deformities and read about the various symptoms.

The ultrasound showed that Marie's kidneys functioned normally, and she passed her hearing test, so those were both positive things. An ophthalmologist came to examine her eyes (which involved propping her eyelids open with some device and caused both Marie and I to sob), which revealed that the actual structure of the eye was fine. We were given a recommendation for a follow up visit with an eye doctor at four months and went home.

Around the time Marie turned two weeks old, I was a wreck. I was convinced she had jaundice, was worried that she had Goldenhar syndrome, and was paranoid about taking any pictures of her that showed her skin tags. I was self-conscious for her; I didn't want friends or strangers to look at Marie's face and wonder what was wrong with her. I tried taking pictures that only showed the left side of her face or using her clothes or a blanket to cover the skin tags up. I was jealous of mothers whose babies were born free of abnormalities. I loved (and still love!) Marie, don't get me wrong. But I hated the idea that others might form judgments about Marie based on her skin tags and didn't think it was fair that my sweet baby had birth defects.

At her two-week appointment, we received a recommendation for a plastic surgeon. We were able to make an appointment with him when she was about a month old. He examined her, said the skin tags were actually called "accessory tragus," and then said that she did not have Goldehnar syndrome.

What a relief! The past month of angst and worry melted away as we learned that Marie's "symptoms" were merely cosmetic and could be fixed with surgery.

On a side note, throughout my pregnancy we were unable to see Marie's face on any ultrasound we received. I'm not sure whether the skin tags would have been apparent on an ultrasound, but I do think this was a blessing in disguise. If I'd had to worry about the possibility of our then-unborn baby having Goldenhar syndrome for months on end, I'm not sure how I would have functioned.

We tentatively scheduled a surgery date with the plastic surgeon, and when we met with the ophthalmologist three months later, she agreed that she could coordinate schedules with the plastic surgeon so Marie would only have to go under anesthesia once. We ended up rescheduling several times due to various circumstances, but last Monday surgery day was upon us.

Stay tuned for part two of the saga, surgery day.