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THE ELUSIVE GIFT OF
TRAGEDY |
Chapter
Two
John Jr. Enters into Separation
The pregnancy and birth were brutal on me and his father’s resentment of me grew stronger by the day. When John was born via C-section, his liver function was a problem. He was taken away from me at birth and put into an incubator, tied down so a sun lamp would cover all his body and he was blindfolded to protect his eyes. He was kept in this inhumane position for twelve days. No eye contact, limited touch. When I tried to nurse him, he wouldn’t eat so the nurses fed him formula in my absence. (As the research about the importance of touch and eye contact became more mainstream, such brutal procedures were phased out.)
I had been released from the hospital three days after the C-section and had to drive myself back and forth to the hospital several times a day to try to feed him. In addition to John Sr.’s anger and the effects of his severe Tourette Syndrome, I was suffering from exhaustion, fatigue and depression, and am sure our son absorbed all those emotions from us.2 We had a real rough start and baby John was getting hit from every direction—genetics, birth trauma, a depressed mother, and a father who, I thought, wished his son didn’t exist. How much more damage could a newborn have taken?
Once we all recovered from this traumatic birth experience, we resumed life as a happy family, or at least we pretended to be a happy family. I especially was pretty good at convincing myself everything was fine.
In John’s early years, he was much loved and nurtured, and his sisters and grandparents were always there for him, as were both of his parents. He was so cute it was hard not to spoil him. By the time he was four, he started showing signs of being a little too spoiled. Also, I realized there was something very different about him compared with his sisters. One of the things that stuck out in my mind was that he was exceptionally uncontrollable on trips. The relevance of this to his birth trauma was discovered only after I did research after his death. I knew Tourette Syndrome symptoms start to show up around the age of four and this condition is mostly passed down from father to son, so my focus was on that, and only that.
At that time, I believed the only answer for these behavioral problems was prescription drugs such as Ritalin, Catapress and Zoloft. The best doctors in the field of medical genetics were treating him, and by the time he was six, he was on at least three medications. My life revolved around little John’s behavior, and I became a recluse because I hated taking him anywhere in public due to his inability to control himself. He would have temper tantrums in public and throw himself on the floor.
John Sr. had a spending addiction and went to the mall every night, taking the girls with him, which gave me quality alone time with John. I soon realized John was going to have emotional problems that would be difficult to deal with in later life.
