Secret

I have a confession to make.

In the two years we spent before getting Olivia's eventual diagnosis of 5p-, I often said to my mom that I was so very glad that whatever was making Olivia weak and physically delayed didn't show up on her face.

I know.

That's awful, isn't it? We should all be working toward a world that accepts everyone, no matter what.

Physical beauty shouldn't be more important than emotional maturity, or kindness, or even intelligence.

But it is.

And while I'm all for changing the world, I didn't want my child to have to be the one to do it. I didn't want her to face more challenges than she already faced. She was already weak, already behind her peers in most areas.

I was glad that when we were out and about, doing our everyday chores, people looking at this sweet little girl only saw a pretty child, perhaps a little spoiled because she was still being carried at two years old. Looking at her, they had no idea that she was being carried because she couldn't walk.

The reason it took us two years to get her diagnosis is because even though I found the syndrome and connected the dots and KNEW that it fit so much about Olivia before she was even a year old, every doctor I mentioned it to looked at her perfectly beautiful face and declared that it wasn't possible for her to have a chormosomal disorder.

And I was glad for that.

And I'm kind of ashamed of my own shallowness.

Sure, I've always thought both of my girls are beautiful but to hear a medical professional declare her to be too pretty to have this syndrome gave me a sense of relief.

And that's shameful. We shouldn't put so much importance on physical beauty. I know that.

But my confession is that even today, I'm grateful that when we're around people who don't know about O's syndrome, they simply don't know. They have no clue. They don't wonder what's wrong with her because to look at her, to watch her run, to listen to her talk, the random person on the street never even wonders if there is something wrong with her.

And I'm glad. I'm glad that she's just another little four year old running around the playsets set up on the garden center in Menards. I'm glad she's just a pretty little girl running after her sister, laughing at her whiny cousin, asking her mom for that box of Tangled fruit chews.

I'm glad that she doesn't have that extra issue to overcome as she grows. She's still weak, she still needs occupational therapy once she's in school to help strengthen her hands but she won't have to overcome prejudice due to the features on her face. And as her mother, I'm so grateful for that. I'm grateful and ashamed of my own gratefulness.

That is my confession.