Z & I visit the doctor

I pick up Z after lunch to take him to the city to the doctor. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve been concerned about Z and his tiny, sparrow-like body since he was about 6 months old. While C is big and tall and lanky, Z is just a little wisp of a boy, and I have been convinced, utterly certain since he started tumbling down the growth charts at six months that he has A Problem, a medical mystery I’ve spent hours consulting the doctors of Google about. He is reaching all his milestones and most of the time I am pretty sure he is alright, but then something always lingers in the back of my head; the line between healthy and scary – it could be anything. And so three months ago I booked an appointment with a highly-recommended pediatric gastroenterologist.

So I’m at the subway with plenty of time to get into the big city and I run into two friends, fellow moms of course, and as I chat away I note there’s not a damn subway in sight. No, not a damn train for 15 minutes. Maybe 20. Might as well be an hour. Eventually we get a train and there’s an announcement about a signal outage up the line. The train runs express and then grounds to a halt in a tunnel for long, hollow moments. It goes so slowly and I am so impatient I realize that I am involuntarily moving my butt in the seat, as if I’m trying to lurch the train forward myself. The minutes until our 2pm appointment are slowly evaporating. I switch to the uptown number 6 train, which speeds along nicely. And then right before our stop that train halts, too. I lose another 10 minutes. We get to the doctor at 2:40. I think to myself – if I start crying, will they make time for us?

Luckily the office staff couldn’t be nicer, and busier, and they’ve shuffled around some other patients and it’s just a short time before Z is getting his vitals taken. The doctor – he’s a paradigmatic doc of a different era, 60ish at least, gentle and authoritative. He examines Z, asks a lot of questions, and then tells me what I know but I only now believe because I’m hearing it from someone I trust: Z is tiny. He has cute little mini-pillows of fat where he needs them. He doesn’t have a milligram to spare and he’s cursed by his genes – mine. Z sticks to his own growth curve, not the one that applies to the millions of other babies in America. And while other human young have formed bones like tree trunks, Z’s are just twigs. He is as healthy as can be.

On the ride back someone holds the subway door open for us while we’re rushing to our train, proving that there is occasional goodness on the MTA, and I rest Z’s face against me as we take the long journey home.