Baby Belly Button Tragedies...

We adopted a beautiful baby girl. She came to live with us when she was  ll days old. She was extremely funny looking at that age, and for a long time after that, really. She had a head full of brillo-type hair, no chin, and her head was pretty L A R G E for her body. She weighed 3 lbs, 13 ounces at birth; she had been born early at 34 weeks. We brought her home from the hospital when she was a whopping 4 lbs. She was as long as my size seven Nike flip flops.

Since her  first day home, that girl has been a fighter. She could scream like I'd never heard, ate every hour and a half because she was so small, and I wanted to die because at forty-two, I'd never been so tired in my ENTIRE life. Of course I hadn't. I'd been living "sans kids" and eating bon bons all day!

Gab screamed so hard one night that she herniated her belly button as I watched while she was on the changing table. I had initially been very leery about bringing this baby home while she still had the umbilical cord scab. This frightened me because as friends started to explain how to "fold the diaper OVER the scab so as not to rip it off by accident" I nearly vomited. What was I getting myself in to?"  I asked myself  in my own head. Scabs on belly buttons? I can't take much more of that kind of weird parenting thing! I lamely asked at the hospital the night of her "pick up" -  "Can't I just wait to pick her up after it falls off instead of listening to how I need to take care of that 'scab' area"? But, I wasn't that lucky, I had to take her home before the scab fell off they told me. So, nervous as I was about that very important scab, I couldn't believe it when I saw, during this extremely passionate scream I mentioned earlier, her umbilical cord scab fly into the air, and her belly button expand into the size of a small penis! I said to my husband, "Wow, I don't think THAT is supposed to happen - is it?" What did I know? Maybe this was the norm - maybe they showed this on Discovery Baby or Discovery Health or Discovery Belly Buttons (something like that on cable). I can hear some Australian Narrator saying this:  - "The human baby instinctively screams in order to eject the offending scab from their little body." It could have been backed by some science unknown to "Those of us NOT IN THE KNOW" -  a.k.a. "new mothers."  I didn't have time to read baby books before Gabby came home with us...we only had a half an hour to decide if we wanted this kid for the rest of our lives!  Not much time BEFORE her birth to read about babies since I didn't carry her or know about her at all until they called me. I was seriously ill prepared, because let's face it - the IDEA of a baby and a REAL baby are not the same thing AT ALL.

Quickly I learn that this belly-button-explosion was NOT normal. It was, indeed, a-herniated-belly-button-that-popped-conveniently-so-as-to-get-rid-of-the-offending-umbilical-cord-scab! Poor Gab would live with this "protrusion" for a very long time. I saw surgeons, etc., and  got different opinions on "what course of action to take." My biggest concern was that she'd feel funny about having a really big "outie" when it came time to wear a two-piece bathing suit. My husband's concern: One day she might think that spare belly-button skin would be a  really good place to hang belly rings or piercings or things of that nature. Doctors said the hernia would naturally close, and there would be extra skin hanging out once the intestine "popped back in", but that the skin might just actually "get sucked back in by the time she is five."

Once the hernia closed, and it did close only recently, she still  had a pretty big "outie" for sure. Now that she has the "outie", she has decided that she can use it just like her brother does his "outie." I often finding her standing at the potty, pull-ups down around her ankles, firmly facing the toilet and grabbing her "outie" and willing the pee to come out of it. She doesn't understand when it doesn't come out of the outie.  (She's two and a half). I think she'll catch on soon.

This is not a big deal, really, in "the scheme of things that can go wrong with your child." I look at it as sort of as like being born with an extra toe or a third nipple. We all have our "body" stuff. 

If I know my daughter, her sheer strength and desire to climb stuff will help that extra belly button fat get sucked back in soon. She has some serious belly muscles! I know because they get a lot of work as she screams regularly (her belly moving up and down as she pants and growls), and of course from the abdominal crunches she does as she kicks me on a daily basis just to make sure I know who is boss.  This belly button thing is also causing a problem with potty training, believe it or not. Pull-ups go over her belly button. Toddler undees don't.

They rub under and against her "outie" and it hurts her, so she has no desire to wear "big girl undees with princess pictures on them.".They apparently don't NEED to make "granny panties" for size 2-3T kids!  I hate that Gabby has this worry, yet, on the other hand, I've got LOTS of photos of that 'OUTIE' to use for bribery at a later date: I could threaten to show these photos to any boy who thinks he can just beep the horn for her when he drives over to pick her up, instead of coming to the door like a gentleman. Or, how about "No ma-am, don't you even think about trying drugs, or I will plaster poster-sized photos of your "outie" all over town! This could be a great tool for future use.  Do not put it past me to resort to extortion if need be at a later date.

I can say this now because I've shredded all photos of me as a child where I appear with my giant DUMBO ears sticking out, and she won't be able to use those as leverage. And I mean DUMBO ears! Or as my Step Dad often said, "Looking at me was like 'watching a Volkswagen coming down the highway with both front doors open.'" Hahahahaha. I got an ear job at 16 to fix those head sails. I was horribly self conscious, and rightly so, but also extremely vain.  But Gabby never has to know....That's why mommies have secrets!