Seven Year Itch

The lowest point in our marriage was during our “seven year itch.” My second (and last) child had been an emergency c-section instead of the natural home birth I’d planned and had had with the first. The recovery both physically and mentally was harder than I expected and I ended up in a pretty bad depression. To make matters worse, my second child started getting a rash around two months old which turned into bigger spots, then gaping, seeping sores, and by three months her skin was more like pizza than anything else. We were beside ourselves. Doctors didn’t know what it was and we began what ended up being more than a year-long journey of specialists and trying every remedy in the book until we found it was a bad case of eczema caused by food allergies and got her on a strict diet and found a routine of bathing and skin treatments that gave relief. I vividly remember the worst feeling of despair and our biggest low. We had been instructed to bathe her three times a day in oatmeal (which we later found she was allergic to) for a week, and she got worse. One week of no bathing, got worse. Then bathing two times a day for a week with that nasty tar shampoo for dandruff that made her scream and I remember my husband and I sitting on the bathroom floor next to the tub with our little baby, skin raw, screaming with black tar on her, and I have never felt so completely helpless in my life. Here we are entrusted with this child, and we couldn’t help her. We couldn’t do a damn thing for her. We cried and we prayed together that day like we hadn’t before. It wasn’t long after that we found the allergy Doctor that was able to help. Without my husband’s kindness and patience I don’t know if I would have survived that year. It’s the dark moments like these that make your love stronger.