Melissa Rodriguez - A Family of My Own

 

Hello. When I was 17, my foster sister told me about a dream she had. She had dream about fish. She told me, “When you dream about fish, it means someone's going to have a baby.” So, I laughed. [chuckles] “Okay. So, what does that mean? You're going to have a baby?” She says, “No, it's someone not in my dream. That person is you.” So, she said, “Go ahead, take a pregnancy test and find out.” So, I said, “Okay, I'll play along.” So, I go take a pregnancy test. 

 

When I took the pregnancy test, I see there was a plus sign on the pregnancy test. So, I figure, “Okay, the test looks like it's done.” So, I asked her to come over and read the test for me. And she said, “Yup, that plus sign means you're pregnant.” I didn't believe her. So I went back to the store, I bought a few more pregnancy tests, [audience chuckles] and I took all eight of them. And every single one of them was a plus sign. So, here I am at 17, pregnant.

 

After being in foster homes, and residentials, and being bounced around since the age of six, not having much of a mother or father-- I always wanted a family. At this time, I was emancipated. That basically means I was an adult, on my own, in my own apartment, plans to go to college. I decided I can go to community college. I still go to school, and have my baby. I really wanted this baby. No one wanted me to have this baby, but me. So, I made up my mind. I was going to do everything I can to raise this baby the way I thought a baby should be raised, with love, care and understanding. 

 

So, I called his father up and I told him, “Listen, I am pregnant and I'm having this baby with or without you. Either way, I'm still going to have this baby.” I was hoping in the back of my mind he would say, “Hey, go right ahead.” I wanted this baby just for me. A little selfish. But that's the way I felt at 17. So, here I am, pregnant. Nine months later, [chuckles] had a baby boy named Isaiah. 

 

When he was born, I thought it was a beautiful thing. I never knew what unconditional love was, [sobs] excuse me, till I had it. I felt so much love. I had enough love for it to be his father and mother. I wanted to care for this baby. This was me with my rules, the way I saw the way a child should be taken care of. I was very determined to give him everything he needed and wanted. I was very happy that day. You can ask anyone in the labor room, all my friends. 

 

So, I took Isaiah home with me, just me and him. Isaiah never seemed to be happy. He was always crying. And being 17, I figure, “Okay, so, I'll feed him every time he cries. I'll change his diaper every time he cries, or I'll bathe him and buy him some of those good night shampoos, make him feel better at night. I'll lay him in the bed with me at night. I'll walk him around the house all night.” Nothing made Isaiah happy. 

 

So, at our six-month checkup, I take Isaiah to his doctors. And I said, “Doctor, I think something's wrong. My baby is not doing things like other babies do.” And she said, “That's normal. It's only six months. He'll grow out of that.” So, I said, “Well, she's a doctor, so I should believe her.” Two months later, Isaiah wakes me up out of my sleep. And when I say, wake me up, I was so scared, I heard his cry so loud. I thought somebody was coming in my window, or his window, because he had his own room at the time. 

 

So, I run to his room, half sleep, and I turn on the light, and I see Isaiah sitting up in his bed. His Pampers bought him the Huggies because they were the best. White T shirt, no socks because he hated socks. He's sitting up, and he's blue in the face, and he's yelling and he's screaming. I'm looking around in the room like, “What's going on in here? I don't see anyone in here.” But his face was almost gray. I wasn't sure what was going on, but my mother instance kicked in real fast and told me, “Wrap that baby up and get him in the emergency right away, like now.”

 

So, I wrapped him up in his baby blanket, and I ran into my hooptie as fast as I could. I put him in the backseat, and just dropped him in. I think the emergency room was about 15 minutes away from my house. I got there at about 05:00. Red lights meant nothing, stop signs meant nothing, I just needed to get my baby there. It was just this urgency to hurry up, hurry up, get there fast. So, I get to the emergency room, and doctors and the nurses run outside, and they see something's wrong also. I didn't even have to tell them anything. They grab Isaiah and his blanket, and they rush him upstairs to the intensive care. They try to calm him down, but they could not calm him down. I didn't understand why, they didn't understand. 

 

So, he put him in a straitjacket. Eight-month-old baby in a straitjacket. The image was horrible. And they're pushing me away. They don't want me to see what's going on. And I'm wondering, why. I'm his mother, I'm the only one here. So, they take Isaiah, and they roll him out in the bed, take them out of the intensive care. And the nurse pushed me to the side and said, “You need to stand here for one minute, I'll be right back.” “Where are you taking my baby? I needed to be with my baby.” 

 

So, she comes right back, and I did it a few seconds later with this form. She says, “Sign. Sign this form. You need to sign this form right now.” So, I try to glance at this form to find out what is this form that I'm signing. And as I noticed, I was signing a form to release the fact that if my baby didn't make it, I couldn't blame the hospital for it. I'm a little confused at this point. Like, “What are you saying? Are you saying I'm signing my child's life away?” And she said, “You better hurry up. There's not much time. You need to sign this if you want to save your baby.” 

 

So, of course, any mother is going to sign. I'd rather give my child a little bit of a chance than no chance. She puts me in a room where I had to wait. That hour and a half was the longest half an hour I ever had. But then, she comes out with a grin in her mouth. She's smiling. She's smiling. She couldn't be smiling if something's bad. So, she approached me and she said, “You got a pretty strong baby there. He made it with no problems.” They told me that his heart had stopped. And if I did not bring him to that hospital that day, I would have lost him. 

 

He has a pacemaker that can help him live now. And he's strong. They wheel him out and bring him right back to the same spot in intensive care, sleeping peacefully, almost like he needed that sleep really bad. And I watched him. Nurse tells me she's going to send me to a specialist to find out what is wrong with Isaiah, so that we can know and give him the medicine he needs and take care of the problem. So, she takes me to a specialist, the best. Dr. M, we're going to call her. 

 

So, Dr. M takes tests of Isaiah. Blood tests, skin tests, MRI tests, every test you can imagine for months. For a while, she couldn't figure out what was wrong with him either. Finally, she had it diagnosed it for him, and she said, “Well, Melissa, it looks like Isaiah has cerebellar ataxia.” “What is that?” I had to look it up to find out what that was. But she tried to explain to me, “Well, what happens is your brain and your body communicate at all times, even when you're sleeping. And unfortunately, Isaiah does not have that communication. His brain and his body just don't talk to each other. And there's about nine cases in the world. In every case, the child has passed at the age or by the age of six.”

 

So, basically, she told me, “Prepare yourself for a funeral.” God just gave me a child, a family, [sobs] just to lose it? I don't think so. Oh, I was furious. I was mad. I've never lost my cool the way I did. But I said, “Fuck that, Mrs. M. [audience chuckles] Taking my baby to another doctor. I don't know if you're the best doctor there is, [audience chuckles] but I don't think so. I don't think this is possible. I'm going to someone else. We're going to do something else. This is not working.”

 

Do I take that him to other doctors and I do my own little work. I went online, found out what was going on with the cerebellar ataxia, which I had no idea what it was. But there's no medicine, there's no cure, there's no research, there's nothing. I did my own research. I figured out that we was going to be determined to fight this disease, this problem. See, Isaiah had a problem with balance. He couldn't do the things simple kids can do, like ride a bike. His right foot and left foot just wouldn't pedal. 

 

So, every year, I bought him a bike. And his fourth Christmas, I bought him a red bike with training wheels and I said, “I'm going to train him to ride this bike. They said he couldn't do it. We're going to train him to do it.” So, I put Isaiah on the bike. And he had a hard time riding that bike. I almost wanted to get on the bike myself and ride it for him. It was so bad. His right foot would come up, and his left foot would go down, and just sliding right off those pedals. So, I came up with an idea to buy him Velcro straps to put the sneakers in place, so he can have that balance. 

 

So, day after Christmas, I told him, “Isaiah, go get that mail out the mailbox for me.” He loved getting the mail. So, he tried very hard. At first, it didn't look very good. But he kept trying, and he kept trying, and I didn't stop him. I let him try, keep trying. Finally, I seen that right foot go up, and the left foot go up, the right foot go up. Before you knew it, Isaiah was pedaling. He went and got that mail for me, and he turned around. Well, picked up the bike and turned around. He smiled just so brightly, almost like he knew, “Look, Ma, they said I couldn't do it, but I did it.” I was so proud of him. I was even more determined, because it is possible. So, at 11, I took him back to Dr. M. [audience chuckles] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

I sat there proudly on my little parent chair. [audience laughter] Isaiah jumped right up on that little white sheet. He sat there like, “Oh, hurry up, doctor.” She checks his knees and she checks his back and tells him to walk. She's looking at the chart, and she's not sure what's going on. So, she asked me, “What have you been doing?” “It's called faith. Trying, not giving up.” And she says, “Well, come back in six months for your regular checkup.” I was so proud that my son was going back for a regular checkup. Not the next day or overnight stay or MRIs or nothing. 

 

 Isaiah's 18. Now, he still has some challenges, but those challenges, he knows how to deal with them now. He comes to me, and asks me for help, and he tells me what's wrong. I love my Isaiah. He reminds me of me, how strong I am. He looks just like me. He acts just like me. He knows I'm going to take good care of him, because I'm his mother. [sobs] Thank you.