Three Word Thursday

Perfect. To. Me.

There is that cliche moment, when you've just given birth to a child, where the doctor gleefully announces "You have a healthy baby {insert sex here}! Ten fingers, ten toes!" Once that declaration of perfection is made, the nine months of worry are over and all seems to be well with the world.

When Ollie was born I felt a sense of panic I hadn't experienced with the others. After two miscarriages, I had pretty much convinced myself that something could and WOULD go wrong up until I heard his lusty cry for the first time. His hearty screaming sent a wave of relief washing over me in grand fashion, never mind that the doctor made no pronouncement about fingers and toes.

The whole fingers and toes thing actually came by way of the Hubby after he helped with Ollie's first bath and it went more or less like this: "Um, I need to tell you something about the baby. Some of his toes are stuck together."

My reply, of course, was simple - "Well, unstick them." Unfortunately, it wasn't simple. You'd never know it from the above photo, but our little Ollie has twin toes. Yep. Twins. As in buddies. BFF's for life. Siamese Twins, really. Two little toes, joined at the hip.

The condition, called Simple Type 1 Syndactyly {sin-dack-ti-lee} is genetic, although we know of no one on either side of our families that has the same condition. It occurs in about the 16th week of pregnancy when the then webbed skin between the fingers and toes dissolves. The skin between Ollie's second and third toes on his right foot chose not to dissolve, though the bones inside are distinct and separate.

The view from the bottom of the foot clearly shows that #2 & #3 are joined part way up.

And when he bends his toes like this and you look at it from the top, it's also easy to see. But when his foot and toes are resting flat, it isn't obvious at all. In fact, the Hubby was the one who had to point it out to the nurses because none of the medical staff even noticed it.

I was pretty distressed when I first learned about and saw his twin toes. The kids, of course, thought it was awesome and now use it as the topic of conversation when introducing people to Ollie for the first time. Remember, my peeps are drawn to the weird and unusual.

Five weeks after "the toes" were unveiled, I am in love with those little twin piggers. They are his trademark to me - his stamp of authenticity and individuality. And I am thankful for them, because they've caused me to rethink what perfection means. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in what the world deems to be perfect, that I miss out on perfect opportunities to recognize that there is perfection and beauty in difference and standing out from the crowd. His toes are perfect to me.

Once again, God has given me a little lesson to learn in an unforeseen way. How can I not be grateful?