behold the wild spotty striped baby nice guy
so apparently it's time for the nice guys to start playing the numbers. you should be using our birth dates as your lotto picks. take us to the races with you. bring us to bingo. seriously. we have had an incredible run of statistics-defying luck with this baby and i'd like to share it with you.
did i mention it was bad luck? no? mea culpa.
so i may have pointed out at some point that my perfect daughter was born with a mongolian spot on her arm. it looks like a bruise. it looks like she was maybe up all night crying and maybe her father possibly grabbed her arm in a flash of despair and perhaps might have squeezed just a tad too tightly. maybe. BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT IT IS, OFFICER I SWEAR! ahem. yes. you see, a mongolian spot is just a "dense collection of melanocytes" and appears in babies of native american, african, asian, or hispanic descent. i am none of these. my wife, being the beautiful brown-skinned berry of the house is therefore solely to blame for the appearance of the mongolian spot (which i am told will disappear by the time my child is 2). brown lady ... mongolian spot on semi-brown baby ... you do the math. NOT MY FAULT.
but wait! there's more! she was also born with a tiny cute little purple kiss on the tip of her nose. a-freakin-dorable. now that she has somehow managed to survive life in our home for nearly 5 weeks, the purple spot, we are noticing, is not going away. in fact it's getting bigger. in fact, the color is not only spreading, it's slowly bulging. you know how old men who have spent a lifetime of drinking have fucked up bulbous purple noses packed with hideously malformed capillaries? well, she is starting to look like w.c. fields after some legendary bender in atlantic city.
mrs nice guy did a little sleuthing on the internets and she came to the astute conclusion that our poor baby, in all likelihood, has a strawberry mark. sounds cute and cuddly, right? a widdle biddy stwabewwy mawk ... how scrumptious. WELL IT'S NOT. turns out ten percent of white babies get these capillary overgrowths. the good news? the purple splotch is not permanent. the bad news: it can grow for up to 18 months before it starts regressing. the worse news? it can take up to TEN YEARS for it to go away. want to see what really terrifying strawberry marks look like when they are at their worst? no? you don't? then don't click here. i suppose it serves me right for calling my unborn daughter john merrick on this very web site after seeing her sonogram.
so aside from a racing stripe mongolian spot on her arm that ONLY BROWN BABIES GET, she also will be spotted with a growing blob-like purple face-splotch which ONLY WHITE BABIES GET. great. what are the odds? does this mean she has drawn only the worst traits from each of our gene pools? sure, she may be a lazy klutz with rotten knees who can't drive stick and smells a little funny -- just like her father -- but at least she's blind as a bat, stubborn and misanthropic, with curvature of the spine, like her ma. she's cursed, i tell you. cursed.
anyway. we're going to see the doctor tomorrow to find out if there's any space-laser strobe-light treatment we can get for our red-nosed baby rudolf. if not, we're going to have a spotted, striped baby for the next three years at least. mrs nice guy is meanwhile spending HOURS on the interweb reading parent porn -- she keeps turning to me and gasping as she recounts horrible case study after horrible case study of hideous mutant babies of whom our child is apparently destined to become the leader.
this is distressing and sad. i hate hate hate that she may not be totally healthy. not to be overly vain, but i don't really want to be the dad who walks down the street with his speckled daughter only to be pitied by passersby. "oh look at that dear man and his elephant girl. let us give them a few shillings." screw that. the kid will be just fine. besides, i have no use for shillings. and anyway if the the spots and stripes fade away by the time they're supposed to fade away, then our daughter's skin will be all cleared up before she even becomes self-aware.
just in time for her to get hit with acne in junior high.
posted by mr. nice guy at 12:43 AM
17 Comments:
bwoop bwoop bwoop! STEP AWAY FROM THE INTERNET. The last time I did a health-related search on the 'net, I had myself convinced that I was going to die a horrible death in my bed that very night before I had a chance to get to the doctor with my strange and mysterious rash.
Which turned out to be totally benign, and disappeared with the application of drugs. Worst part was not showering for two days.
Good luck at the doctor!
For what it's worth, I have congenital hip displaysia and was thus in a brace from the waist down for the first two years of my life. Robo. Baby.
I look righteously pissed in all the baby photos of me, as you might imagine. But here's the thing: in every one my mom and dad are beaming at me like I'm a fucking cherub.
So just keep on loving that baby. That's the miracle cure.
Yes, while internet searches can lead you in the wrong direction, please WATCH that mark carefully. If for any reason you think it isn't doing what the doctors said it would or growing faster than you'd expected, take her to the doctor, or another doctor if that one won't listen.
Some parents believe that it will all go away and years later are left with a child who can't even have the thing removed because it is too big.
Just a heads up, I'm sure your baby will be fine, but don't completely write off the horror stories. They obviously happened to somebody (quite a few somebodies, actually).
Angela
You're absolutely right, first opinion, second opinion, third opinion if necessary.
Well, I defintely agree that you should have the doctor take a look at the strawberry. But if that's really what it is, try not to worry.
I was born with a strawberry on my nose... smack-dab in the MIDDLE of it. It never even reached the size of a dime, and faded when I reached kindergarten. It was actually kind of cute (or perhaps that's just what my mother said). I'll see if I can find a pic, to prove those horrific pictures you linked to are very extreme.
What lovely readers/commenters you have, mr. nice guy. Everyone is trying so hard to be supportive and to make you feel better.
Makes me feel all warm and squishy inside. Or maybe that's the curry I had last night for dinner. Whatever.
thanks, all, for your kind words. had an appointment with our gruff pediatrician today. update will follow when child is not screaming/pooing/being cute.
My cousin had a large strawberry on her face. The doctor removed it somehow when she was very young. All gone! :)
good luck at the doctor's today. :)
Well, I have a co-worker who's child was born with no bones in her legs and webbed hands.
Just be glad your child has a dot on her nose, right?
I meant whose.
my 9.5 month old daughter (white) has a decent sized one on her thigh. Yes, it's easily obscured with clothing, and going into a NY summer, I don't think a burka is quite appropriate for your little one, but it was/is still scary to us newbie parents.
It started small and grew to about a 1" x 2" oval. We had the daycare people wondering what they (we) did to her, thinking it was a bruise, so be prepared to school some nimwits. BUT I am here to tell you that at 9 mos, it seems to be already fading. I believe we are on the downward slope to perfect angelic baby chubbie thighs. My point being, you might only have to wait about a year to see a difference. Also, my pede said that any laser interference early in life would most likely leave scarring whereas letting the strawberry take care of itself won't. If it is indeed a strawberry, it seems that patience will be your best Rx.
:)
I had a strawberry under my nose when I was born. It spread a little bit, though not a lot. Basically, I looked like I had a bleeding nose for the first two, two and half years of my life. People were always trying to rub it away. It faded pretty quickly after that, but I remember it would get a little darker occasionally until I was about 6, but it was fairly invisible.
Hope the pediatrician appointment was informative and entertaining. Like a really good documentary.
You've gotten enough advice so I'll just share this... my 10-month-old Boy Twin has some sort of mark on his forehead. It's been there since he was born and it hasn't gone away. I guess we should get it check out. Anyway, when people remark on it and ask what it is, I usually say, "It's a souveneir from his battle with Voldemort."
I give that to you for free.
My son Albert has one on his forehead. If it had been down and to the right a little more, we probably would have named him Apu.
I located some photos of the strawberry on my nose, and thought I'd share. Hopefully, your daughter will be blessed as I was, and have a strawberry that remains small and fades at a young age. Best wishes.
Our almost one year old daughter has a strawberry on her forehead close to her right eyebrow. Very disappointing more than anything initially, but really perspective is all that is needed and back then (when most sensitive about it) a hat. What a luxury it would be to so many people if a strawberry mark was the worst of their problems. There are idiots around who have said "ooh what is it?" like it is something horrendous, but most people just notice that she is a beautiful, happy child. (Australian doctors advise to leave them alone.)
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