When I see my daughter for the first time, at my twenty-week scan, she is lying on her back with her ankles crossed. She is a lady of leisure. I already know that I’m having a girl. I know, too, that she is low risk for any kind of chromosomal abnormality, including clubfoot. Still, I ask the technician, perhaps a little desperately, to check the baby’s legs and feet again, after she casually mentions there’s no sign of clubfoot. Are you sure? Because I had that. I have that. The baby crosses and uncrosses her ankles, and then rolls over in response.
When I say clubfoot, I’m sure the tech hears what most people hear: feet turned slightly inward, a condition usually remedied by some orthopedic shoes. But I’m asking if my child will be born with feet like mine. If she’ll receive a diagnosis that she likely won’t walk; if she’ll need years of surgery beginning at five months of age; if her childhood will be punctuated by long hospital stays and intricate surgical dressings, seasons spent looking out the window while she learns the language of her body, both personal and clinical, hers and not hers. The tech doesn’t look away from the ultrasound, says, Her legs and feet look great. She hesitates over something else on the screen, but I can’t tell what. Later, the doctor tells me what the technician found: a choroid plexus cyst, a small bubble of spinal fluid in the baby’s brain.
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