Precerpt from Raising God's Rainbow Makers: The Doctor Had No Answers for Doah
When the pediatrician met Doah for the first time, he paused longer than most doctors do. He examined, listened, measured, and then looked again—as if something in Doah’s face or posture had unsettled him. He told me to call him at six the next morning. When I did, his voice was thick with exhaustion. “Have you been up all night?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve been reading. I can’t find an answer.” This was before the internet, when research meant paging through medical books under fluorescent light. He had been searching for an explanation—something that would account for why Doah “bothered” him. Not because of prematurity; Doah had weighed in at four pounds and seemed healthy enough. But something in his appearance, his bearing, his indefinable difference, had caught the doctor’s attention and refused to let go. “I can’t find an answer,” he repeated. “Doah has dysmorphic features, simian creases, and the only thing that comes close—but still doesn’t fit—is Fetal Alcohol Syndro...