Molly’s first two babies were not born in the stereotypically normal style. I say “first two” not because she has had any more, but as long as you are alive, it is still possible! I use the word “normal” to mean like in the movies. Expectant mom calls expectant dad and says “it’s time!” Dad breaks the speed limit to get mom to the hospital on time and there is focused breathing and huffing and morphine and a baby.
Sylvie Morton enjoyed her mother’s womb so much that she refused to leave. Much as her personality would later prove, she began life with a very strong will. Why leave the womb when it was so comfortable? She had shelter and sustenance.
We drove in a very surreal, non-hurried manner to the hospital. We casually walked up to the desk and announced our names much as we would have done at a restaurant – “2 please, no smoking, oh, and one infant…no, she is coming later.” We settled in for the night, the doctor gave Molly the labor inducing drug and we all assumed we would begin the delivery in the morning. Sylvie- a name she would receive only after Molly and I saw her ex-eutero and cleaned off- decided that she would come out now.
The contractions came too quickly and too sharply for Molly to handle. By the time the sun came up our angel of a nurse, with the comfort of a mother, said: “Why don’t I get you some morphine dear?”
An affirmative whimper and a few minutes later Molly was in a pleasant, morphine induced state. Before receiving the dose, the angel nurse had moved Molly to a rocker. When the contractions would come, morphine-Molly would begin to rock the rocking chair, eyes closed with an occasional moan or whimper, until the contraction had passed. Then, the rocker would come to a rest, briefly. Sylvie arrived and changed our lives, and most immediately, our schedules. We learned how little sleep you could function off of.
Aine Morton was not supposed to live. In fact, at the time that we were told that our second child would probably be dead within twenty four hours, we did not yet know that she was a she at all because she was still in her mother’s womb, only half way to her due date. Without amniotic fluid a baby’s lungs cannot develop and she would be born without the ability to breath. Since my wife had lost all of the amniotic fluid that was supposed to keep little Aine safe, Molly had been told by her doctor to come to the hospital immediately to end the pregnancy- for it had been too early for Aine to have had the ability to survive outside of the womb, even with the most modern of medical technology. Not only was Aine supposed to die, but if the womb became infected, Molly could die too.
I was called at work and rushed the 39 miles to meet my wife at the hospital. I was on the phone with my dad in the car and he was trying to prepare me for what I was going to face. He had counseled women before, dealing with the grief of a lost newborn and he told me that we should name the child and hold it and say goodbye. It would help with the grieving process. And I was mentally preparing myself for that-preparing for the possibility that I would watch my wife have to give birth to a dead or dying baby: our baby. And I was crying, driving on the freeway, thinking about the life and death of one so small, and yet so important to me; someone I did not know, but was flesh of my flesh; someone I was about to lose before having the opportunity to meet.
I pulled into the parking lot, composed myself and walked in to the Mother-Baby unit. It was much different than last time. With Sylvie, it was so calm, collected and scheduled. We waited our turn and calmly went back to a room and Molly calmly got ready to deliver a baby. This time, I rushed in, was buzzed back immediately and rushed through a different door, down a different hall. This was not the hall for scheduled babies. This was not the hall for normal babies. This was the other hall. I walked into the room, labeled “Antepartum Room three”, not sure what to expect.
We were told by a very solemn doctor- a father himself who could not imagine having to contemplate the scenario now before these young parents- that Aine would not live without the fluid. There was a chance it could re-accumulate, he said, since the body can produce more of the fluid, but the chance that there would be enough was very small: maybe one in five. They would do nothing that night, and would do another ultrasound the next day, just to check. They would schedule an induction for later that day and Molly would go into labor to deliver a baby, probably still no more than one pound in weight, who would die during the premature labor, or shortly thereafter from the inability to breath. Both parents slept that night, perhaps only able to do so from exhaustion and the sense that it was already decided.
But the next day, there was more fluid. Not much, but enough to “wait and see.” By the next day there was more fluid still, and so began over a month of “waiting to see”. They tried to send Molly home once she seemed stable after 6 days in the hospital, but her body- in a very fragile state- was unable to handle the movement and within 6 hours of her discharge from the hospital, she was back, a resident of antepartum room three for another week and a half.
What had been on that first night a grim certainty was now, after the passage of a couple of weeks, a guarded hope tempered by uncertainty. The baby was not safe yet, and its - we did not know she was a she until she was born – survival depended, first on its ability to not be born until 24 weeks gestation age, what is referred to as the “age of viability.” At that point, the doctors can medically take action to save the baby and give her a viable chance for survival. Before this, any efforts would likely be in vain. Meanwhile, Molly’s body had to maintain enough amniotic fluid so that the baby’s lungs could properly develop the ability to function outside of the womb. Though they were the proper size, what would be uncertain until her birth was whether or not her lungs had been given enough time to develop a certain chemical which would keep the fringes of her lungs slightly opened every time she exhaled. Without this, with each breath, her lungs would be forced to work harder than they ought to completely inflate themselves and thus put strain on them. Though they could perhaps tolerate this strain for a time, more than likely it would not a very long time at all.
If the baby survived birth and could breath, there was also the chance for any number of other illnesses, malformations or handicaps. They would just have to wait and see. And so everyone’s life changed for a time. I thought it was one of the hardest things I had ever endured – coming home to an empty house, having to go to my in-laws to see my daughter and feeling as though she was less my child with each bedtime and dinner and milestone I missed, and having to drive to the hospital to see my young wife in a hospital bed. Though I know it was harder for her. The boredom and worry. Her separation from Sylvie was very hard. Molly entered the hospital for the first time at the end of the winter. She spent her birthday and Easter in the hospital. In many ways she missed two important months in Sylvie’s development, a fact she would lament for quite a long time afterwards. Because I worked during the week I could only bring Sylvie to visit on the weekend.
I know it was hardest on Sylvie. She had stayed the night with Molly’s parents only once, two weekends before Molly’s hospitalization and before this crisis began. We were celebrating our birthdays jointly by going to see a movie, staying overnight in a hotel and going out to eat. It was our last date for months. Sylvie had enjoyed her stay and we commented that it was nice that we had a chance to see how she would handle it and for her to begin to grow accustomed to staying elsewhere in case we needed another over night sitter. We did not know how soon Sylvie would again be staying with grandma and grandpa.
You could tell she became closed off a bit. She was only a year and a half old, and yet you could see the wall she had put up to protect herself. When Molly went into the hospital for the first few days I stayed with her, thinking it would be over tragically, and perhaps mercifully soon. When they had tried to send Molly home the first time, Molly’s parents brought Sylvie home shortly after we arrived. But Molly did not feel right and shortly after dinner her dad came back to get Sylvie – I put her in the car and said a tough goodbye. She just looked back at me with a concerned look on her face and it broke my heart.
After another week or so in the hospital, when the baby was at 22 weeks gestation age and still 2 weeks away from “viability,” it was decided that Molly should be sent home for the second time. She was stable enough to travel and if Molly went into premature labor at that stage it would have still been too early for the baby to survive. All that her stay in the hospital was accomplishing was to ensure that she was on strict bed-rest. So if she could stay on bed-rest at home and stay pregnant for two more weeks, then she would be readmitted and placed on monitors to wait for her body to go into labor, at which point they would not try and stop the process, and if everything went well, we could have a live baby (though, the concern for her lungs would remain up until when she was born).
It was decided that this time, Molly and Sylvie would stay at Molly’s parent’s home. This two weeks provided some relief from the strain of the hospitalization. Though Molly missed the security at the hospital of being monitored and watched over, it was good for her to be around Sylvie. And it was very good, and even fun, for Sylvie who received more attention for a longer duration, than she had perhaps received all of her life. At any given time, she was under the watchful eye of one of two grandparents, and or mother, and or father, and or aunt or uncle. When the baby was at 24 weeks gestation Molly was admitted to the hospital for, it was hoped, one last time.
On her third stay in the hospital, Molly was a resident of Antepartum room number 1. Though only two doors down from her previous room, it was slightly smaller – and was struck by afternoon shadow earlier every day than her previous room, due to its proximity to an exterior wall. The family once again fell into its routine of separated life…..
I would wake up after only a few hours sleepand go to work. Afterwards, I would drive straight home to change and then go over to my in-laws house where Sylvie was living so that I could spend time with her and eat dinner with her before going to the hospital to spend time with Molly. Other times, I would go straight to the hospital and have dinner and watch TV with Molly in her little hospital room. Then I would go home and work for a few hours on school work or coursework – I was taking two master’s classes at the time- until I passed out after midnight. It was exhausting and a bizarre existence, but it became routine. I began to know the nurses and smile and nod at the receptionist at the hospital. It was a new normal.
Most often, I would drive down Geddes road to get from Canton where we lived to the hospital. Geddes was a paved rural road with a high speed limit and twists and turns and trees and few police offices. It was a therapeutic drive, especially with the windows rolled down and angst filled music blasting from the speakers. This was my therapy. That and alcohol. When I got home at nine, ten, eleven at night I would quickly get a beer and head up to the computer to do my work. I would drink until bedtime and then go to bed. Coffee was my morning therapy. It got me up and kept me going. I had previously just brought a single mug’s worth of coffee, but I switched to bringing a thermos full of the hot steamy nectar of life to work with me and drinking it through lunch. But in the spring, as new life emerged, so too did our daughter enter life ex-utero.
I was at an evening meeting when I received the phone call. Molly just wanted to let me know that something might be happening and that I should be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. That moment came less than twenty minutes later. I was in the car and back on the old familiar route in no time. But this time the old familiar route was different – there was not the usual situation at the hospital – I would not be walking through the ante-partum hall doors after saying hello to one of the familiar faces behind the desk to walk to room AP 1 and see my hospital bed-bound wife in her usual hospital gown, watching whatever show that struck her fancy. Well, I still walked through the ante-partum hall doors – the familiar face behind the desk automatically opened the doors and following the old routine was easier than explaining the recent developments. But this time it was past AP rooms one through eight, to the left through the double doors and a quick right down the delivery room hallways, past the room where Sylvie was born, left around another corner and just a little farther to a room on the right in which Molly was still in a hospital gown, only no television show on this time, instead the feeling of anticipation as the doctor looked busy and the nurse looked busy and Mike felt in the way until he was handed a set of scrubs and then he got to feel busy until the scrubs were on and then he just had to wait again.
Molly was rolled out. I made some phone calls – in-laws, his parents – just a few quick phrases to let them know that something was happening and the promise of an update as soon as possible. Then I was down the hall sitting outside the c-section room chatting it up with a new father who recently saw his child born. He was so excited and he was excited for me. I did not explain the circumstances too him, but his excitement was contagious and I could not wait any longer. Before I went in, the other father warned me not to look at the whole “cutting open your wife’s belly thing.” He had, and he kind of regretted it. Then I was called in and I was told to sit down at the head of the operating table. There were several people in the room, all busy, except for Molly and I. Molly was lying there feeling her insides being out-sided. I was sitting there, trying not to be in anyone’s way. The anesthesiologist was chatting on her cell phone (I think it was with her teenaged child). Then they ripped Aine from Molly’s fetid womb. Seriously, it was infected and rotting away; the doctor commented on it while he was digging in. Aine was quickly whisked off to another room. I was taken out of the operating room and told to wait outside until someone fetched me to bring me to see Aine. Molly vomited. Since it was Monday, it was spaghetti she vomited up. Had it been Wednesday after lunch, it would have been cottage cheese and fruit salad. Had it been Wednesday night, Macaroni and cheese. If it had been Sunday, meat and potatoes. But it was Monday, so she spew partially digested spaghetti and garlic bread on the floor.
Meanwhile, I was brought the room where Aine was being cleaned off. She was connected to a bunch of wires and tubes and covered in a silver blanket. She was so tiny and shivering and really mad. The rest was a blur of going back and forth between Aine in the NICU and Molly in her recovery room. I do remember the next morning. Aine was in a big clear plastic baby box in a private room in the NICU. The sun was streaming in and she was wearing just a very tiny diaper and connected to a half dozen wires. Her eyes were closed and she squirmed around, but mostly slept. I was able to put my hand in the baby box and touch her tiny hands. She was in that room for a day, and was then moved out to the communal room. I was more relieved than I can describe. It was not long after that that she opened her eyes for the first time.
After Molly came home from the hospital we alternated visits to the NICU. I would go in the afternoon and she would go in the evening. Sometimes we would bring Sylvie and she would charm the nurses. Aine had been born weighing under three pounds. She had jaundice and for a time had to be put under the burger warmer lights to stimulate some chemical that would make her better. She grew. We visited her. She was put in a variety of multi-colored hats. We would hold her, feed her and change her diaper. She graduated from a ventilator, to a c-pap (a big tube that forced air into her nose) and then to a nasal canula. Aine constantly fought to remove these tubes from her nose. Eventually, she was removed from the baby box and put in a baby tray. With each passing day, I felt more relieved. Things seemed to get better every day. They moved her from the NICU to the less extreme unit across the hall. We got to know the nurses; they got to know us. Aine got a reputation for being loud and ornery. And three months after she was born, we took her home.
She still was on oxygen when we took her home, and from August through December we had a large oxygen tank in our living room. It looked like a torpedo. Oh yeah, and we didn’t sleep much. We tried. But Aine was ornery. We did sleep better than we did with Sylvie, though. With Sylvie we had to take shifts holding her. If we tried to put her down, she would scream. Eventually, we had to use the “leave her and let her weep” method. The first night she cried for hours. Eventually it worked. When Aine came home we spent many evenings falling asleep on the couch or in the recliner holding her, watching movies and shows we had borrowed from the library. But we learned our lesson and sleep trained her as soon as we could. And with each passing day, life felt more normal.
