(Re)birth

This is the story of a happy moment: a slice in time, whose painful counterpart I am now allowed to let pass into oblivion.

Fourteen months ago, a birth happened. It went fast, not entirely according to plan — few do, as Midwife Anderson pointed out — but as well as it could have gone. Just three hours shy of her due date, Luca took her first unassisted breath. She snuggled close to my heart and started the intense job of living. I finally got to eat — had been hungry for the last couple of hours of labor — and smiled for the camera while skyping with her grandparents. That’s pretty much what I remember from that first hour: satisfying the wolf within, while learning how to do things singlehandedly.

The first day of her life is a blur of feeding, changing diapers, and learning that worry will always be with us now: is she feeding well, is she healthy, is she still breathing? Isn’t she cold, lonely, in her bassinet, away from us?

Doctors came to check her and they said everything looks great. We spent time holding her and enjoyed those newborn moments.
The second day started well, but went south when the doctors came to check her again, during the rounds. Same resident, different attending. Smart one, that attending: she noticed that Luca is anatomically diverse. Apparently, this is quite easy to miss in a newborn, given how extremely rare it is for the human anatomy to be diverse in this way (before Luca, there have only been 86 cases reported in the English-speaking literature, since the 18th century).

Luca underwent close monitoring and testing for two additional days. Everything else was deemed to be anatomically and physiologically typical. But, because of this testing, etc. things that should have come easily, became difficult. Nursing on demand kept being interrupted and this delayed my milk. Still, I was bonding to this sweet smelling bundle. I was also trying to not allow myself to become too attached. It was unclear how bleak the future looked!

We left the hospital in a whirlwind of emotions, given the facts we knew: Luca will need surgery, the date to be determined. Maybe a month after birth, or three, or more. In the meantime, we were told, go home and enjoy her! Forget, if you can, that she might not be…

The first 13 months of her life were like this. Beside the ups and downs that are normal with newborns becoming infants and then toddlers we had the added worry that the surgery might help her or might curtail her life. A team of surgeons got together — Dr. Muzaffar and Dr. Ramachandran, with their respective residents — and they saw Luca at pre-established intervals, to re-assess. We finally set on a date: the end of the Spring semester.

The last few days before the surgery were very intense: I only wanted to hold her, but also enjoy her, which entailed letting her be her own energetic self. It was difficult; I would burst into laughter at her wonderful antics, only to immediately start crying thinking that the day after I might not have her…

The surgery came and went. I graded papers. After eight hours, we were together in the same room again! Luca was hooked up to all kinds of machines, alive, but still sedated. We were in the PICU corner of the same hospital where we had given birth to her a year ago. It all felt surreal: the room was larger, Luca wasn’t a newborn anymore, but the rest was the same! The couch, rocking chair, and huge 1-liter plastic mug they give nursing mothers to help them stay hydrated. The wonderful apple pie that was included on the mother’s tray delivered to our room tasted as sweet as ever.

They say the first night with a newborn is the hardest. Our second first night with Luca was as hard. My partner half-jokingly said: “I remember now: the first night is the hardest!” Luca was in great pain and on IV narcotics, her breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate closely monitored. The familiar question popped from time to time: is she still breathing? We knew she was lonely in her crib, away from me. I got in there with her. Among the wires and the beeps from the machines, she found her comfort. She was in too much pain to eat, but there’s more than nourishment in a nursing mother’s boobs. I’m lucky I’m tiny: I managed to fall asleep in that crib.

When morning came, the nurses took pity on us and replaced the crib with a regular hospital bed. Not much wider than the crib, but longer: I could finally stretch my legs. A year of side-lying nursing has taught me well and Luca was resting on me once more.

My partner was, once again, providing everything to me: water, coffee, snacks. He ordered the food. He held our daughter through her crying, doing the best he could to ignore her tears and attend swiftly to her needs. He reassured her of our love; he reassured me of my strength. I am forever in awe at his gentleness; I’ll always be inspired by his centeredness. I was nursing: this was comforting to me, in that hour of my need. My partner’s comfort was the thought that the surgery was finally behind us. He was overwhelmed with emotion, but kept me going, so that I could keep her going. He had a year of practice, too.

That second day went a lot better than the first second day. Luca was visibly recovering. The three of us were exhausted, but together. She nursed for most of that day; Alex and I slept for most of it. The attending physician turned around and let us be, when he saw that we were all out, each peacefully enjoying our dreamlands.

We left the hospital after three days this time around, as well. Our love renewed, our daughter given back to us. Our fear transformed; our excitement reborn. Infinite grace, we were afforded a new beginning!