Mother Load (22 page)

“No,” Lily protested. “He was fine just a minute ago.”

“Whatever it is, it happened just now, Lily. I can’t explain it, but at this point he needs Dr. Saint-Laurent. You have to trust us here. We’re going to do everything we can.”

Anna had moved close enough to hold her, and when Beth walked out she pressed her lips to Lily’s temple. “Listen to her, sweetheart. This is exactly what we were talking about before. They handle things like this all the time.”

“But something’s wrong with him.”

“I know, but that’s what I’m saying. There’s always something wrong when babies come this early, but they’re set up for this kind of thing here. He’s going to be all right.”

Warm fingers gently brushed the tears from her swollen face. “If I”—she choked back a sob—“if I don’t get to see him, I want you to give him a name.”

“That’s not our deal. Besides, you’ll see him. I’m counting on it.”

Anna touched the floor to make her cushioned chair rock, expecting to hear it squeak. Instead there was nothing…not a sound emanating from the small tiled room. Nearly forty minutes had passed since they took Lily into surgery. Though she had hoped to be present for the delivery Beth advised otherwise, since Lily had gone under general anesthesia in case of complications.

On her way to the room, she had peeked into another neonatal unit to see a woman looking down through the glass incubator at her small child. The mother cooed and made faces, probably needing the connection even more than her baby did. She wondered how the woman’s desperate hours of delivery had passed, and how the baby’s father had endured the agonizing wait.

Unable to stand it anymore, she went to the doorway and leaned against the jamb, half in and half out of the room, training her eye on the hallway. How hard could it be to make an incision, pull out two babies and sew it all up? She refused to think anything was wrong, and consoled herself with images of all the things they probably had to do before bringing the babies to their room. After all, they had just come out of surgery too.

A smiling man walked into the room where she had seen the mother talking to her child. Anna said hello and returned to her seat. Seeing the parents so happy made her feel better.

“There’s your mom, little girl,” a woman’s gentle voice suddenly sang.

Anna jumped to her feet as the incubator rolled across the floor to its bay, its tiny red occupant clad in a diaper and white knit cap. “Oh, my God.” Though the baby’s face was partially obscured by tape that held tubes in place, she knew immediately this was her biological daughter. “How is she?”

“Beautiful, just like her mom.” The nurse smiled to reveal a mouthful of orthodontic braces and held out her hand. “I’m Kathy, the pediatric nurse. I’ll be in here with you till seven tonight when Deidre comes on.”

Though her voice was melodic and calm, Anna’s anxiety soared. “What about…”

“Your son? He’ll be along in a little while. And their mom came through it all like a trouper.”

She blew out a breath of relief and finally allowed a smile as she turned her attention back to the incubator.

“As you can see, this little angel’s got a bunch of stuff going on,” Kathy said. “See those tubes going into her nose? One is her feeding tube—gavage tube, we call it—and obviously, it goes to her stomach. The other is just an oxygen cannula, but Dr. Saint-Laurent said her lungs were pretty strong for her weight.”

“How much?”

“Two pounds, twelve ounces, just a hair under the average for twenty-nine weeks, but that isn’t unusual with twins.” Kathy made all the connections and the room came to life with a mechanical hum. “Her immune system isn’t fully developed, so we have to be very careful about bacteria, especially for the first couple of weeks.” She directed Anna to scrub her hands with antibacterial soap before demonstrating how to use the inverted pockets on the side of the incubator.

Anna tentatively pushed her hand through the opening and tickled her daughter’s clenched fist until it opened and closed around the tip of her finger. Nothing had ever felt so miraculous.

“That’s it, Mom. You’re officially bonding.”

She watched mesmerized as the baby’s spindly toes spread and curled, and her chin—Anna’s chin—twitched in what appeared to be an effort to adapt to the strange new tubes.

Darla had sneaked up to stand beside her. “She’s a cutie-pie. Your son will be out in a minute. He gave us a little trouble, but then boys tend to do that.”

Anna sucked in a breath as her stomach tightened with fear. “What kind of trouble?”

She shrugged. “Nothing we ain’t seen before. Lily said she had a name picked out for him and wanted you to go ahead and name this little girl.”

“Here, you can write it down,” Kathy said as she pulled a card from the slot at the bottom of the incubator.

Anna looked again at her daughter. Strong, Dr. Saint-Laurent had said. “Eleanor. Eleanor Cristianna Kaklis after both our mothers.”

She cooed and smiled as she held Eleanor’s tiny hand, trying not to panic over why it was taking so long to bring her son out.

“She’s as close to perfect as you can get at twenty-nine weeks.” The new voice belonged to Beth, who was still in her scrubs and sweating around the collar.

“How’s Lily?” The next question she hated to ask. “And our baby boy?”

“Lily’s fine. The surgery went just as it was supposed to, and she’s in recovery now. Someone will come and get you when it’s okay to go back and see her.” She ran her hand lightly across the top of the incubator as if caressing the glass. “Dr. Saint-Laurent is still with your son. As we feared, his lungs are very immature. He had some problems with an air pocket and she had to drain it, so I want to warn you that you’ll see a little tube coming out of here.” She indicated an area in the middle of her chest. “And he has a breathing mask. We call it a CPAP. It pushes air into his lungs until he’s strong enough to inhale on his own. Almost all of them can do that by thirty-four weeks or so, even the ones that have problems.”

“Is he going to make it?” Her voice rattled with fear.

“He’s in good hands, Anna, and he’s active. Those two things matter more than anything else.” She dropped her doctor persona to draw her into a hug. “I’ll be checking in on Lily for the next few days, but I’m handing you off to Dr. Saint-Laurent. She’s the miracle maker now.”

“Thank you, Beth…thanks for everything.”

“You’re welcome. Nothing will make me happier than to watch all of you leave here together.”

It was another thirty minutes before Dr. Saint-Laurent appeared. Her surgical gown, which had tiny smears of blood on the chest, was pulled off by a passing nurse and stuffed into a waste container. Underneath she wore gray knit pants and a Montreal Canadiens T-shirt. “Apologies. I was called out in the middle of breakfast.”

“How’s my son?”

“He’s a pistol,” she answered, clapping her hands for emphasis. “If he gives you as much trouble as he gave me, you’re going to need a lot of therapy.”

A nurse entered pushing a second incubator and Anna rushed to look inside. Even though Beth had prepared her, she was shaken by the sight of all the tubes leading to and from his doll-like body. All of him would fit in her open palms. “How big is he?”

“Two pounds, two ounces. Quite a little one but we’ve had much smaller. By now they’re riding their bikes and playing baseball.”

Darla bounded back in. “I have two messages for you. Here’s the first.” She handed Kathy a name card, which she slid into the end of his incubator.

Anna looked at her tentatively before peering around to read the name. George Stewart Kaklis. “Oh, my.” Her eyes flooded with tears.

“And the other for you is to stop crying and go see your wife.” Darla tipped her head toward the two incubators. “Kathy’s got your babies. She won’t let nothing happen to them.”

Dr. Saint-Laurent wrapped an arm around her waist and steered her out the door and down the hall. “This is going to be a long and difficult journey for you and Lily, probably six weeks here in the hospital and then special care for a few more weeks at home. But your children will grow bigger and stronger every day, even as they seem to struggle. No one expects the two of you to carry this burden alone. When people offer to help you, let them. When they tell you to rest, tune out the whole world and go to sleep. It is the only way all of you will get through it.”

It was compassionate advice for someone not known for her bedside manner, Anna thought. “We also have a five-year-old.”

“He is on the journey too. He can help, but he also needs his time, just like you and Lily will need yours. It’s a mother’s instinct to sacrifice herself for her children, but meaningful martyrdom went out with the Middle Ages. Search for the joy in all of it because that will sustain you. And then one day you’ll realize your fear is gone.”

Anna entered the recovery bay to find Lily sitting up, her bruised eyes pronounced against her pale face. Her expression was a mixture of exhaustion and angst. Anna planted a kiss on her forehead and smiled, determined to show nothing but joy. “I’ve noticed that every time the biggest day of my life happens, you’re right there…the cause of it all.”

A flicker of relief passed Lily’s eyes, and she looked for a moment as if she would cry. “I had nothing to do with the earthquake.”

“No, but that wasn’t the biggest thing that happened to me that day. Far from it.” She pushed a lock of hair off Lily’s brow and caressed her cheek, which now seemed to have more color than only moments ago. “They’re both precious, sweetheart…and the doctor promises me that everything’s in place to help them along. Now it’s up to you to get better, and to rest up while you can. Life’s about to get crazy.”

“I didn’t have a chance to see our little girl.”

“She’s perfect. But I think the nurse might have misunderstood what you meant to name our son.”

Lily chuckled lightly and pressed her lips together in a tight smile. “I figured that would guarantee us free babysitting for life.”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

“And what about our daughter? Is she Ruby?”

“No, sorry. I went with something else.”

Lily could barely contain her excitement as Kathy helped position her in the recliner. From the beginning Eleanor had shown an interest in physical contact, and Dr. Saint-Laurent had determined she was stable enough to move to the next phase. That was Kangaroo Care, so called because Eleanor would be laid against her bare chest to experience her warmth and nurturing. To get ready for the delicate exchange, Lily untied the top sash of her gown, a soft cotton wraparound, opening it from her hip to her neck.

Kathy then eased the sleeping infant into the valley between her breasts. “Support her bottom with this hand and hold her head with the other.”

She was immediately captivated by the splendid feel of Eleanor’s skin next to hers. Her tiny fingers curled into a ball, which she tucked beneath her chin. “This is heavenly.”

“Apparently she thinks so too. I can’t believe how fast she settled down. They usually wiggle at first and some of them even cry.”

“I’m the one who feels like crying.” Beth warned her the days of raging hormones would return, but not to fear, that she would be quicker to cry with joy than anger.

“No need for tears. You can hold her for as long as you want…hours even.” Kathy fingered the gavage tube that stretched from the incubator to provide continuous nourishment. The oxygen cannula also remained in place, and the heart monitors continued to beep. But the tubes and wires, and even the oversized diaper, did little to detract from the glorious skin-on-skin contact.

Lily eyed the feeding source, a bottle of her own milk expressed only hours earlier using an electric pump. The urge to feel Eleanor’s mouth on her nipple was almost overpowering, but Kathy had said it would probably be two more weeks before they could attempt breast-feeding, and with that came the caution that some preemies had problems getting the hang of it, while others simply found it too exhausting. Each baby was different, she said, as if Lily needed any proof.

From where she sat cuddled with Eleanor, she was able also to keep a steady eye on George, who remained connected to his CPAP, though the drainage tube had been removed from his chest after only one day. Beyond their health issues, the physical differences between George and Eleanor were astonishing, especially considering they had the same anonymous father. Unlike his sister, who presently sported a head of thick dark hair, George had only light brown fuzz on his crown. His digits were small in relation to his hands and feet, while hers were long and lively. The one thing they had in common—and which set them apart from everyone else in the Kaklis family—was their brown eyes, clearly a gift from their Latino father. According to Beth, blue eyes or green eyes were subject to change for the first couple of years of life, but these brown eyes were here to stay.

“If we could bottle that look, we could sell it as world peace.”

Her eyes had been closed and Dr. Saint-Laurent’s voice startled her. “They were already growing up in my mind’s eye.”

“It will happen before your real eyes soon enough.” She scrubbed her hands before slipping on gloves and a sterile gown. Then she opened George’s incubator and inspected him thoroughly. “He is stronger already but he still has far to go. It will be a while yet—perhaps two weeks or more—before he is able to sit with you that way.”

The ache to hold George against her had begun almost the instant Eleanor settled on her chest. It wasn’t just her need, but his too. In such a fragile state, what child would not yearn for the touch of his mother?

“How are you feeling?”

Lily sighed wistfully. “To be honest, I’m feeling pretty good…which is bad, I guess. Under normal circumstances I’d be chomping at the bit to get out of here. But getting out means leaving my babies behind and I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do that.”

The doctor pulled up a chair and propped her feet on the trashcan, revealing wrinkled blue socks decorated with pink kittens. It was funny to think only a couple of days earlier she had given off such a stiff clinical image when, in fact, she was as down to earth as anyone Lily had ever known. Her attention to the care of their babies was enough to win them over, but she had gone beyond that to offer her friendship, even insisting they call her by her given name, Sylvie. They would be spending a lot of time together over the next few weeks, she said.