Astronaut

I'm in a new place now, one of grief for the smaller things. I find myself grieving the birth now, but when I voice that grief at the reunion of our Centering group ("I had wanted to catch him but I would have caught a stillborn") another new mom lectures me for ten minutes. She wants to drop her wisdom on me, her undamaged child sitting in front of her in his car seat. "You should be grateful he's alive. Look at him, he's drinking milk, he's thriving. And truly, brain damage could happen to any of our children at any time." Yes, but brain damage did happen to our child. What if I said my mother had a stroke, and you replied, "You should be grateful she's alive! Anybody's mother could have a stroke at any time."

When I tell Justin what she said, he says, "But don't we all have bigger hopes for our children, than just that they survive? In my head, Sheamus is going to be an astronaut and walk on fucking Mars." And so that becomes shorthand for what died with the brain damage. When someone chides us once again, "But aren't you grateful he's alive?" Justin turns to me and mouths silently, "Yes...but astronaut!"

My OB says over her shoulder as she leaves the room, "It's Thanksgiving and you have a lot to be thankful for." Now I know how badly it makes someone feel when they hear, "The important thing is your baby survived." Or, "You need to move on and think about Teddy." Because of course, of course his survival was more important than my birth experience, but we are capable of holding more than one emotion in our heads at the same time. And when acquaintances imply that they somehow care more about my baby than I do, it makes me wonder if perhaps, they do care more. It makes me question myself as a mother. It makes me question our bond, which to be honest is on shaky ground. In the NICU, I was afraid to look at him for days, afraid to touch him. I was so afraid he was going to die and I didn't want to fall in love with him. After we got home, I started to breastfeed and babywear and hold him and look at him, and it was almost unbearable. Each time I felt myself loving him a little more, I would feel a wailing inside, a mother's grief, remembering what had happened to him, the loss of blood, the strokes, all the procedures without anesthetic, the pain he went through, on that cot, alone, naked.

We know now that he is going to survive. And so I have the luxury to grieve the birth I had imagined since we started trying for him two years ago. And I had that birth with Nat, so I know what it feels like. The contractions building until they are everything, the loss of control, the surrender, the power, and then the great relief and joy, the wet baby against your chest, the suckling newborn, the quiet alert hour after birth, the way your husband looks at you with tears in his eyes, and says, "I have a son. We have a son, thank you." What happened instead was unspeakable horror. A white baby, drained of blood. A deathly quiet OR. My asking over and over again, "Is he dead? Is he dead now? What about now, is he dead now?"

I have the luxury now to grieve the sibling bond that didn't happen on day one. The first night, the boys visited, and Nat, three years old, asked, "Where's the baby?" Still high on morphine from the Cesarean and thinking maybe Teddy would get out of the NICU any moment, I told them Teddy was in the nursery for bedtime with the other babies. Teddy was, in fact, in the NICU having seizures. I thought maybe I would never have to tell them what happened. I wanted so badly to protect them. On day three, Sheamus, age six, skipped down the hallway, telling the nurses, "I'm a double big brother!" But when he entered the room, he was terrified at the sight of him. I thought it would work if I told him Teddy was a bionic baby, and wasn't it so cool? All the machines helping him? But it didn't work, and Sheamus couldn't even look at Teddy. He was so scared, and he asked to leave, and didn't want to come back again until Teddy was almost two weeks old. The pain and the loss of the brothers together.

I had imagined our family separated only for labor, the boys in the waiting room while I pushed, and then soon afterwards, passing the swaddled baby around, while I sat in bed, a proud glow. I had imagined two quiet nights in the hospital with just me and Teddy, reading my book and breastfeeding all night, the boys visiting with flowers and Elwood's chocolate cake, and a quiet homecoming on day 3, to Chinese food and our family of five beginning. Instead there was discharge on day five, a parking garage, a clutched incision and a guttural wail, "I want my baby," sobbing in the car, bedtime with the boys without Teddy, an empty crib, newborn diapers that he grew out of before he got home. The first bedtime at home with the boys after discharge was interrupted by the phone call from Justin, who was crying while he choked out, "Cat, he had a stroke. He had two pretty big strokes. Cat, I'm so sorry, Cat. I'm sorry." And while I was on the phone, Nat got hurt by Sheamus's fake sword, and I held Nat, who was crying, and I was crying, and I rocked back and forth on the bed. "I will be here for you, Mommy will always be here for you. You're so perfect, I love you, I will never not be here for you." A prayer with my mother-in-law, "Please Jesus, just let him be capable of being happy. Please let his brain be able to know that he is cared for and loved. Please God give him that."

This morning, he is five weeks old. I hold him naked in the bathtub, skin to skin, his small body pink under the water. I say to him, "Let's just pretend, Teddy, that you were just born. Let's pretend I lifted you like this onto my chest and heard you cry right away, and you latched and I saw your bright blue eyes looking into mine, and I felt relief and joy and gratitude that labor was over." And he cooperates and I lift him up and hold him against my breasts, his warmth and my warmth, and the water. And he weighs only ten pounds, two pounds behind his brothers at this age, because of the IV nutrition. "A shaky start," someone summarized it. Ten pounds could be the size of a newborn. We could fool somebody. I hold him and I tell him, "Nobody has to know it wasn't like this, Teddy. We can pretend and nobody has to know."