by Alison White
It’s Christmas Day and we’re a little bit later than usual. We want to spend Christmas Day with you. Susan greets us, she must have drawn the short straw but she’s beaming.
‘Your wee Louis, he’s come off the oxygen this morning. He’s taken us all by surprise.’
Hey Louis, is that your present for us?
*
Dr Thompson has popped into the ward just to check on things. He can’t keep away.
‘This is really good news. Now that Louis is off the oxygen the thing that prevents him from being able to go home is the need to be able to feed independently. I think it will need to be bottle. You could try breast first if you wish? I know that the midwives are keen to promote this but to be honest we’ve not had much success with that in here.’
‘Yes, I would like to try if I can.’
‘I thought you might say that. You’ve done well to express for so long. I’ll book the Mother and Baby room and ask the breast-feeding nurse to come and see you. I suggest you come in tomorrow for a few days and nights, see how you get on.’
We are going to be alone together for the first time.
After Dr Thompson leaves us, I wait by your incubator for the breast-feeding nurse to arrive. A tube still runs down your throat. Every four hours a nurse comes to feed you, squirts 100 millilitres of my milk mixed with formula into your stomach. I’ve been told that the formula will help you to put on weight.
The breast-feeding nurse appears. She still has those pink moist lips, deathly white hands. I haven’t seen her since she sent me home with the milking machine. I shudder.
‘Shall we try and establish breast-feeding for Louis? It’s really the best thing for him and you’ve done so well expressing, it would be a shame for you not to continue.’
I don’t need any convincing. I’ve been dreaming of this all along.
‘It’s important you master latching on. Don’t let him try a bottle. Once he’s had one of those in his mouth it’s unlikely he’ll breast-feed. Bottles are easier to feed from, you see. It’s a different mouth movement entirely.’
*
The next day I carry you up the corridor. It feels strange to be able to carry you freely in my arms. Nurses offer encouraging comments. We walk past the intensive care unit, the notice board, the doors to outside. I walk on further; I’ve not been up here. Our room is up near the doctors’ consulting rooms. The room has a window. Maybe we can have some fresh air? It looks over the car park, past clumps of trees and out over the city. There is a bed for me and an open incubator bed for you. All monitors are gone, no bleeping, no sounds of alarms; the room is uncannily quiet. A tube still runs down your throat for feeding if this fails. The milking machine sits on a table and the bottle steriliser sits there too. And then there’s a chair.
You are dressed in a tiny sea blue towelling babygro, the door is closed and I’m sitting in the chair and trying to latch you on gently.
‘No, no, that won’t do, it will never work like that.’
She tickles your cheek and you open your mouth. I see the feeding tube running beneath the roof of your mouth, disappearing into darkness at the back of your throat. Her hand cups the back of your head and she shoves your mouth onto my breast, holds you firmly in place. Your jaw moves once then stops.
‘That didn’t work. Let’s try again.’
Milk is leaking from my nipple, dripping all over my top, soaking into your sleep suit.
An hour has passed.
An hour of this nurse shoving you onto me, one jaw movement then two at the most and then nothing. You act as if you are comatose. As soon as you feel milk trickle into your stomach you stop. You just completely stop still. Your arms drop down to your side and you appear to wait for your stomach to fill.
‘Let’s try again with the next feed,’ the nurse says. ‘You’d better express now. Use the syringe, feed that into your wee one. I’ll be back again in a couple of hours to try again.’
I lie you down and go onto the machine, pump out what’s left of my milk, feed it to you down the tube. I wind you, change your nappy, sterilise the pumping equipment.
The nurse returns: she is keen to succeed.
‘If we keep persevering it will come in the end.’
‘That’s it, you’re getting him to latch on there.’
‘Don’t worry. Express and feed him. We’ll try again.’
*
I’m exhausted.
This has gone way beyond anything I could have imagined and my breasts hurt like hell. After three days and nights the nurse suggests that I go home, get some sleep and come back again for another go.
‘Is it not impossible?’
‘You’re just overtired right now.’
*
I return and try again. I try and I try. When the nurse’s shift ends and darkness falls I lie on the bed and cry.
I cannot do this any longer.
The pregnancy book is open by my bed, the hospital literature too. It tells me I just have to keep persevering; it will come in the end.
I give up.
I stop pumping and my breasts swell.
Engorge.
And it is agony. I lie miserable in our bath at home and see my milk, your milk, swirl like white smoke into the water; I feel the warmth of the water lessen the pain.
On the third day the swelling reduces, by the fourth the milk is gone and I feel an enormous sense of relief. It is over. There was nothing more I could have done. I feel optimistic for us now we’re onto the next stage. Now it is bottles, and you’ve already taken to them well.
*
I’m at home getting ready to come and see you. The milking machine is gone from our bedroom. It felt good to say goodbye to that monster. I’m sleeping through the night. That’s better too; I’ll get my strength up before you come home. There’s a knocking sound on our door. I haven’t opened the door in a long while but Greg is out.
There’s a woman standing on our doorstep. I recognise her, where from? I know: her name is Hazel, a fellow artist, but I barely know her. I’d met her once in the kitchen of a friend’s house; I’d found her angry and somewhat intense. She’d graphically described her home birth to me. Was I pregnant then? How she’d given birth in the corner of her living room, had snarled at the midwives to keep away as the baby came out. What’s she doing here?
‘Hello?’
I don’t invite her in.
‘I heard that your milk has gone.’
How the hell does she know that?
‘I know a way to get it back.’
‘No thanks; I’ve let it go. Louis wasn’t able to feed from me.’
She ignores what I say and instead she elaborates, explaining about an amazing NCT woman who knows how to get breast milk to come back. She’s breathless and animated, her rosy face flushed. From what she is saying this woman could draw milk from a stone.
This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last that I am preached at, told about all of the things I should and could have done, things I can still do for you. All the miracles that could happen if I had just believed, had just tried a little bit harder.
‘Go away, will you?’
We are having a trial run. It is New Year’s Day and the doctors have said that we can take you home for twelve hours.
It’s nine in the morning and I’m carrying you out of the hospital in my arms. Your eyes are closed but I sense you are not sleeping. I sense you can feel the cold air on your cheeks. I place your tiny body into a car seat facing backwards in the back of the car and I sit next to you as Greg drives us home.
We are so excited.
You keep your eyes tightly shut and are very still. Every so often I place my finger under your nose just to check you are breathing and I feel your breath lightly brush my skin.
I chatter to you, we both do.
‘This is it, Louis, nearly home.’
‘Here we are, up the steps and in here.’
It’s quiet outside. I can tell t
he flats all around are empty, that people are away visiting relatives or asleep recovering from celebrating all night.
And we will be celebrating with you today.
Greg unlocks the front door and I carry you in in your car seat. I lift you out and lie you on the sheepskin rug on the bed. I’ve been taking this into hospital so you should know it. It had helped your oxygen levels rise too. I’m convinced it helps you to feel safe lying in the warmth of the wool.
Your eyes are still closed but I know you’re not sleeping; your body is tense. I pick you up and hold you in my arms, walk you around the flat, pass you to Greg to hold.
Your eyes remain shut all day.
I’ve fed you three bottles with your eyes closed, and still they are closed. You are as still as can be.
Is there something wrong?
You’ve never behaved like this before. You’ve always taken a peek at us, opened your eyes, looked around.
‘I can’t take this any longer.’
‘Neither can I.’
We get back in the car and take you back to the hospital three hours early. As we enter the ward I feel the heat, hear the bleeps down the corridor and I see your eyes open a crack. You are back.
This is it. It is ninety-nine days since you were born and we are finally taking you home. I have dressed you in a padded blue coat and a fleecy blue hat and gently placed you into the car seat. Your eyes are closed but I’m ready for that now.
Karen appears with a camera. ‘Let’s have one for the notice board.’
Greg and I crouch down beside you smiling and other nurses appear to say their goodbyes.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay for one more day, Louis?’ Susan calls out. ‘You’ll miss getting your certificate!’
‘I think that we’ll do without,’ I say laughing, my stomach clenching as Ludo’s face flashes into my mind. I have to block that memory. You have made it onto the wall. My dream is coming true.
The discharging nurse steps forward as we head towards the exit door. She is older than most of the nurses and has a motherly air.
‘Now my dears, remember you must treat him just like any other baby.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Take him home and forget all about this.’
Can I really breathe again?
Dr Nook’s head pops out of his room as we pass.
‘Just one thing before you leave us that I meant to mention: there’s my follow-up clinic I run for all of the babies in here. You’ll be getting a letter in the post. We’d like you to come back up now and then, just to check that all’s going okay. I’ll see you in two weeks’ time I should think.’
You keep your eyes closed for a full three days. I know to expect it now. You must be overwhelmed by the sudden change in temperature, the disappearance of all those sounds, the appearance of new ones. You are like marble. Your chest doesn’t move. Your breathing is so shallow that it’s invisible to my eye and I check with my finger under your nose again as I carry you around in my arms.
You play dead very well but I don’t panic this time: I wait. And then I notice the skin on your eyelids smoothing, your eyebrows losing their furrow. I see two tiny black slits appearing ever so slightly, peeping. You move your head, just a little, from side to side, and then on day four you open your eyes, you open them wide.
I carry you in my arms up in the lift, press the buzzer and turn right away from the ward. It is like that world doesn’t exist to us now you are home. I don’t see any of the nurses, busy elsewhere with other wee ones who’ve come in and replaced you.
Our hospital letter invited us to attend the Monday clinic. I’ve just discovered from the nurse at reception that there are two clinics each week. Monday clinic is for babies expected to catch up and Tuesday clinic is for those who already clearly will not. This in itself is a milestone for us. The fact that you are here on a Monday gives us reassurance that all will be fine.
I recall Dr Thompson’s reassuring talk with us in those early days when you were just born. Your ultrasound scans – how promising they were; how unusual it was for babies in here to not even have a minor bleed on the brain.
‘You know, only five per cent of babies in here get no bleeds at all and Louis is one of those. It is extremely promising for you.’
*
I sit holding you in the small waiting room with other parents. There is a row of chairs along two of the walls and toys piled up in a box on the floor in a corner; some are scattered about, as a baby crawls and a toddler totters around them. I look at this baby and infant and I picture you in a few months’ time sitting there, banging that rattle, putting it into your mouth.
We are called through and Dr Nook takes your measurements and plots your growth on a chart. He uses your expected due date in December, my birthday, as zero, calls it your corrected date, the day you should have been born.
‘It’s expected for there to be slight delay at first, which is why we correct the age. By the time Louis is two he should have caught up with his peers.’
*
You were eight weeks early, not that early for a lot of the babies in here, but early all the same. The statistical outcome for a ‘thirty-two weeker’ is extremely good. But you are slightly different. You’d been starved in my womb and the problem had gone undetected until Dee had got me that scan. You weighed 920 grams when you were born, less than a bag of sugar, and closer in weight to a twenty-seven-week-old baby, although we are told it’s your gestational age that counts for your well-being.
‘We’d have got your baby out sooner than this if we could, if we’d known,’ I remember Dr Hamilton telling me as he’d paced the room waiting for my blood pressure to lower, waiting for the blood clotting results; he had to check I wouldn’t bleed to death before getting you out.
*
Dr Nook explains that taking regular measurements and plotting them onto the growth chart will help him to check your progress. Your plotted dot sits just beneath the third centile, the final line. If you fall much further you’ll fall off.
‘It’s to be expected right now,’ he explains. ‘Louis was born starved, and he had to be starved in here for a while too for the ductus to close. Hopefully he’ll make his way up the chart or at least keep a steady progress along where he is now.’
He pauses then continues. He is speaking as if it’s an aside, with no apparent concern that it is going to apply to you.
‘It’s the tailing off we need to be on the alert for. That is often the first sign for us doctors to look out for as it can indicate possible future problems.’
You’ve woken on my lap and smile when the doctor coos at you, jump in my arms when the doctors claps behind your ear.
He’s pleased with your progress today.
‘He’s coming on nicely: meeting his milestones, putting on weight. I’ll arrange to see you again in four weeks’ time.’
It’s the end of January and I have our baby routine underway; it still feels stunning not to go up to the hospital every day. In comparison all is quiet and still and a little bit cold. The hospital was hot; I would need to strip down to a t-shirt, but now instead I can breathe cool air with you here in our flat. My heart has settled, my throat has loosened and I can gently hum into your ear.
Greg has gone off to work, he goes every morning, and I wander around our small flat. I walk between each of the rooms with you swaddled in a blanket and resting on my shoulder. As I walk I gently pat your nappied bottom and rub your back.
I move into the living room and then the spare bedroom at the front of the house. These rooms are my least favourite, I feel overlooked by the black windows of the red sandstone tenements opposite. I walk down the internal t-shaped hallway stepping on colours on the floorboards, spilled from the light through the stained-glass window in the main front door. I go into our bright yellow kitchen and up to the white sash window that overlooks our wintery garden. I turn on the kettle, pour boiling water into a Pyrex jar and place a bottle of f
ormula milk into it to warm, then I go back out with you still on my shoulder and into our bedroom (you sleep here now in the carrycot beside us). I sit down on the edge of the bed and lift you off my shoulder, around and down and nestle you into the crook of my arm, and I tilt the bottle, let the teat touch your lips and you open your mouth expectantly.
You gulp down the milk.
I hear the sound of whole bubbles of air as you swallow; hear the strange bumping sound as it travels down your chest. I’ve learnt to stop feeding you straight away when this happens. I stop. I lift you over my shoulder, pat your back, rub my hand up and down until you burp and vomit a little on the muslin cloth. And then I continue to feed you.
It’s starting to take longer and longer each time this happens and your vomiting is increasing by the week and you seem to be developing colic. I’ve noticed you’re pulling your legs up like a frog to your rib cage, and you cry and you cry and you cry.
Your head and your length are continuing along the third centile line of the graph but today your weight has dipped. It’s a different doctor, not Dr Nook. I explain that you’ve been struggling with your feeds.
‘Yes, it might just be that.’
‘Are you worried?’
‘Well, it is hard to tell right now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, we just have to wait and see but I’d like you to come back in two weeks this time, keep a closer eye. I’d like the physio to take a quick look at Louis too. Can you wait in the waiting room again for a moment?’
We are called through again and there is Zoe, the physio from the ward. She takes you from my arms and places you on a mat on the floor. She lays you onto your stomach and you start to cry. Doesn’t she know about your pigeon chest? That must hurt you. Your rib cage is pointed as a result of the ventilator pumping against your bones. I try to tell her but she’s busy rolling you onto your side, your other side and now back again onto your front. She’s trying to get you to lift your head up as you lie on your chest. You are crying harder, screaming now. She hands you back to me with a serious nod. I’m trying to comfort you, calm you down. The doctor and physio are speaking quietly together, something about tone, posterior, your head.
