I have just returned from a visit to the hospital. It was during this visit that I realized ... we are on the other side of the glass. It has been 4 1/2 months since I first yearned to be on "the other side", the glass barrier that separates the critically ill babies from the ones progressing towards discharge. 4 1/2 months and a different hospital ... 4 1/2 months of three critical illnesses, countless tests and x-rays and IVs and procedures ... 4 1/2 months of poor prognoses, of "there is still a chance", of lost sleep and sleep that, when it did come, was deeply disturbed - and deeply disturbing ... periods of idleness and others of manic activity, of lost hope and hope clung to in desperation ... of faith ... faith shaken and faith regained. Today, Emma is at full-feeds once again. Tonight, I will hold my breath as we revisit this juncture where she has been twice before - the place where her intestines seem to be taxed to their limit, the place where she has come to only to fail. And I will pray that this time - oh, please, this time - she will not fail. She is off oxygen, there are no IVs penetrating that tiny body save the Broviac catheter that the doctors dare not pull just yet ... There is nothing to keep her from being home by the month's end ... if only she does not fail this time.
They performed an ultrasound on Emma today to ascertain the extent of damage suffered by her liver due to the TPN. I stood near her bedside, trying to busy myself with folding her clothes and tidying her little corner of the ward. But, my eye was drawn to the glass, and what lay on the other side. So many ill babies, so many machines preserving the tiny lives that dwell in the glass enclosures, so few visitors, so many nurses. So many noises - noises punctuated by louder, angrier noises that mean something is amiss, something needs to be attended to right now, someone has a need that, if not met, will mean life no more. My time there is over, and I am so grateful. But the memories ... Oh, the memories are fresh, raw in their intensity. The day they whisked her away in a helicopter, a day I sunk to a low I have never felt before - and hope never to feel again. The eight-day bedside vigil when air was pulsed into her lungs ...lungs so fragile, so damaged the doctors can only describe their healing as "miraculous". The swollen, red body of a baby who existed, but whom I had never really "met", to whom I could only offer comfort through the touch of my finger on her hand ... a hand so small ... a baby so small ... so very, very small, a wedding ring could encircle her tiny wrist ... The train of doctors who have treated her, the faces of the many nurses, faces I know, but names I cannot recall, delicate touches and calming voices more readily come to mind ... a level of expertise and dedication I am eternally grateful for. The one nurse who, seven months pregnant herself, had the presence of mind to discreetly provide me with privacy by bringing a curtain to the bedside as the reality of Emma's condition hit me full force ... (To her, I am forever grateful .) Too much to remember, too much to forget, the paradoxes pervade my brain, resulting in a jumble of emotions, a frenzy of activity at times, juxtaposed against an overwhelming feeling of "I cannot go on". Our lives here will go on - come what may. But life will never be the same. But, in that difference, God willing, we will have Emma ... here where she belongs.
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