We've Never Been Here Before
Isaac - NICU - Three Days Old
We’ve never been here before. We’ve been lots of places, but not here. We’ve been through six pregnant seasons: Barb the hormonally imbalanced weepy pregnant homemaker, Russ the mentally exhausted patient bread-winner. We’ve seen and survived six uneventful-other-than-the-miracle-of-birth delivery rooms. We’ve been through broken bones and disgusting bouts of stomach flu, preschool graduations and ball games, dance programs and piano recitals. But we’ve never been here.
It manifested in Barb’s postpartum haze, when the cardiologist—who was supposed to just come and be amazed with our sixth marvelous contribution to the human race—had the audacity to suggest that there was actually something to worry about outside of the usual new parent concerns. Barb sat there in her maternity bed, groggy and thick-witted, listening to a pediatric cardiologist prattle on about our perfect little nine-pound baby boy’s heart murmur and wishing that she felt as smart as she had in college. Two or three incomprehensibly medical sentences after the fact, she realized that he had used the N-word: NICU. Short for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Just as this acronym cut through the haze of post-partum exhaustion and shot the adrenaline of panic into her brain, Russ walked in the door. She was just quick-witted enough to use him as a cover for her slowness.
“Doctor, could you just explain that one more time, for Russ?”
“Your son’s mitral valve is not functioning properly and is causing significant strain on his heart and lungs. We need to take him to the NICU to do further testing.”
At least, we think he said something like that. To us it sounded more like, “Blah blah blah blah TAKE HIM TO THE NICU blah blah blah.” Take him. Take him? Take our baby?! Oh, no no no. This is the part where Barb sits in the bed and holds him and doesn’t leave the room for two days straight, and then we go home and try to figure out how to do the newborn thing simultaneous with the toddler thing and the big kid thing and the preteen thing and the teenager thing and the ever-more-demanding-employer thing. Not to mention the church thing. Those, we were prepared for. But this? Taking our baby? Never.
The doctor does some more explaining about NICU protocols and possible treatments, and then he leaves. We look at each other, shocked. Stunned. Baby Boy doesn’t even have a name yet. They’re going to take our baby, and he doesn’t even have a name.
“So. You think, maybe Isaac?” Russ asks.
“Yeah.”
“Good, strong name.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Biblical.”
“Yep.”
“Remind me the story?”
Long pause. Eye contact.
“No.”
