Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of female writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find here each week, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.
Dec. 14, 2016.
I write the date of his death. I write it incorrectly. I’m forgetting already.
The day my infant son died — when we took him off life support — I told our family members to hold him if they wanted. When they were finished, I was never letting go.
For the first time in the 79 days he’d been alive, my husband and I held him without all the wires and beeping monitors. The only lifeline his caretakers left attached to him was his PICC line, used to pump morphine into his body. The respiratory therapist pulled the breathing tube out of his mouth and we heard the air — slowly, loudly — escape his lungs. I put my hand over my son’s bare chest and felt his little heart, the reason for his pain, for his broken lungs, beat its last beat. His blood was still; his skin was translucent pearl. Sobbing, we held him for seven hours that day, not daring to move, thinking of the life he wouldn’t get to lead.
Our daughter — his younger sister — was born 12 months after he died. After every test imaginable, 20 weeks of progesterone shots, one fetal echocardiogram, and 14 ultrasounds, we found ourselves once again in the C-section delivery room, holding our breath. “If everything is OK,” the doctor told us, “we’ll drop the panel so you can see her right when she’s born.”
“If.” I repeated the word in my brain again and again.
When my son was born, he gave what sounded like a quiet dinosaur cry and then was silent. He was quickly intubated and taken to the NICU. I didn’t see him for eight hours; I didn’t hold him for four days. I studied him, believing with my whole being that he would be OK — but I was scared to plan beyond the day.
My daughter came out with a scream that made the doctors chuckle. A big, loud voice that didn’t cease for an hour. My husband and I laughed in relief — if she’s crying, it means she’s breathing.
After his too-fast and too-broken heart stopped beating, we helped the nurses make molds of his hands and feet. They now sit in our china cabinet; the urn we’d agonized over selecting is on our entertainment center. Photos of him are around our house. I don’t apologize for the reminders of his death that rest in plain sight. I don’t care what anyone thinks.
The first two weeks of my daughter’s life, I didn’t sleep unless someone else was holding her. At night, I lay on the edge of my bed, watching her breathe in her bassinet. I was terrified: scared of how hard and fast I fell for her; scared I loved her too much; scared I wasn’t protecting myself from loss; scared of the millions of things that could go wrong at any moment. And I felt guilty that she got to come home while my son never did. I am now what my therapist calls a “defensive pessimist,” always trying to protect my heart. I emphatically practice safe sleep, where she’s right beside us but in her own crib. I take wide paths around the stairs, just in case.
When she was born, fellow “heart parents” gave us a pulse oximeter — a machine to monitor her oxygen saturation — for home use. I believed keeping track of her oxygen-saturation levels and pulse rate would give me peace of mind. Within the first hour, the emergency alarm went off. Pulse of 60. I checked her in her bassinet. She was fine. I violently unplugged the machine and haven’t used it since.
If you hold her a certain way, her forehead and eyes look just like his. Sometimes she wears his old clothes, and my mind plays tricks on me. I hope he gets to live through her and experience life outside the hospital walls. I think he earned a place in this world.
Now that my husband and I have a healthy newborn, my friends ask if we’re happy, expecting an enthusiastic and positive response. I am happy — and I am sad. It’s complicated. It will never not be. Babies born after parents have experienced a loss are called “rainbows.” A shining spot after a storm. But storms can be just as beautiful.
I watch her smile for the first time. I heard her full-on giggle in her sleep. She’s now older than he ever lived to be, and the comparisons are coming to an end. That means she’s living. She’s thriving. I will myself to believe she’ll be OK. I start to make plans for her future. For our future. A family of four.
