Dichotomy

January 12, 2017 was one of the worst days of my life. January 12, 2018 was one of the best days of my life.  

On January 12, 2017, we had been basically living at the hospital for 3 days. Thankfully it had a Ronald McDonald House attached to the NICU so we had at least had a bed to sleep in. Judah had gone from stable to back to being intubated and needing much more support in a matter of hours and we hadn’t left the hospital since I had had a panic attack right before he was intubated and had told my husband we needed to get to the hospital because I just felt something was wrong. He had some kind of infection and needed to go from peritoneal dialysis to continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT – a kind of hemodialysis that runs constantly at a low rate).  I remember walking into that NICU room that morning and having the nephrologist tell me that things had gotten worse and this is what they needed to do. She had such a serious look on her face. She said that because his blood pressures were so low they couldn’t do regular hemodialysis because he wouldn’t be able to handle it so they wanted to try CRRT instead. She said it would be very gentle on him except at the very beginning – he could very well crash and his blood pressure could tank and they might not be able to get it back up. 

But then she looked me in the eyes and said, “I don’t think he’s done fighting yet.” 

And so we waited, holding our breath. They started the machine and alarms went off. His heart rate dropped and so did his blood pressure. They called a code blue. Doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists and I don’t know how many others came rushing to his room. And there was nothing I could do but watch. I sat in a chair in one corner of his room with my husband standing beside me just praying over and over, “Please don’t take my baby.” Through the clear walls of his isolette I could see him kicking his little legs. And still the alarms blared and doctors called for meds, nurses charted and people talked through what they needed to do. And I just prayed and prayed and prayed. And cried. I wasn’t ready to let him go.  

Thirty minutes passed before the alarms stopped. They decided to let him rest and try to start dialysis again the next morning. I was finally able to go and see my baby’s face. He was just lying there, wide eyed and active, as if nothing had happened. The doctor was right. He wasn’t done fighting yet. Not for another month and 13 days did he stop fighting. In the end, we had to choose to end his fight for him.    

On January 12, 2018 I had been in and out of labor for 18 hours. Despite everything we tried, I wasn’t progressing. My OBGYN gave me a very similar look to the one I had seen a year before. The baby wasn’t coming on his own and I would have to have another c-section. I broke down in tears again, finding it hard to believe that my body was failing to do what it was supposed to do again. I signed the consent forms and was taken back to the cold and bright lights of an OR. There I had a massive panic attack mixed with PTSD flashbacks. The delivery nurse rubbed my arms and told me to breathe. Slowly but surely, she talked me back down. I wasn’t completely calm but I was at least not having a panic attack or flashbacks anymore.  My husband held my hand and we waited. Unlike my first c-section, the room was much calmer. There was no rush to save the baby. Just doctors doing their job, nurses waiting to clean up and assess the baby. Because of a year and a half of dealing with my anxiety, my husband new exactly how to keep my calm. He asked me what I thought the baby would weigh and how long he would be. And then there was one quick little cry and the doctor lifted my son over the partition.  

He was long and lanky with his arms and fingers spread wide. A fully pink baby with a full head of hair.  

“Oh he can breathe! He can breathe!” Those first words weren’t the reaction I was expecting to have to his first cry and yet, there it was. 

The nurse called my husband over. I heard him talking to my son – my perfectly healthy, perfectly pink son. I had correctly guessed both his height and weight. I heard him tell the nurse not to give the baby a bath and comment on how pink he was. I heard him exclaim about him opening his eyes for the first time. And then he brought over a tightly wrapped baby in one of those hospital blankets and hats and I finally got to clearly see his face. He was nothing of what I was expecting but everything that I needed.    

Parenting after loss is a bittersweet conundrum. On one hand I was so incredibly happy to see a baby without breathing tubes and feeding tubes and heart monitors but on the other hand my heart was shattered that his older brother never got to experience life this way. The overwhelming feeling of pride and joy when you see your baby take his first steps, try his first bite of birthday cake, say his first words, or even just giggle and know that his brother never did and never will. His brother is forever 6 months and two days old while he grows and learns.  

There is nothing quite like it. I feel like I’m living two lives – one where I am Judah’s mom and one where I am Arthur’s mom. I don’t know how to overlap them because they’ve never met, they’ve never been in the same room and they aren’t growing up together. On one hand I feel as though I should be constantly sad, constantly heart broken and constantly missing him. But then his brother toddles around the corner, a pacifier in one hand and a toy in the other and, on seeing his mama, breaks out in a huge smile and my heart is filled once again. I miss Judah a little less and those previously shattered and scattered pieces of my heart start to come back together.  

For better or for worse, Judah is written forever on my heart and has changed my life. But the further we get away from the days he was on this earth, the more it just seems like a dream. It feels like it happened to someone else. I look at pictures of him and no longer just see my perfect and wonderful baby boy – I see the off center nose, the dots of scabs from where he reacted to the tape on his face, the tiny pudgy body that refused to grow any longer or gain any weight because he wasn’t getting enough nutrition. It’s easier now to see the flaws than it was then. But I also look at him and feel like I no longer know him and no longer remember him because his brother now fills my memories and is right there in front of my eyes.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fully put this into words – this strange thing called parenting after loss. All I know is that every day I am broken and missing Judah while being simultaneously healed by Arthur’s smiles and love. Every day the memory of Judah grows a little dimmer as Arthur grows a little bigger. And every day I love them both a little more.