Baby makes three
5:03 p.m. -- 2014-04-10
July 2011. I�ve been away for a long while. Not that I�m promising any sort of big comeback here � I have to be realistic, and I don�t think I could make much of a go of it. There just aren�t enough hours in the day, now... but I feel that this tale deserves not to be left hanging, so let�s have a go at addressing my absence of more than two years.
The story so far: Victoria was pregnant, courtesy of IVF. I was a very reluctant father-to-be... if you can ever really believe that a cluster of cells seen under a microscope is actually yours, in any sense. Vicky got large, and became what Bridget Jones would describe as a �smug married�. She was very happy, and never exhibited any morning sickness.
The pregnancy itself wasn�t without scares, though. Several times, there was a bit of bleeding, prompting a trip to hospital for an ultrasound. That was a strange thing to have to worry about. That a baby might or might not still be alive, when it had never actually drawn a breath. Once again (since I used the term when contemplating the pregnancy test) a kind of Shr�edinger�s cat; fate undecided until out of the container.
Shortly after Christmas, Victoria became ill. I won�t name the condition because it�s sufficiently rare that doing so would provide one too many dents to my carefully preserved anonymity. Suffice it to say that baby (who will be revealed shortly, and who survived, and is a boy, yadda yadda) has much to apologise for, because he could have killed my sweet wife � but for the quick thinking of our doctor. Maybe I can take some credit, too, for insisting that we should go and camp at the doctor�s surgery until somebody would see us.
There is only one solution to this kind of problem, and that�s an end to the pregnancy: an emergency Cesarean section. If the baby�s too small to survive, tough: because if it stays �in�, they both die anyway.
So: the baby that was test-tube conceived came into the world via artificial means, as well. A product of science from start to finish.
Ours was very much on the small side, not being due to put in an appearance for almost three months, but out he came. (Happy birthday, junior. Can you still call it a birth, when there was no birth, as such?) Out popped the tiniest little proto-human you probably ever saw: and he was the colour of kidney. Very unattractive. He had, after all, never been anything but an internal organ � and he was, indeed, a he. This wasn�t a disappointment for me... not as such... but I hope to high heaven that he�s more comfortable with his gender than it�s worked out for me, at times. We shall see... but that wasn�t really the issue at the forefront of my mind when both patients were poorly. Victoria was semi-conscious, and baby (no name at that point) was making tiny mewling noises, like a kitten.
Then they offered me a choice of going with the kidney-coloured one, or staying with my wife. Difficult one, but I chose to stay with the one with a wound to be closed up. (Was that insensitive? I don�t know, but I have said I never wanted kids, so don�t be expecting paternal instincts all of a sudden.) Baby was taken elsewhere.
Let�s get all cultural about this: �Macduff was from his mother�s womb untimely ripped.� In fact, he�s going to need a fictionalised name (all names around here have been changed to protect the arguably innocent), so let�s call him Macduff.
When Victoria began to make sense again, she didn�t understand quite how serious her condition was, and why there was a nurse in her recovery room, monitoring her all through the night, and the next one as well. This is intensive care, you silly moo. You stopped breathing.
She just wanted to go and see Macduff, which wasn�t an option. I moved between his intensive care unit, and hers, taking photos on my phone for her to see. Macduff wore the smallest �micro� nappy you can buy... and it came up to his armpits.
Ugliest little thing you ever saw: being premature he had no cartilage to speak of. His ears were just bundles of skin, his nose was a stub, and he had no breastbone, just a hollow. He also had precious little fat, and looked wrinkly like a plucked chicken. His permanent facial expression was basically Mr Magoo with his eyes shut.
Of course, I had to tell our relations, starting with some quite challenging text messages and phone calls. In the days that followed, I was part father, part news service. They don�t let anybody but next of kin in, which made me feel bad because I didn�t have much news to give them. I would emerge, give Victoria�s anxious relatives the latest, and then get readmitted to intensive care. I didn�t tell my employer what was going on because I was working on an hourly-paid basis, and the last thing I wanted when they were reviewing contracts was that they would �compassionately� cut my commitments.
Another day, another lie by omission. Made possible by the tail end of the Christmas holidays.
Victoria�s maternity leave had just started unexpectedly, of course. It doesn�t matter how small or sick the child is, everybody gets the same maternity leave provision, so it was pretty clear we were going to be heading into hard times. Just as I anticipated. Oh well... it sucks to be right sometimes.
On the third day, they allowed Victoria to visit her son, pushed all the way in a wheelchair. She wondered why all the fuss, and at one point a doctor laughed at her when she suggested that she ought to be going home sometime. One of the side-effects of ceasing to breathe is brain damage, of course, and I have to admit I was a little bit concerned by the huge memory gaps that she had. Basically, she remembers nothing after feeling awful the day before... but there isn�t any long-term damage. It just took quite a bit of time (months!) to explain to her that she�d been very ill indeed.
Macduff was given his (real) name once Victoria was allowed visitors. I felt that since she�d barely been �present� at the birth, she should at least be permitted to reveal his name. Also, I didn�t let any relatives see Macduff until she had done so. I feared for some time that she would feel �cheated� by not being aware of the delivery, and deprived of those last months of pregnancy of course... but she never let it all get her down. A very brave and sensible lady, my wife. I�m so proud of her.
Victoria was in the hospital for ten days; Macduff for ten weeks. But let me tell you this: our state-funded hospital system is amazing. I wasn�t confined to visiting hours, but could come and go as I pleased. 24 hours a day, I could drop in on Macduff, or call his intensive care room, and get news. I could visit Victoria twelve hours a day, as well... and did so. And once nine o�clock came and I had to leave her ward, we�d both go to Macduff�s unit and spend some time there.
You have no idea how much money my son must have cost � all paid for by the government, and the taxpayer. (I would imagine that if all this had happened in certain other countries that I have worked in, we would have ended up selling our house.) In his earliest days, he was monitored individually and directly: a nurse technician monitoring his vital signs, around the clock. Macduff lay in an incubator, hooked up to a mass of machinery including one to help him breathe (and on one occasion when he was doing badly, to breathe for him).
None of this got me down. Maybe I have too much faith in science and medicine, maybe I�m a cold fish generally or maybe I just switched into my �emergency mode� where I don�t get emotional, but get the job done. I�ve done that before, in emergency situations. I reckon the last thing the staff needed was hysterical parents. Victoria also became very pragmatic, and never made a fuss. She did play truant once, taking herself off to see Macduff when nobody was available to wheel her, and that was a mistake... but not one we can criticise a new mum for, eh?
Our lives took on a strange pattern, once Victoria came home. Not that we ever spent time at home! On days when I was working we�d go to the hospital, and I�d look in on Macduff, then leave the two of them together and make a 90-mile journey to work... and so on. On other days we�d both sit with Macduff. We were trained by the best in the business, gradually taking on responsibility for the care and feeding of our ridiculously small infant.
There are things I could say about hospital life, and the strange world of neo-natal intensive care in particular... and perhaps I will. But that�s getting away from the real story here: which is that ten weeks later, Macduff was allowed to come home. Still so small that he made full-term babies seem like strange, bloated creatures to us... but somewhere along the way, he�d managed to become cute.
Everything he�s done, he�s done a little bit later than the children who were born around his due date. Walking, talking, and so on... he�s no prodigy, but when I think back to his start in life, he�s made a pretty good play with the cards he was dealt.
I was right, though: children destroy any semblance of freedom or spare time that you may have previously had. Quality of life? Well... I think that depends upon how you feel about drool.
I think that Macduff has been something of a contributor to my long absence, but I thought I�d take this moment to say �hello.� Life is... different. Better? Um. There is a lot to weigh in the balance. Previously, I never had to change pee-soaked bedclothes at half past two in the morning. (Nappies are sometimes defeated, it appears.) On the plus side, I never knew who �The Gruffalo� was before.
Um, yeah. Parenthood is a two-edged sword. And you know what? I never did have much of a use for a sword. But I�ve seen parents whose own premature little scrap of nothing slipped away, despite every effort. There but for the grace of God go I, and in the face of that stark alternative... I�ll settle for parenthood.
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