Serenade for a Small Family Page 14

  way they were being handled, there was nothing I could

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  do about that either; and again, I felt guilty. I couldn’t feed

  them when I thought they were hungry, or wrap them up

  when I thought they were cold. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I put

  too much pressure on myself. I felt inadequate, and I often

  wanted to tell them I was sorry.

  But step by step we did get to know them and how they

  differed, what they liked and didn’t like. Leo was always

  wriggling, always restless and moving. He had attitude, but

  he was soft at the same time, and he loved to be touched

  and held. (I have a soft spot for big truckie guys eating

  alone at roadhouses because they remind me of my big

  little brother and I know how soft he is under the bigness.

  He’s not a truckie, but he’s big on the outside.) Leo liked to

  have his eyebrows and forehead lightly stroked. He liked

  to hold hands, and he relaxed when we cupped our hands

  around his body. You could look over from Jordan’s cot and

  see Leo’s arm waving around in the air, while Jordan lay

  relaxed and calm. Jordan held his hands out flat and slept

  with one hand up under his beanie.

  They both liked me singing to them. Writing songs has

  always made me feel at ease and in myself—the same feeling

  I get from raving with an insightful girlfriend, dancing to

  live music or learning a foreign language. I hummed the

  same tune over and over to Jordan and Leo. The notes

  rode lazily up and down each other. Not happy, but not

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  sad either. When I told Mum I sang the boys to sleep, she

  said, ‘They’re just closing their eyes so you’ll stop singing.’

  ‘Hilarious, Mum.’

  As the weeks went by, Jordan and Leo had more awake

  time and I was determined not to miss a minute, for my

  own sake and theirs.

  ‘If I’m not here when either of them wakes up, do not

  forget to call me, okay?’ I commanded a quivering midwife.

  ‘I mean Straight. Away. I can be here in about six minutes

  if I’m coming from the apartment. Promise?’

  If I turned up, and one of them was awake and no one

  had told me, I was mad. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  More than once, the rostered midwife responded with:

  ‘He just woke up a minute before you got here . . . As

  though he could sense you were coming . . . I swear . . .

  just before you walked in the door!’ She would exchange

  glances with other midwives: ‘That was weird.’

  The hospital had boxes and boxes of tiny clothes, and

  I would riff le through them to pick out favourite tops

  and beanies, as well as sailing-boat sheets and hanky-sized

  blankets printed with trucks and bears. I took photos on the

  NICU cameras and stuck them on the ends of their cots.

  Friends had sent us prem baby clothes, and I stored them

  in a wooden box I had adapted.

  While talking with midwives I slipped my pinkies into

  the grips of Jordan and Leo’s fists and stroked their eyebrows.

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  Or cupped my hands around their bodies until I had to stand

  to stretch and lap NICU, chatting with staff as I went. Most

  of the time, each baby had a dedicated nurse or midwife

  twenty-four hours a day, three shifts per day. Benny and I

  both got to know most of the people who came and went

  from NICU, so we had to remember a lot of names. Each

  time we left, there was a chorus of goodbyes.

  One day, I was standing near the NICU doors, rubbing

  antiseptic gel into my hands, when a midwife led a man

  and two women I had never seen before over to Leo’s cot.

  I did not know who they were or why they were there.

  The midwife casually lifted the throw from over the cot

  to reveal my sleeping boy.

  ‘See?’ she said. ‘This one’s a twenty-three weeker.’

  ‘Wow,’ said the younger woman, standing close enough

  for me to see the strands of black hair stuck to the back of

  her red jacket.

  ‘Geez,’ said the man beside her. ‘That is bloody tiny! Will

  he survive?!’ My stomach turned over with fury.

  ‘Yeah.’ The midwife nodded. Then she shrugged.

  ‘Probably.’ I could have fallen to the floor right then and

  there. In my mind I tried to string together clever hurtful

  words to say to them, to hurt them back, but I said nothing

  and turned my back to them.

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  They left, and I pulled up a stool to sit with Leo, feeling

  all messed up. I fiddled around inside his cot, straightening

  his bedding and checking his oximeter, trying to ignore

  the angry sparks flying around inside me.

  ‘Do you want to help me change his sheet?’ asked

  midwife Margie. ‘It’s up to you. Or I can ask one of the

  other . . .’

  ‘No! I mean, yes! I’d love to do anything!’

  ‘Neck rub?’

  ‘Ha, ha.’

  ‘Okay . . . Let’s do it. Now just gently put one hand under

  Leo’s bottom half and support his head and neck with the

  other hand . . .’ I shuffled my stool in closer and gingerly

  manoeuvred my hands under Leo’s tiny warm body, leaning

  down to talk to him through the armhole. ‘It’s your mamma

  here, my darling . . . I’m going to pick you up!’

  ‘Now slowly lift him, and hold him there while I whip

  the dirty sheet out and lay down a clean one.’

  ‘Okay . . . This is exciting.’ I nervously lifted Leo in my

  palms until holding him was pure thrill and I went all jelly.

  ‘Oh my god . . . he’s like a baby bird. I’m holding him!’

  Feeling his frailty, it was harder than ever to imagine him

  big enough and strong enough to live in the world. But

  I was full of hope and buzzed again with the thought of

  taking him home.

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  As well as surgery to close a duct to his heart, Jordan had

  two hernia operations and a peritoneal shunt put into his

  head. Leo had bowel surgery and a perpetually sore and

  distended stomach. Each time either of them went off to the

  operating theatre, we waved off the small team surrounding

  our tiny babies and hankered for their safe return. They

  also had countless infections, blood transfusions, x-rays and

  MRIs. They were stripped nude in the middle of each night

  to be weighed, and their heels were pricked and squeezed

  daily for blood testing. They had course after course of

  antibiotics; permanent tubing down their noses and throats;

  and needles constantly inserted in their arms. They fought

  on. Talk about endurance.

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  It was always hard to decide which baby to sit with first,

  because I didn’t want to show favouritism; Benny said he

  felt the same. I usually went to the one I thought needed

  me most—the one who had lost weight overnight instead

  of
gaining it, or had an infection in his IV line; or the

  one who was due for a heel-prick blood test, or was in the

  most oxygen. Sometimes I went to whoever seemed most

  unsettled, or the one having a blood transfusion or who

  was due for an x-ray. When Leo vomited bile, I dragged

  my stool over from Jordan’s cot to stay with him; and after

  Jordan’s shunt surgery, it was more than a week before I

  could focus on Leo.

  I felt guilty either way because they both needed me and

  I couldn’t be in two places at once. It was a relief when

  Benny could take time out from work to spend time in

  NICU, so neither boy was being neglected. When they

  were both sick at the same time, I found it excruciating.

  Sometimes where I sat was determined by the midwives

  on duty, and who was easiest to be around. When both

  boys were well and stable, I was happy—crazy about being

  a mum and sitting with my babies, excited, brimming with

  pride, clear about my purpose and more focused than I had

  ever been before.

  Jordan’s biggest battle was with his lung disease, which

  was, ironically, caused by the ventilator. This is how it was

  explained to me: when we breathe normally, we expand

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  our lungs so that the air is drawn into them. A ventilator

  actively blows air into the lungs which, at such early gestation,

  are fragile and barely formed. For most premature babies,

  the damage heals as they grow and their lungs recover. But

  not Jordan.

  Peter showed Dad an x-ray of Jordan’s lungs. Dad looked

  at the x-ray, then looked at me, speechless: ‘His lungs . . .

  they look . . .’ He looked down as he searched for the words.

  He looked again at the x-ray before turning his whole body

  to face me.

  ‘Darling,’ he said. ‘This looks like an x-ray of the lungs

  of an old man who’s been smoking all his life.’

  I put my hand over my mouth. I remember it felt cold

  on my lips. It wasn’t just Dad’s words, it was his gravity,

  like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Like he couldn’t

  believe that it was a picture of a baby’s lungs.

  Later that day Benny and I met with Peter. ‘We’re

  increasing his dexamethazone—that’s the steroid for his

  lungs,’ said Peter. ‘And we’re going to bring in the nitric

  oxide to give him a bit of extra help. He’s having trouble

  recovering from this last surgery.’

  Peter’s tone was serious and I was scared as hell.

  I bounced in early most mornings, anxious for details of

  their nights. There was no facility for me to sleep near

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  them and I was tormented by the thought of them waking

  up to strangers through the night. It took longer to get to

  know the night staff, but I did, and I developed favourites.

  Those night midwives fell in love with our boys as much

  as the day ones—I could tell by the way they talked about

  them when I called in the morning, catching them at the

  end of their shift.

  ‘Good morning, Ingrid . . . Your little boys have had

  a very good night! No problems at all. Leo’s coping with

  his feeds and Jordan’s put on eighty grams! Isn’t that great?

  They’re battling on, the little sweethearts.’

  We made friends with the mum, dad and sister of baby

  Emilie in the cot beside Jordan’s. Emilie was born on

  Christmas Eve at twenty-four weeks’ gestation.

  ‘I was out shopping and I started to feel like I needed to

  do a really big fart,’ said Tammy. ‘Hours later Em was born!’

  She stood close to me, holding the hand of her gregarious

  blonde five-year-old, Elise, who was unnerving me by

  trying to peer into Jordan’s cot. ‘We’ve been invited to that

  prems coffee morning. Are you going? It feels a bit like

  we’ve become members of a club we never wanted to join.’

  Chris, Emilie’s dad, was sitting beside her cot, singing a

  UK soccer song to her through one of the armholes.

  ‘Yeah, I think I’ll go. A chance to debrief.’ Chris’s

  voice rose and peaked, and Tammy and I exchanged grins.

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  ‘Unreal,’ I said. ‘Chris’s singing calms us al down in here.

  Hey, how are you going with expressing? Isn’t it weird?’

  ‘It’s awful.’ Tammy nodded towards her daughter: ‘Elise

  says the pump goes quack-moo quack-moo quack-moo. ’

  We laughed out loud and I ruffled Elise’s hair, pleased

  to be making new friends.

  Sometimes whole days were bad—when I felt defeated and

  ground down by the reality of having babies in NICU.

  When my big brother, Stefan, was in town, working on

  a TV commercial, he came to meet Jordan and Leo. We

  walked down a hospital corridor past a blown-up photo

  of a newborn baby and her grinning mother. ‘I hate that

  photo most days,’ I said.

  The next poster-sized photo showed a naked pregnant

  woman standing side on, her smiling blonde child’s arms

  stretched around her stomach. ‘I have to warn you, Stefan . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well . . . they’re small. I mean, they’re really small . . .

  And it’s pretty full-on in there . . . Alarms and equipment

  and stuff. And they’re on ventilators—you know, they don’t

  look like normal babies.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Stefan. ‘If you have to deal with it, I have

  to deal with it.’

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  ‘It’s hard because there’s only so much we can do, Benny

  and I. We’re supposed to be their mum and dad but . . . it’s

  really hard.’ I cracked up into tears. We kept walking. ‘I

  just want to make it okay for them . . . and I can’t. It makes

  me so angry.’

  ‘Yeah . . . right . . .’

  ‘I can’t take the IV lines out, or stop the heel pricks for

  blood, or the x-rays, or the infections. I can’t get them out

  of the hospital . . . They keep getting sick . . . They have

  surgery . . . And I can’t even control who’s handling them.

  It’s fucked!’ Stefan gave listening nods and empathetic

  murmurs. At the handwashing sink, I splashed water onto

  my face and took a deep breath.

  ‘Ready?’ Stefan nodded, and I loved him for being there.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, and we headed towards the NICU

  doorway.

  But on good days, Benny and I were proud, excited parents

  and we talked about the future.

  ‘I can’t wait to kick the footy with them and tickle them

  until they say grenade,’ said Benny, gritting his teeth and

  holding his fist in the air.

  ‘Oh god, the poor kids,’ I said. We were squeezed into

  our tiny Apartment 19 kitchen, standing back to back, with

  barely half a metre between us. Benny was making a cup

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  of tea and I was buttering toast. If he had said something I

  didn’t li
ke, I could have shot my elbow backwards straight

  into his ribs.

  ‘I reckon Jordan’s going to be a bass player . . . a cool,

  quiet one,’ I said. ‘I think he’s going to be a really nice guy

  and we’ll be proud of him, as a person.’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Benny. I had pumpkin filos in the

  oven, and the smell of warm baking pastry was making

  my mouth water.

  ‘Or maybe he’ll be a human rights lawyer,’ I said.

  ‘A human rights lawyer and a bass player,’ said Benny.

  ‘Leo’s got attitude. He’s going to be a little fighting dude.

  He’ll be the fightin’ little brother.’

  ‘For sure.’ I nodded my head and took a bite of peanut

  butter toast. ‘Yum. Either way, they’re going to love their

  mum sooo much.’

  ‘No way,’ said Benny, picking up his cup and heading

  out into the living room. ‘They’re going to be Dadda’s

  boys for sure.’

  Jordan and Leo had been in the world for nearly four weeks

  before I finally held one of them. Midwife Annie was

  looking after Leo as I sat with my arms resting over his cot

  and my forehead against the perspex. I was dying to pick

  him up and walk out of that room—out of that hospital,

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  and into the sunlight. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I

  peered at his tiny body and the bruises on his arms. It felt

  as if we would be in there for eternity.

  ‘Have you had a cuddle yet?’ asked Annie matter-of-factly.

  ‘No? Can I?!’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She wheeled over an armchair and parked

  it beside the cot. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’ I did three

  quick soft claps, like a flamenco musician, before flopping

  down into the chair. Annie fluffed up a pillow and laid it

  in my lap, tucking it in around my sides.

  ‘Nice ’n’ comfy for him,’ she said.

  As another midwife lifted the tubes and leads, Annie

  passed Leo slowly and carefully down into my arms for the

  first time ever. Euphoria came over me like a very good

  drug and my eyes prickled with tears. I stared down at his

  tiny little face.

  ‘I’m a real mum!’ I said. ‘I could sit here for a year.’

  I gazed love-struck and beaming, boobs bursting, milk

  leaking through my top.

  Back at our apartment later that morning, I was ecstatic.

  ‘I cuddled Leo! I cuddled Leo!’