Fini!

by Alexa on February 21, 2008

This morning we were roused by a phone call from the NICU—there had been a cancellation, and they were moving Simone’s surgery up to, like, NOW. How soon could we get to the hospital?
“How does a baby cancel surgery anyway?” grumbled my husband as he stumbled into his clothes.

We arrived just in time to meet the surgical team, and I don’t know if the fact that the surgeon resembled a young Mr. Clooney had any medical relevance, but it seemed to help somehow, or at least kept me from leaping at him—dry, claw-like NICU-hands balled up in fury—when he reminded me that the structure of the ductus is unstable and occasionally it will bleed madly during surgery and kill its host baby.

They disconnected Simone’s ventilator and someone from anesthesia bagged her as they rolled her isolette, IVs, and an oxygen tank away from me and towards the operating room. I trailed after them down the hallway like a bloated, weepy puppy, and then I stood still and watched as they turned the corner with my tiny girl in her bulky plastic bubble. A passing nurse asked if she could help me and I pointed after the last blue scrub hat disappearing around the corner and started to sob.

But fifty minutes later Simone was back. The operation had gone beautifully, and she was sleeping more peacefully than I had ever seen before—this entirely due to the vast quantities of Fentanyl sluicing through her system. She remained passed out like a wee frat boy for the rest of the day, forgoing her usual irritated vertical leg waggling during diaper changes, preferring instead to let her lower appendages flop uselessly back to the mattress the moment I released her ankles. She held her ET tube in one curled hand and her hair stuck up in the back and were it not for the ventilator, I am certain we could have heard her snoring.

When we left this evening they had just turned her over, back onto the cloth I had slept with to leave her my scent—a no-doubt intoxicating mix of breastmilk, post-partum night sweat, and fear—and the nurse was reshaping her ear, which had crumpled into a ball from where she had slept on it. Preemie ears do not have cartilage yet, and can be folded up upon themselves and then smoothed back into a more human shape. I reminded myself that it would be wrong to take advantage of Simone’s altered state in order to pinch her ears into elfin points and take pictures.

I am so lucky to have this strange new creature to care for. I cannot wait for tomorrow.

Fini!

I Wrote This.

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