The Upside of Down (2 page)

Because of the holiday, and our tendency towards last-minute-ness, we haven't managed to shop for the baby clothes, cot, pram or car seat, nor have we started converting our office into the baby's room. It's still housing a desk, filing cabinet and old boxes. As for names, there isn't even a shortlist.

‘Are you going to the cricket tonight?' asks a red-headed nurse to someone behind her as she enters our room, passing by the end of my bed and stopping with her hand resting lightly on my foot. ‘Susan, I'm just going to put the monitor back on, okay?' I nod in reply. Just then a contraction hits and the nurse dissolves from my view as I focus on the progression of the second hand on the wall clock. Five, ten, fifteen seconds. Breathe. Twenty, twenty-five. As the jolt fades, the nurses' conversation breaks in again.

‘Rick is trying to get me to go with him to the cricket but, my God, how much of it can you take in one summer? So I said to him, “What about going to the movies instead.
Apollo 13
is just out and I thought both of us might like that.”'

‘Yeah, so what did he say?'

‘Oh, you know that whining-boy-tone, “But the cricket season is only here for such a short time …”'

‘They always say that. But as soon as cricket is over it's time for rugby season!'

‘Exactly.'

The nurses are kind, though, like the doctor, appear disturbingly underage. And their bedside chatter is unsettling, so far removed from the forever nature of the responsibilities about to descend on us. I thought I had heard all of the hard-core tales of parenting, but mostly they warned of disturbed sleep and vomit on your best blue blouse, not babies calling the shots on when to arrive.

One of the nurses offers to take Darryl upstairs to the Neonatal Unit. I watch as my normally oh-so-relaxed husband mutely follows her out of the room. I can see that he's trying to digest the news of his looming fatherhood, chewing on it, forcing it down, like swallowing tough meat. Upstairs she points out babies of similar size to what ours might be. After twenty minutes in the Neonates, he returns with little to report.

‘Well, what was it like?' I prod, after he sits down and picks up the remnants of the morning newspaper.

‘Hot.'

‘Hot? What was hot?'

‘The Neonatal Unit. Apparently they have to keep it warm because the babies can struggle to maintain their body temperature.'

‘Did the babies look, you know, okay?'

‘Yeah, fine. But small. Very small.'

A short time later Kevin and Grant turn up with an enormous armful of flowers and broad grins. We had left them just a day earlier after a Mexican dinner, none of us expecting this. Grant was meant to be driving north to Auckland this morning and then flying home to New York; Kevin ought to be at work. Instead they're here to welcome the first of the family's next generation and their lightheartedness is just what we need. As they arrive I have just had an epidural and am, well, pleasant again. Darryl describes me as ‘transformed'.

Hours pass relatively uneventfully as we wait for the labour to get into gear. By midday the brothers have called half the population of New Zealand—not that difficult really—to say we'll be having a baby today. Grant and Kevin are both single, globe-trotting twenty-somethings. After our wedding Kevin had managed to find work in the Bay Area, loitering around us much of our first year of marriage. He then moved to London the same time we did and lived with us for over a year. Coincidentally, when we moved to New Zealand a year ago he also took a job in Wellington, arriving a few days before us. It's beginning to feel like we're being tagged by Interpol. Grant, who also lived in London when we did, is now settled in a banking job in New York.

Though neither of them are anywhere near having kids of their own, they're giddy with excitement. I feel less panicked with them here to help us—as though a bigger support crew will somehow sort out our baby's prematurity. While we wait, the three brothers amuse themselves reciting comments they've heard dads should avoid during childbirth. ‘Oops! Which cord was I supposed to cut?' And, ‘If you think this hurts, I'll tell you about the time I got hit in the shin with a cricket ball … Oh man, now
that
hurt.'

As I lie prone on the bed, monitors watching the baby's key statistics, the young medical team comes and goes, sprinkling into each conversation more complications premature babies can face.
Breathe, calm, don't panic
. I replay my mantras from the car trip, trying to calm myself. My midwife warns us that our child might not come home from the hospital for weeks or possibly months. Months! Luckily our house is only ten minutes up the road, out along the coast in a suburb called Island Bay, but still, how would we manage months here? Piece by piece I watch as the image of normalcy, good health and ease which I have tried to build up over the pregnancy is dismantled.

Eventually the medical team decides my labour has progressed enough—either that or they're just tired of the Biggar clan jokes—and we're moved into the delivery room. Kevin takes up the offer to join us for the birth but Grant declines, a panicked look flashing across his eyes. ‘I'll call the family once the baby comes,' he adds, heading rapidly back down the hall towards the nurses' station.

And then, he is here. And he's a boy. And it doesn't seem so bad that he turned up early and without a name or a pram. When the nurse hands him to me he's wrapped up so tightly in a soft white blanket he looks like a little pupa, like I have given birth to a tiny caterpillar. As sweet as he is, he's also not pink enough, so after a rushed photo he's swept upstairs to his new home. We are left exhausted and relieved.

***

Later that afternoon my bed is wheeled into the Neonatal Unit. I'm taken aback by the harsh sterility of the room. And by the intensity of the mood; some of these babies appear to be gingerly balanced on the cusp between life and death. Incubators line both walls. Tubes and wires emerge from the tiniest human beings I have ever seen, with the smallest ones looking like they could literally curl up and nap in my hand. My midwife, Karen, steers my bed towards the far corner of the room, squeezing it alongside a large metal table.

A skinny naked baby is strapped to the table, toothpick arms out to his sides, crucifix-style, while large yellow globes shine down on him. He's wearing miniature eye patches. A nurse in scrubs and a mask leans over the table, peering intently, as though conducting an experiment. ‘Is that him?' I ask, looking up at Karen. She nods. ‘Why is he … like that?'

‘He is jaundiced, so he needs as much exposure as possible to the lights. Phototherapy is a very common and successful treatment.' The nurse moves away from the table as Karen pushes me closer. ‘Go ahead, you can touch him.'

I extend my arm, lightly stroking his soft skull which is covered with a dusting of reddish fluff. He is crushingly beautiful. I notice the tiny wristband simply says ‘Baby of Susan.' It will be two weeks, and much discussion, before the wording on his incubator, wrist and ankle bands is changed and we finally agree that he will be Aidan.

The days that follow in Neonates are interminable. Darryl has gone back to his job as an economist at the New Zealand Treasury, just a five minute drive from the hospital on his motorcycle. He visits at lunch, after work and on the weekends. Still an inpatient myself, I am down at Aidan's side by about eight in the morning and stay there until bedtime. Once his jaundice improves he is moved from the open tray-table to an incubator.

As a little girl I could change my doll's nappy like an expert. But now after twenty minutes, half a box of wet wipes and two fingers pricked by safety pins, I turn my new baby's tiny wriggling bottom over to the 22-year-old nurse and wipe away tears of inadequacy. The nurses stride past his incubator, efficient and skilled. I am forever hopping out of their way, intimidated by the machines, unnerved by my total lack of know-how. Whoever said that mothering comes naturally hasn't tried setting up the relationship with two nurses, a chorus of beeps and an Air Shields C450 Infant Incubator in attendance.

Weighing in at just over two kilograms, Aidan turns out to be a heavyweight in the unit, where birth weights below one kilo are common. Despite his relatively large size, when I pick him up he feels fragile, as though my clumsy hands might break this new life into hundreds of tiny fragments if I accidentally squeeze too tightly. When it's time to eat he wakes, drinks about a thimble of milk, and then glances up with his sweet blue eyes, tossing a satisfied look in my direction before dozing off to sleep. The plan is to keep him awake to feed longer, so I rub his twiggy arms and gently pinch his cheeks, feeling like a criminal for disturbing his contented sleep. The eyelids open momentarily before slowly drifting back down, heavy and lethargic as though he's recovering from a big night out. I stare at the gently breathing body in my arms: Is this how life with a premature baby will be? The baby books all suggested we'd be teaching our newborn to count sheep but instead we may be pumping him full of double-shot espressos.

I try to read or wander down to the parents' kitchen and lounge where other vacant, fatigued parents congregate. The mothers wander from the kitchen back to the nursery dressed in sloppy tracksuit pants or some, those just post-birth, in bathrobes or pyjamas. After the first few days I begin avoiding the room altogether so I'm not constantly forced to replay the statistics that confined us to this place. How early? What weight? When are you going home? The day I am discharged from the hospital, when Aidan's about one week old, is achingly sad. I give my new son a kiss on his forehead, pick up my suitcase and go home.

About ten days after the birth, I bump into Karen in the hospital corridor.

‘Susan, I have been trying to catch you for days,' she scolds lightly. ‘You never answer your phone at home.'

‘No, I do. It's just that I've been in the Neonates about twelve hours a day.'

‘Have you taken a look in the mirror lately? Your eyes are sunken … you look terrible. You know it's essential that you take good care of yourself, get plenty to eat and …' My attention wanes as she rattles on about nutritional drinks and relaxation methods. There may be sense in what she's saying but right now it feels about as comprehensible as a translatedfrom-Chinese appliance manual. I find it impossible to imagine whizzing up carrot juice slushies and running hot baths when my itsy bitsy offspring can't even slug back a capful of milk without needing recovery time.

I have spent thirty-one years worrying almost exclusively about me: exam scores, jobs, sporting success, even the profile of my butt in jeans. And now here I am, torn to pieces by this two-kilo package. I'm surprised by this change of focus, this selflessness. It's not planned or contrived, it's just suddenly there, attached to me the way my leg is jammed on to my hip.

‘Yeah, okay, thanks for that.' I wave weakly and try to continue past her, towards the Neonates. ‘I have to go now, but I'll keep it in mind.'

‘Hold on!' reaching her arm out in front of me. ‘I'm not done yet. We still have several more issues to discuss.'

‘Oh, sorry. What are they?'

‘Are you still having any bleeding?' I contemplate trying to avoid the question, but can't muster up the creativity, so I nod in reply. ‘How much? Is it a lot?' she asks.

‘Um, I'm not sure, but I think I'm fine.' I have neither the time nor the energy to be ill, focusing all of my energy on Aidan's improvement. After a few more questions she herds me into an examination room and calls a doctor. Later that afternoon I'm sent to the operating room to have my womb vacuumed and tidied up—like it's my lounge room—with the bits of placenta, accidentally left behind, removed.

My parents arrive from California to support us when Aidan's about two-and-a-half weeks old. Despite the fact that I have lived overseas in Germany, the UK and New Zealand, my mom and dad have managed to remain ‘in the picture', partly because my mom's career as a travel agent allows them to hop on planes easily. They arrive bearing stacks of miniature outfits with lentil-size snaps and buttons, like something out of Barbie and Ken's wardrobe. They ‘ooh and ah' at their fifth grandchild—like he was the first and only—focusing on his cobalt eyes and dainty fingers, ignoring the skin-and-bones appearance. My mom is bursting with energy, anxious to be of help, and nearly unstoppable once she sees the disaster of our house, piled with weeks of laundry, unpacked holiday suitcases and bare fridge. My dad will tackle any job on the list; the evening I return home to find him battling Wellington's cyclonic winds to hang the Barbie doll clothes on the line, I'm emotionally undone by the sight. The two of them help me shop for a changing table and cot, set up Aidan's room, buy a pram. Then we wait.

But he doesn't come home.

A few days after they arrive, Aidan's sent to the ICU with confusing symptoms. Something's not right. Several days later we're woken by a call in the depths of the night. I scrabble around for the phone, reaching over Darryl's unmoving body, with the cold dread that accompanies middle-of-thenight calls.

‘Hello. Is that Mrs Biggar? I am the registrar in the ICU.'

‘Oh, yeah, hello. Is everything okay?'

‘Yes, sort of. At this stage it's nothing to worry about, but I'm just calling to let you know that we have some suspicions that Aidan might have meningitis.'

I don't know what to say. Panic fills the cavity in my chest, rushing in like water filling a tub. I elbow Darryl firmly in the temple to wake him. We huddle over the phone, drawn towards it for information but deterred by its potential to give bad news. The registrar continues.

‘So, we are going to do a lumbar puncture on him now. There's no need to worry or to come in to the hospital, but we just thought we should inform you and your husband. So, yeah, no need to worry. We'll let you know how it goes when we see you in the morning.'