February 5, 2014

“There was a star danced, and under that you were born.”

                                                            William Shakespeare

It’s the same bitter cold weather as it was 13 years ago, but I was barely aware of the snow on the ground or the winter chill.  I was inside all day, in a room with long rectangle windows high up close to the ceiling telling me if it was night or day, but not the weather.  I sat between them – Olivia’s incubator on my left, Jack’s on my right – two tiny babies, so small that the preemie hats they wore looked many sizes too big.  At the end of each incubator was an index card – a pink one with “STANTON A, 1530 grams” written on it and a blue one with “STANTON B, 1598 grams” written on it.  Tiny arm bands encircled each tiny wrist.  I could only hold them for short periods of time before they would have to go back into their incubators as they were not able to maintain their body temperature on their own yet.  I held each separately at first, entranced by them, my wee babies.  Olivia had white fuzzy hair.  Jack had only a hint of hair, but it was also white.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.

Jack, Olivia & Me in the NICU

It was as if time stood still during those 32 days Jack and Olivia were in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit).  It was like holding my breath.  Fear and joy mixed together every time I pressed the button to gain entrance into the NICU outer room.  Scrub brushes and special soap for the 2 minute scrub of my hands – skin red and raw, knuckles cracked and bleeding after 32 days of washing.  Then the sterile gown and shoe covers before pressing another button to be allowed into the nursery, saying hello to the ward clerk, knowing everyone’s name by now – passing through the A nursery, where babies who were close to being discharged were in their bassinets.  Then through another door to the B nursery, where babies needing more care were crying or sleeping, various IV’s and machines beeping and buzzing.  This is where Jack and Olivia were.  I could put my hands through the holes, touch them, rub their tiny feet, watch them squeeze the tip of my finger with their whole hand, but I would have to wait to pick them up – wait until a nurse got them out and handed them to me, wait if they had just been out having a bath.  Wait.  It seemed interminable.  The urge, the need to pick them up was so strong.  Interminable.  Time seemed to crawl slowly on.  Days and days in the NICU.  Days they weren’t home, lying next to me.  Interminable.  It’s all so clear in my mind – so real I can close my eyes and see it all, hear the machines, the noise of the babies and nurses.  As if it were yesterday.  But yesterday was their 13th birthday.   My tiny babies. Now beautiful.  Now walking to school on their own, out to lunch on their own, yesterday donning justice robes in a mock trial at the Brooklyn County Court House where their social studies classes went after studying the Constitution.  My babies.  And now time seems to be speeding by, flying past.  But I want to slow it down, relish each moment – slow down time the way it felt when I sat gazing at them in their incubators 13 years ago.