Moonface (15 page)

Chapter Fourteen
The Learned Bird and the Brief Return of the Disappearing Bear

S
he is just like the bird in the dream, with her soft skin over the smallest bones, her lashless eyelids. My baby's hair is a luscious black. Damp with sweat and waxed against her delicate skull, it emerges from the center in a perfect swirl. And what movements she makes already, at two days old, at two pounds! She drops her jaw open in slow motion like remote-controlled dinosaurs in the movies. She sticks out her tongue to pesky onlookers. She sculpts imaginary clay with her fingers, twisting and turning her hands with deliberate ease.

I thought it would come naturally, but when I go to hold her or touch her in her isolette, the plastic enclosed crib that keeps her warm, I don't know what to do. One of the neonatal nurses, a woman who is younger than I am but surprisingly maternal, shows me how to touch my preemie: “Put a hand on her back and keep it still. If you move it back and forth across her body, it's too startling for her,” she says.

Holding her is even more awkward. She's so small, I'm afraid that she will slip through my arms. “Put her head against your chest, so she can feel your heart beating. It reminds her of the womb,” she says.

Charlie, whom I thought might be afraid of her tiny frame, does not miss his opportunity to hold her.

“My turn,” he says, after I have her for most of that evening. He pulls up one of the NICU rocking chairs and sings her an old folk song. He sings of an ocean full of storms, and a heaven that may not exist. “The world may lose its motion, love,” he sings, “if I prove false to thee.” Every time she stirs, he stops, holding his hand like a cap on the top of her head to reassure her. And there they sit—Charlie O”Doyle and his little bird, rocking the night away.

When Charlie fills out the application for the birth certificate, he writes the name we've decided on: Nico Carmen. It rings off his tongue when he says it. But when I see her, that name does not yet spring easily from my lips. Maybe because I've been afraid to utter it for so long, thinking that calling out her name before she was born might jinx her. When I look at her now in the flesh, I keep thinking of the baby bird Charlie held in my dream. “She's Birdie,” I tell Charlie.

Over the next few days, I should be resting and recovering after all the excitement of the delivery, but I can't stand being away from Birdie for too long. Charlie wheels me up to her during the day and we take turns rocking her in her chair, brushing our fingers against her face. Just after visiting hours are over, or even in the middle of the night, I walk up to the NICU myself in a robe and slippers just to hold her and to feel her head against my chest. She is tethered to her isolette by narrow tubes—a feed tube that goes through her nose, a tube that helps her breathe, and the tiniest blood pressure cuff I have ever seen that wraps around her leg. I cradle her in my arms, and we sit in the subdued light of the ward.

“Your baby is so beautiful!” the Silver Fox says when he comes into my room one morning. His mild, exotic cologne fills the air. “And she seems to be progressing nicely, no?”

He asks to see my wound, and I hold my gown up to my chin. In order to avoid running into the transplanted kidneys that flank my uterus, Princess Leia made a vertical C-section cut instead of the usual horizontal. Underneath some bloody gauze, there is a straight line from my belly button down to my pelvis.

“Hurt?” Silver Fox says as he presses around the outsides of my midriff, which is still bloated from the pregnancy and the surgery.

“No,” I say. “I can barely feel the wound at all.”

“Now, your creatinine is still high,” he says, “but that will take a few days to come down.” He nods his head and taps my leg lightly, dismissing any worry I might have. Not that I am too worried to begin with. The delivery was a circus, and for a while I didn't think we would make it. But now that the little bird is breathing and moving around outside of me, I know that everything is going to work out.

One night, on my way to the NICU, a nurse from my ward stops me in the hall and asks me if I want a wheelchair. I tell her I'll walk, but she insists that I use the chair, so I indulge her and relax as she pushes me upstairs. It's sometime past midnight when I put Birdie back in her isolette, but I don't bother to call the nurse for the return ride. As I make my way out of the NICU toward the elevator, the hall suddenly narrows and dark bubbles form around my line of vision. I feel faint and grab at the walls, feeling my way slowly back to my room.

“Are you all right?” the same nurse asks, as she rushes into my room and helps me into bed.

“I just got lightheaded for a second,” I tell her.

“It's no wonder,” she says, throwing her hands in the air. “Your hematocrit is low. You're anemic. I'm surprised you have the energy to walk.”

The anemia doesn't get better. It's so bad that the doctor orders me to have two blood transfusions, hoping that they will give my red blood cells a boost. I should be feeling tired and weak, but, at times, I feel like I am ready to run up to Birdie's bed and talk to her all night.

But my red blood cells don't pick up, and neither does my kidney function, as the Silver Fox had predicted. It creeps up to 2.2, which causes him to worry, so by that afternoon, a suited, cleanshaven nephrologist who seems more like a politician than a doctor looks over my complicated chart.

“I'm worried,” he says, looking up at me. And suddenly I am, too. “Your kidney is not coming back up to speed as quickly as we had hoped.” He suggests that I go back to the university hospital to get a biopsy done to see what's happening with the kidney, since there are no doctors who specialize in transplants here, and they don't really have the facilities to accommodate my complicated case. His plan seems prudent, but that would require my leaving Birdie at this hospital and getting admitted to the big one all the way downtown.

“It's only for a little while,” the nephrologist says when he sees my pout.

“Trust me. You don't want to get a kidney biopsy here.”

All the same, these first few days after she is born, I am so concerned with Birdie's growth and making sure all her parts are there and working that I almost forget about my own health. I keep thinking that as long as she is healthy, despite being born premature, everything else will fall into place, that my health will follow.

I tell Charlie that I know the kidney will come back, and he agrees, but it's being away from Birdie that hurts the most.

“Can we move her there with you?” he asks, which is an option, but she is getting such good care from the nurses at this smaller NICU. At the university hospital, she might get lost among all the special cases. Besides, I tell him, I'm afraid she is not yet ready to go out into the big world of roads, bikes, and trucks. “You're right,” he says. “It's scary out there.”

The night before I'm released, Charlie and I go up to the NICU to tell Birdie that I am leaving. Her tiny back is turned to us when we get there, as if she knows what is happening and is not pleased. Charlie and I watch as the nurses check on her, feeling through the armholes of the isolette to touch her. I wait patiently as they work on her.

Then I hold her on my lap as I sit in a rocking chair, her sweaty face stuck to my chest like a decal, and I tell Charlie that I don't think I could bear the idea of not being able to hold her.

“Won't she be looking for me?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he says, “she probably will. But I'll tell her where you are. It's only for a few days, until the kidney kicks back in. Think of it like you're the mama bear and you've got to leave the cave and forage for food. It's not just for your health; it's for hers, too.”

“I don't know,” I tell him. My heart feels like it's being stretched.

“She'll be waiting here after you take care of yourself. You don't want her to have a sick mom.”

“What if she thinks someone else is her mother?” I tell him. I

don't want anyone holding her but him and the nurses.

The next morning, as I say goodbye to her, a white note is taped to the cover of her isolette. “Only Mommy and Daddy can hold me. Thank you, Nico xoxo.” It's written in black Sharpie. I notice the softly rounded o's, and I think,
yes, her handwriting would have softly rounded o's.
Just like her eyes and the tips of her tiny toes, and her mouth when she opens it. I concentrate on all these parts of her body and burn their images into my memory before I leave.

Chapter Fifteen
A Very Spedal Dramatic Performance: The Worst Mother's Day in the History of the World

B
irdie was born in the middle of April, two months before she was supposed to arrive. And though our time in the hospital together was brief, I insist on trying to connect with her. I sit in my hospital room at night and try to send my vibes to her from all the way across town. They snake past the ghetto that surrounds the hospital where I stay, up 83 North, slowly along North Charles Street, and up the serpentine hill to the hospital where she is, straight into her crib. I don't know how much she senses these vibes, but I send them as best I can, at night, alone.

Charlie insists on keeping us connected, too. He videotapes her every night so I can see how she has grown. He records my voice on a small tape recorder and plays it to her as she sleeps. He tells me he has taken one of my shirts from home and has stuffed it around the edges of her crib so she can smell me there with her, so she knows who I am again. How sad, I think, for a child to need such tactics to recognize her mother. How sad for Charlie, too, whose schedule has been complicated by my unfortunate separation from Birdie. He is still working full-time amid all this, walking the dog in the mornings before riding to work downtown. Then he comes to see me at lunchtime with a new video of Birdie, goes back to work, walks the dog, then spends the evening holding Birdie against his chest and filming more footage of her. I live for those videos. I lift myself upright in bed and beg him for details about the girl on those days when he pops in to see me with sandwiches or with some lunch—what is she wearing? How much did she eat? How much does she weigh today?

Our visits are usually interrupted by one of the nurses checking in. “How would you rate your pain today?” she asks. With a quick survey of my body, I tell her, “A one.”

“So nothing for pain?”

“Not right now.”

“Use the call button if you need me.”

“What is wrong with you?” Charlie whispers to me just as she closes the door behind her.

“What?”

“You should never refuse pain meds.” Charlie and I have been known to enjoy the occasional pain medications, but only after medical procedures. Sometimes, we try to space out the prescriptions for days so that we can have a few to relax even after there is no pain. Innocent outlaws, we are. Or not even.

“I'm trying to get out of here. They're not going to let me out of here if they still think I'm in pain.”

The biopsy shows that my kidney is suffering from an acute rejection, most likely caused by the pregnancy. “This is a good thing!” the attending doctor, a tall and imposing figure with dark hair and smart-looking neckties, says as he makes rounds one morning, bringing a whole class of young students with him. They circle my bed and nod in agreement. “That means it's reversible!” They want to start me on a course of Thymoglobulin, a drug to help fight the rejection.

“How long will it take?” I ask them.

“At least a week, maybe two,” the attending doctor says.

“I have a baby to go home to,” I remind them.

I pull him aside and make a plea after the students leave: I can't lose this kidney.

“It's special, you know,” I tell him. “It's from my husband.”

“You won't,” he says. I don't really feel like I will, especially after they find that the rejection is acute. But I feel like I should tell them that I won't give it up. Just so they know.

It's the day before Mother's Day. My mother, who has been here since the day after Birdie was born, cannot stand the idea of my being away from my girl. She approaches one of my doctors and asks if she could kindly sneak me out of the hospital for a few hours on Sunday. “She needs to see her baby,” she pleads in the hallway while doctors make their rounds. A short Asian resident with a slight lisp tells her he'll grant me a pass for a few hours to spend with her on Mother's Day. But just a few hours.

I was so afraid for Birdie when she was born. What could she do at two pounds? Did I bring her into this world at a disadvantage? I was afraid she wouldn't be healthy enough to make her milestones, that she would lag behind because of her prematurity. I never thought that I would be the one missing out on her important moments. Or mine. Or ours together. As selfish as it sounds, I just didn't think that they would go on without me: her first bottle feeding, her first time taking a bath. I didn't want to think about her first Mother's Day without my being there.

“I've got to get out of here,” I tell Charlie. “Because I am really afraid of missing everything. All of it. Her life.”

“Don't worry,” he says. “You'll see her tomorrow. The two of you can catch up then.”

On Sunday morning, my mother arrives early and washes my hair. She brings me a fresh shirt and pants that are easy to slip into. I'm just about ready when a nurse comes in to take my vitals. She looks at the thermometer and shakes her head, and I know immediately that my temperature is high and that I'm not going anywhere. I feel terrible for that small Asian doctor with a lisp, for he is the one who comes in to tell me the news. And he is the one who gets the evil looks from my mother and me—the ones that must bore into his soul like railroad spikes.

“
Permission denied!
” I tell Charlie over the phone, trying to sound authoritative and cruel, trying desperately to laugh through it. But Charlie knows.

“Oh, baby,” he says, and when he does, the tears come flooding out, and I can barely respond to him on the phone. I can only eke out frustrating grunts and deep inhalations. “I'll be there as soon as I can,” he says.

I beg my mother to leave so she can be with birdie since I can't. But I just want to be by myself. A heavyset nurse hears me sobbing from the hall and stands silently in the doorway. She comes into my room smelling like she's just come back from a smoke break and pretends to be checking the monitors above my bed.

“Are you in a lot of pain?” she asks.

I nod. “It's my baby,” I tell her. “She's so far away.” Inhaling deeply, I hoist myself upright and try to find my composure.

“How would you rate your pain on a scale of one to ten?”

“Ten,” I say, my nose runny and snotty. I pull the sheet up from my chest.

“Okay,” she says, “let's see if the doctors have ordered anything for the pain.”

It is the worst pain I have ever felt. It hurts. It hurts all over. It hurts to breathe, like someone is constricting my throat. What is this pain and where does it come from? It feels like someone has taken away part of me or taken away my skin so that everything I touch—the bed, the pillow, even the air—makes my body hurt.

When the nurse comes back, she has an order of Dilaudid in a syringe.

“Just relax,” she says, pushing the needle through my IV. Instantly, I feel the medicine rush over my shoulders, making them relax and fall. The calm radiates through my body. It is relief, like I have entered a different world, a different day than this one.

“Were you crying?” Charlie says when he comes in. I don't even know he's there until he speaks.

I lift up slowly to see him and think I am slurring my speech when I say, “Yeah, but I feel better. The nurse gave me a shot.”

“Was your stomach hurting?”

“Yeah, duuuude,” I say. I think I am smiling.

Charlie laughs. “All right, girl,” he says, realizing the state I'm in. “Take it easy. I'll be right here.” He sits back and eases into the chair.