8 Weeks

Anthony was born at 29 weeks of age. He weighed in at just over 3 lbs. I distinctly recall the first time I was allowed to see him. He was in the NICU by then, safe in his incubator. But I remember thinking immediately that he looked very much like a small bird, and I was terrified. I didn't show it. Stiff upper lip and all that. But on the inside I was torn by my joy at being a father, hedged as it was against the very real chance my son could die before I even held him. I remember thinking that if I reached into the incubator port hole to touch him that I might hurt him, and right about then is when I touched his hand and one of the most amazing moments of my life occurred.

His little hand grabbed my thumb and held tight. It was as if he was saying, from the start, not to give up on him. I never have since.

That was the first day of what would be an eight week adventure. There would be feeding problems and sleep apnea, fear of brain bleeds and a whole host of other issues that the doctors were obliged to warn us were a possibility. The NICU is not a place of promises. As an outsider it is hard at first, becoming inoculated to all the medical terminology is difficult enough without also getting a crash course in the emotional neutrality that I guess a career in medicine requires. But you learn to not begrudge them the distance they need to do their jobs properly, even if the patient in question is your own child.

My wife remained at the original hospital where the birth had taken place. The insurance company would not approve her transfer to the new hospital, nor take responsibility for any charges that would take place if we forced a transfer. Amazingly enough, they had deemed the notion of my nearly crippled wife being with her twenty-nine week old preemie as not being "medically necessary". The actuaries that make such decisions either must no have mothers, or are childless, because no matter how many decimal points you carry to justify such a policy, there is simply no mathematical reasoning to substitute for human decency. So my wife and son remained separated for three weeks, until my wife was discharged. Until then we brought photos of baby Anthony to her hospital room to help her produce breast milk, which we then transported in iced zip lock bags across town to the NICU.

My mother-in-law practically moved into our home then, and we struck a sort of silent deal. She would watch over her baby, and I would watch over mine. We also agreed that she would cook a lot, and I would eat what she cooked. I still have the extra ten pounds to prove it. We actually rotated between hospitals throughout the day, three times. No one would be left without company for long, be it Maxime in her desperate solitude or Anthony in his desperate situation.

And so it went until my wife was discharged. She, of course, demanded to be taken to Anthony immediately, even if she could barely move or get into or out of a wheelchair. By then it was apparent that the very same fibroids that had cramped Anthony's development were now making it nearly impossible for her uterus to heal from the c-sections. But when she finally was wheeled up next to Anthony there was no mistaking the magic of the moment. The nurses removed him from the incubator and placed him in her arms, and Anthony slept peacefully as his mother wept silently.

Anthony slowly progressed. There were no brain bleeds and he was weened of oxygen slowly. His bouts with sleep apnea were pervasive for almost a month, but finally his brain learned to keep those lungs pumping, even in the depths of his sleep. He had one eye that was turned in, the early signs of strabismus. Beyond that, it seemed that he was fine.

Finally, eight weeks after his birth, Anthony came home. We placed him in his car seat on the front porch of our house and snapped a photo.

It was as if he had summited Everest.