~ ~ ~

 

SITTING ON THE couch, holding Laci as she sobbed, I started to get really concerned about her – she was pretty much hysterical. My first thought was that it couldn’t be good for the baby for her to get so upset, but then I caught myself and just worried about Laci. Dr. Sedevick finally came into the office and asked if we were ready to head over to the hospital.

“Can you . . . can you give her something?” I asked. “Something to calm her down?”

Dr. Sedevick shook her head.

“I’m hesitant to give her anything that might compromise her ability to assist with labor . . .”

Assist with labor?

I don’t know what I’d thought was going to happen when we got to that hospital, but not until right then did I realized that Laci was still going to have to go through the entire birthing process, just as if Gabby were still alive.

How?

How was she ever going to do that?

 

 

 

How she was able to do that (it turns out) is that they broke her water and pumped Pitocin into her veins until her body was wracked with such painful contractions that she couldn’t not push and she screamed and cried with pain and grief.

Of course, when Gabby was finally born I was hoping that the doctor’s instruments had been wrong and that it had all been a big mistake, and that Gabby would let out a lusty cry and prove to everybody what a strong and healthy little girl she really was and how everybody had been wrong about her.

But it was silent in the room when she was born.

Absolutely silent.

The only sound was a nurse announcing the time of her birth: 7:34 p.m. It was just after that that Laci, mercifully, finally fell asleep.

 

 

 

They wheeled Laci into a regular room – away from the maternity ward where all the other mommies were with their babies and their flowers and their balloons. Laci woke up in the middle of the night when a nurse came in to check on her. I had fallen asleep too, seated in a chair with my head on Laci’s hospital bed, near her shoulder. I woke up when she did.

“Please tell me this is all a bad dream,” she whispered to me and I pressed my face into her hair, against her neck and pillow.

The nurse looked at us both.

“When you lose a baby,” she said, “you need a chance to say goodbye. We have her all ready for you to see . . . I can bring her in whenever you’d like.”

I was very surprised. I’d caught a glimpse of Gabby after she’d been born and I didn’t know I’d get to see her again. Laci, however, didn’t seem surprised at all.

“Now,” Laci said. “I want to see her right now please.”

The nurse nodded and left the room.

“I just want to see her,” Laci sobbed. “I just want to see her.”

I stroked her hair and she kept crying until the nurse came back into the room.

Gabby was wrapped up in a soft, white blanket with only her face showing. Laci reached up and took her from the nurse and the nurse left us alone with our baby. Laci stroked Gabby’s face with her fingertip and kissed her nose and forehead. She talked to Gabby and lifted the blanket from the top of her head.

“Look at her hair, David,” Laci said to me. “Look at her hair.”

I looked. It seemed freshly washed and was the same color as Laci’s.

“Look how much hair she has,” Laci said, almost in awe. “I can’t believe how much hair she has.”

I leaned over and kissed Gabby’s hair. It smelled clean too. I wondered whose job it was to make sure that little babies who had died looked and smelled nice for their parents who had to say goodbye before they’d even said hello.

“Do you want to hold her?”

I took Gabby from Laci and sat on the edge of the bed with her. It was too much for me to stand.

I looked at her little face and was mesmerized by her lips. I couldn’t believe how perfectly shaped they were. There was a tiny little mark on her upper lip and I knew it was a blister from sucking her thumb. I couldn’t get over how perfect her lips were. I traced them with my fingertip.

I pulled the blanket back and took one of her hands between my fingers. I laid my index finger under her hand – against her palm – and used my thumb to wrap her fingers around mine. Her fingers were perfect too.

After a while I kissed her perfect little lips and gave her back to her mother. I’m not sure how long we had her before the nurse came in and took her away from us, but the moment that she left with Gabby was the worst moment of all.

 

 

 

Before Laci was discharged from the hospital, I talked with the pediatrician who had examined Gabby after she was born. I wanted to know – medically – why she had died.

“She had an umbilical cord anomaly,” he told me. “She basically wasn’t getting the nutrients that she needed.”

Laci had spent almost a year traipsing to the landfill to feed hungry kids. The irony of this was not lost on me.

“There’s nothing that could have been done to prevent it,” he added.

I nodded, wondering why everybody always thought the fact that nothing could have been done to prevent it was somehow supposed to make it better.