Finn was born at 7:59pm on July 29th 2015. He died at 9:10 pm on August 10th, 2015. He lived for 12 days, 289 hours. The Captain was born on May 25th at 4:11 am. He was 290 hours old on Monday, June 6th at 6:11 am. I had no reason to believe B would not make it well beyond his 290th hour of life, but my only experience with a baby is one who dies, so part of me continues to wait for some inevitable bad news that will eventually lead to “fetal demise” as is so eloquently put on my obstetrics record.
I have to keep pointing out differences between my son’s NICU stays in my head. It calms the anxiety. It helps if I plan things beyond that 290th hour of his life, but I don’t think the anxiety will dissipate until we go home, and even then I suspect I will find other things to become anxious about. My reality will always be that my children can die at any moment, and for the rest of my life I will struggle to temper that fear. I will always have a heightened sense of what can happen. Things don’t happen to other people. They happen to my children, my family. But it also means I will appreciate life more, I will appreciate every single sleepless night, projectile poo, blowout, terrible twos, etc. because Finn will never have those moments, and in a flash something completely out of your control could take all those moments away.
The strange thing is I know B will be ok. There are times in our lives when we just intrinsically know things. I can think of a couple of these moments. On the morning of May 5th 1990, I knew as soon as I walked into my mom’s room she was dead. I was 9 and the stillness of the room was eerie even at that age. I knew my life had changed irrevocably without me really being an active participate in that change. When I was 20 I sat on a bus in Athens headed to Syntagama Square, during my study abroad semester, and I knew I was going to marry the Admiral and spend the rest of my life with him. Granted I had only been dating the Admiral for less than a year this point, but I just knew. When I was 35 and I looked at my son on Friday August 7th, I knew he wasn’t long for this world. I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but I knew. And it’s the same with B. I look at him and I know he will be ok, but I don’t want to acknowledge it fully because part of me is still so afraid I will lose him.
The doctors say he’s doing well with an upward trajectory I know he will be coming home sometime in July. I can make plans and be hopeful, but I still can’t shake this nagging feeling that something will go wrong. I hope, I hope beyond hope, that as I move away from day 12 as B has 300 hours, 500 hours of life, as we leave the special care nursery, as I begin to know my son’s personality and cues more, that I will move beyond the fear, and the guilt I feel for having that fear, and just love my little boy and be grateful and appreciate every single second of his life.
Captain Brennan 