Awakening

In hindsight, it all happened quickly.

‘She’s here, a beautiful baby girl.’ Mum is making phone calls.

We are back in the ward. Mum and I are alone. I am lying on the bed feeling confused, hooked up to drips; numb from the surgery; wishing I could move my legs and wondering where my baby was.

‘She will be back soon enough’, Mum sighs happily sensing my unease. She bends back over the list of phone numbers. My eyes are getting heavy.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, ‘wake up love’. My eyes open and I see the room is now crowded with doctors, nurses. They have my baby.

She is handed to me. My first embrace, I lean into her and rest my cheek on hers. She is sleeping, still, content.

The doctors look uneasy, like they want to be anywhere but in my room. ‘There is something we need to tell you’.

My heart skips a beat and my fingers clench. Something is wrong.

‘We think your daughter has Down syndrome’.

Silence. Then a small whimper echoes around the room, I realise it has come from me. My body is suddenly stone cold and sweat tingles my forehead.

I open my mouth and nothing comes out. I catch Mum’s eye at the end of my bed she looks bad, white, like she might faint. Chris squeezes my hand so hard my fingertips go numb. He is standing there looking winded, like he can’t catch his breath.

It’s a mistake. I turn my eyes to my new daughter in my arms, she suddenly feels foreign to me, like a heavy weight.

My body starts to shake and she is taken from my tight grasp. I am unaware of what is happening around me. My eyes dart left to right. I want to sit up but my body is still paralysed from the anaesthetic.

People are talking but I can’t hear what they are saying. I feel like I am under water.

It’s been just over one hour since her birth. I can still feel her tiny body inside mine, our bodies one. My love for her had pulsed through my veins and into hers. How I was aching to meet her, my beautiful perfect daughter.

We are left alone.

I try to say something but a long low groan is the only thing that escapes my throat. ‘No’, my voice rises with panic. ‘No, wait, hold on!’ I am drowning. I can feel waves of nausea hitting me. I need to cry, scream.

‘I need her’, I shout to them. Chris reaches down to pick her up. ‘No!’ I shout louder, ‘I need MY baby, where is my baby?’ I am frantic. I have lost control.

I see Mum in slow motion, walking towards me. She reaches down and folds me into her arms holding me. I can feel her tears; feel her body shake with sobs.

‘Is this really happening’ I whisper. The tears start.

We are waiting. 48 hours it takes to tell us if our daughter has a lifetime of disability. It is unbearable.

I’m sitting on the side of my bed. The clock that I packed in my carefully planned hospital bag sits on my bedside table. It ticks, ticks, ticks away the minutes. I am counting each tick. My whole body is aware of the countdown to the result.

A ‘no visitor, no phone call’ rule is in place. We have been quarantined through grief. Still, people come. My best friend comes rushing to my bed after a hysterical late night phone call, “Somethings wrong, come, come”.

My Aunt comes daily. She lies on the bed next to me for hours, not needing me to speak. Loving my daughter. Loving me.

My Mum holds a constant vigil over me, while holding herself together enough to look after my twins. I know her heart is breaking too.

It’s been hours, maybe days. Time means nothing to me anymore.

‘Are you going to take any phone calls?’, Chris asks me again, ‘so many people want to talk to you’, he talks softly. I lie on the double bed in the new hospital room we have been moved too, now that our situation is so ‘delicate’.

‘I can’t’. I turn my face away; she is feeding. I stroke her head, her face. She is so tiny, so beautiful. ‘I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to say it’.

He doesn’t push. He is being strong, brave. I envy his sense of composure. When he looks at our baby, he only sees love.

Not long to wait now. Today. Maybe tomorrow. I want to know, I don’t want to know.

It’s time. Almost exactly 48 hours, as promised.

The door opens and the doctor walks in. He asks everyone else in the room to leave and I know. I look at his face. He doesn’t have to say it. I fall to my knees as my legs buckle and Chris quietly picks me up and sits me on the chair, a hand rests on my back holding me steady.

It’s confirmed. Our baby is no longer just a baby; she is a baby with a label. Mosaic Down Syndrome. She will carry this label with her for the rest of her life.

A nurse comes in carrying an armload of folders. ‘Here are some things for you to read’, she says putting the pile down with a thud.

For hours the pile of folders torment me. I open one and torture myself with statistics, stories, graphs, outcomes, and timelines. I can’t do it; I slam the cover down and throw it across the room. I’m a grown woman. I am a mother. But I can’t let this be real. If I read anything or if I speak the words out loud, it will become real.

Still, I go through the motions. I breastfeed every 3 hours and express in between. I change her nappy; I give her baths; I hold her tightly while she gets her heel pricked. I am trying to be a mother.

Mostly though I lay unable, unwilling to move from the hospital bed. ‘What can I do for you’ I’m asked. Make this go away I want to scream. Fresh tears overflowing with panic swallow me without notice. All I feel is anguish, all I feel is loss, and all I feel is terrified.

Another day passes. Minutes continue to tick by slowly, agonisingly.

Her face is soft and smooth. Her cheeks are perfectly curved. Her beautiful mouth is fat and pouted. She has a little button nose that looks like mine. Her hair is blonde. She has piercing beautiful blue eyes that slant faintly up in a faultless almond shape. Her tiny body is perfect, ten little fingers and ten little toes.

I watch her as she sleeps in her crib, unaware of the world. I pour over her every detail, breathing it in. My heart aches. I am desperate to love her. My thoughts. My fears. My horror. I’ve never hated anything more than I hated myself at that moment.

My whole world as I know it, is collapsing around me.

Nurses come in and out of my room, not to check on me, but to check out the Mosaic Down Syndrome baby in Room 16. Some don’t even look my way, just walk in, over to the crib, have a peek. ‘We don’t get many of these here’ one tells me, pulling down the blanket to have a better look.

‘She’s just my baby,’ I whisper back, turning away from them.

I hear two beautifully familiar voices coming from the hallway. My four year old twin daughters burst into my room. I open my arms and they come running. They call to me, ‘Let us go, we want our baby!’. They scramble to get out of my vice-like grip; but it’s so hard to let them go. They hold and kiss their new sister. They are in love. It is instant and obvious. All they see is perfection. Chris tells them it’s time to go. I feel sick, why do they have to leave; they are my only sanity. Everything was so perfect. I squeeze them goodbye. ‘I love you’ I call to them. My heart feels flat and vacant.

We are alone, lying together on the hospital bed. I softly, gently caress her skin. As my tears fall one by one onto her tiny body, my heart starts to beat slower. Her tiny fingers clasp around mine, holding me tight.

It is all backwards, my newborn baby is holding me as if to comfort, telling me it will be okay. ‘My sweet girl’, I whisper to her, ‘I love you but I’m so scared’.

She looks up at me. Her eyes locked on mine still wet from tears. Her whole face smiles at me.

Love.

We are ready, her and I, to face the world. It’s time to go home.