Personal Narrative: Six-Week Old Baby

Thump, Thump, Thump went the heart of our six-week old baby. The feeling was indescribable.

“Awwwe, do you hear that?”

“Yeeees,” my husband said, tipping his head and smiling.

Two weeks later was our prenatal exam. “What’s happening?” I said. “I’m not hearing anything quite yet,” Dr. Dykowski said as he turned up the monitor, still searching for a sound, the sound of life, of our baby, but it never happened. Finally, he stopped, “I’m sorry.” The ache was deep, and I was having trouble absorbing the sadness. It’ll be okay, I’m sure it’s just a first time fluke,” Jeff said.

But it wasn’t, as we went through those emotions three more times. “I checked with our pastor,” Jeff said one day, “Ray said if a tragedy happens to little babies, they go right to heaven.” I sighed with relief for their little souls. So much had happened in two years with four pregnancies and losses, visits to specialists and insurance obstacles. I was obsessed during this time, charting things like anticardiolipins and other irrelevant data, and through it all, my husband listened and ventured down every path that I knew would lead to somewhere.
Then one day Jeff ‘s boss, a kind of snappy, Real Estate owner in his eighties, walked into his office.
“Jeff, Ruth and I have been talking, and we know the head of the department at Sanai hospital…”

So I called Dr. Schwartz who, with his thick accent, referred me to an “out – stand -- ing” gynecologist, who figured out my problem and sent me to a surgeon.

“Can you go down to post op; your wife is really upset down there,” the nurse said to my
husband.

As Jeff started down the hall, he ran into my surgeon saying, “Hey, how’d it go?

“Good, “ said Dr. Magyar

“Good as in the surgery went well or good as in the problem is solved?” my husband clarified.

“Both,” he said

“Really! You really think you got it?”

I was crying when Jeff reached me, hazy from the drugs, and feeling like a failure at something that seemed so easy, so natural for other women. He told me the good news, and we now had hope that our fifth try might be a success.

So two days ago, I celebrated Mother’s Day with my precious daughter and son. If not for my husband, this holiday would be absent from my life.

And I could tell you this story is about a surgeon, an outstanding gynecologist, a hospital head or a caring boss, but this story traces back to a husband, his love for me, and the dream of a baby, and how we fought, 19 years ago, to bring a beautiful bundle of joy into our lives, together.