Out of the Ashes

The baby was in an incubator—a tiny figure, naked except for the diaper around his waist. Against the sterile whiteness of the sheet upon which he lay, the skin of his bare arms and shoulders seemed to have taken on a yellowish tint—like a piece of old parchment which had been exposed to the elements. As he frantically gulped air into his lungs, his small, rounded stomach rose and fell with unnatural rapidity.

From where I stood outside the plate glass window of the nursery, I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Dear God! I prayed silently. Not again! Don’t let it happen again!

Then, for a long, frozen moment, I waited. About me, the sounds of the hospital—the subdued murmur of voices, the muffled tread of a nurse’s rubber-soled shoes upon the tiled floor of the corridor—continued unabated. From another part of the nursery, a baby started to cry and something inside me began to ache.

Was it only this morning when I nursed him last? I wondered. I remembered with sharp clarity the tingle, half-maternal, half sensual, which had swept through me as his soft lips tugged at my breast.

I glanced again at the tiny figure gasping for breath inside the glass walls of the incubator and I wondered if I would ever again hold my son in my arms.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a nurse open a side door of the nursery and walk toward me.

“Mrs. Elliott?”

I nodded.

“The doctor is looking for you.” Her voice betrayed her uneasiness.

“Where is he?”

"He took some specimens to the lab. He should be back soon.”

Dr. Johnson had been my doctor ever since I was a little girl and despite what had happened before he had seemed certain everything would be all right this time. I wondered what he could possibly say to me now.

The nurse glanced nervously at the baby fighting for breath inside the incubator. “Would you like to wait for him in your room?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t bear to be in the ward with the other mothers. For two days I had shared their triumph over the small miracle of birth but now I would be an outsider—an object of pity. Besides, the babies would be brought in to be nursed soon and I didn’t think I could bear to watch.

“Is there any place else I could go?”

“We have a private room available. I’ll take you there.” She led me to a small room at the far end of the corridor. “You rest,” she said, helping me slide between the sheets. “I’ll send the doctor in as soon as he gets back.” She tucked a blanket around my shoulders and gave my arm a little pat. “Don’t worry. Dr. Johnson is a good doctor. He will do all he can.”

Briefly her eyes met mine and a spark of understanding passed between us. In that moment, we were no longer nurse and patient, but simply two women sharing the anxieties of motherhood.

“It’s your third, isn’t it?” she asked.

I nodded.

“All boys?”

“Yes,” I said. “All boys.”

The nurse sighed. “Well, maybe this time it will be different.”

She gave my arm a final pat and I burrowed deeper into the bed. The sheets touching my bare skin were cool and crisp and in my nostrils was the smell of the hospital—the sharp, clean stench of ether and antiseptic and soap. Instinctively I associated the smell with death. I wondered what it would be like to enter a hospital expecting life instead of death.

My third baby, I thought bleakly. I wondered if God would take him from me too.

I don’t know how long I lay there—whether it was seconds or hours. Except for the sounds and smells of the hospital, I was as cut off from reality as if I was on another world. I suppose the gray fog that numbed my senses was nature’s way of protecting me from the horrors of reality. It was a little bit like a foretaste of death.

When I opened my eyes, David was standing at the foot of the bed. His thick, black hair was tousled and the streaks of gray at his temples were clearly visible. He looked old, I thought, and tired. It was because of me, because of what I had done to him.

As he bent to kiss me perfunctorily upon the forehead, I wanted to tell him I was sorry, to beg him not to hate me. Instead, I forced a smile.

“Have you seen the baby?”

David nodded.

“Is he still alive?”

“Yes. He’s still alive.” From the tone of his voice I knew he didn’t expect it to live. He had been conditioned; the way Pavlov’s dog had been conditioned. To him, babies were conceived; they were born; they died. It was that simple.

I wanted to tell him not to give up but I knew there was no reason to hope. Twice before we had hoped and it hadn’t done any good. Why should it be different this time?

I forced myself to shake off my despair. This baby couldn’t die. It was too important—to both of us.

“Isn’t there anything they can do?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

David hesitated briefly, as if reluctant to raise false hopes. “They’re changing the blood. The lab turned up a slight pigmentation.”

He was talking about the RH factor—the substance in the blood that is passed on to a child by its parents and which under certain circumstances can kill. David’s blood was RH positive and mine was RH negative. We had often wondered if that could be the cause of our difficulties but until now the doctors had discounted it.

I felt a flicker of hope. None of the previous tests had shown pigmentation.

“Does it mean anything?”

“The doctor doesn’t think so. It’s kind of a last resort.

“How long before they will know?”

“An hour. Maybe less.”

“An hour,” I repeated numbly. An eternity, I thought.

I thought of the doctors and nurses who were working over the baby. In my mind’s eye, I could imagine them, handing gleaming instruments back and forth with swift efficiency. The doctor had explained how the blood was changed. A needle attached to the new blood supply was inserted into a vein in the soft spot of the baby’s head and another needle was stuck into a vein in its heel. Then, as the old blood slowly drained out of his body, new blood entered into the head.

I shuddered involuntarily and David glanced at me with concern.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Is there anything I can get you?”

I shook my head. I wanted my baby alive and healthy but he couldn’t grant that wish as easily as he could fetch a glass of water or a pill.

“I’m all right. I just want to rest.”

“Sure,” David said. As he stood there I compared him to the boy I had married four short years before. He had changed. His features, which had been warm and responsive, were sharper now and the friendly charm, which had once characterized his personality, had been replaced by a kind of wary withdrawal. He had been hurt and it showed.

Poor David, I thought tenderly. How could he help but hate me after what I had put him through? It was a pity we didn’t belong to a primitive tribe instead of today’s enlightened civilization. They had known how to deal with barren women. They had driven them out of the tribe or killed them, or at least allowed the husband to take a second wife. I was worse than a barren woman. I was a woman who promised fire and delivered ashes; a woman who promised life and produced death.

I blinked away tears. I felt terribly alone. Why had our lives turned out so badly? It had started so well. Our marriage had been perfect. We were young and in love and the future had been bright with promise. It hadn’t occurred to us that life could take away as well as give. For one whole year we had been gloriously happy.

I closed my eyes, remembering.

Our first baby was born a little over a year after we married. He was conceived deliberately, in love and hope and faith in the future, and he came into the world reluctantly—after nearly twenty hours of sweaty, agonizing labor.

And he was beautiful.

I will never forget the joy in my husband’s eyes as he looked at his tiny son for the first time. I knew then that the nausea, the discomforts; even the excruciating pain of labor had been a small price to pay.

For me, too, was the special triumph that belongs exclusively to women. As I held my tiny baby in my arms, I was filled with awe by the miracle of life I had accomplished. More than ever before, I felt wholly, completely fulfilled. It was as if I had been created solely for this one task.

David behaved outrageously. He was a caricature of all proud fathers. He bought roses for me and chocolates and cigars for the hospital staff, and an expensive bottle of Scotch for the doctor. Wherever he went, he carried a photograph of the baby and showed it indiscriminately to everyone he met, whether he knew them or not. At irregular intervals he would return to the hospital, smelling of beer and cigars, and demand to see his new son—with absolutely no regard for hospital regulations or visiting hours. And because of his boyish grin and warm, paternal pride, the nurses let him get away with it. One of the nurses told me how cute she thought he was.

Thinking back, I realize that day was the happiest of my life. Never again will I be able to face the future with the same warm confidence, the same glib assurance that God is in his Heaven and all is right with the world. Now, I know that tragedy can strike when it is least expected.

Forty-eight hours after the baby was born he became sick. Twelve hours later he died. During its short life span, I had held him in my arms to nurse him exactly fourteen times.

The worst part was that the doctors didn’t know why he died. They ran tests, of course, but afterwards they were still puzzled. He hadn’t lived long enough for them to diagnose the disease, they said. It happens sometimes, they said, and medical science was unable to discover why. All of the specialists agreed there was no reason why it should re-occur. The odds against our next baby dying were a thousand to one.

Three days after our baby died we buried him. We buried him in a tiny plot of ground near the edge of a small pond upon which white swans floated in graceful serenity and the salt of my tears was mixed with the soil that covered him.

David and I returned to a house that was strangely empty.

I can’t honestly say we were crushed. We were shocked and hurt and some of our smug confidence was gone but we were not defeated. Losing the baby was just one of those things that happen, something you grieve about for a while and then gradually accept. A lot of people we knew had lost a baby and then gone on to have more. We couldn’t see why we couldn’t do the same.

As soon as the doctor allowed it, I became pregnant again. I became pregnant because I wanted children and because I couldn’t believe God would allow another of our babies to die. All through my pregnancy I shrugged off doubts as if they were too trivial for consideration.

Nine months later I walked into the hospital with the unshakeable conviction that nothing could go wrong. Three days later I walked out empty-handed and filled with the awful deadness of despair.

Our second baby died in almost the same manner as the first. The difference was that the doctors were no longer sure it would not happen again. After losing two babies from undiagnosed causes, they said, we should be prepared for it to re-occur. The odds, which had been a thousand to one, plummeted abruptly.

Our second baby was buried along side the first. And our life went on.

It is hard to explain why I became pregnant a third time. I suppose it was desperation. Because I was unable to give David the children he wanted, I was nagged incessantly by a sense of inadequacy. I felt I was less of a woman and I feared David thought so, too. I was convinced he was drifting away from me.

Finally, against the doctor’s advice and David’s wishes, I became pregnant again.

And now it was happening all over again. My baby was sick, probably dying.

I remembered how hard I had tried to choke off fear while the baby grew within me—not only fear for the baby, but fear I was losing David as well. After a while I had even achieved a degree of confidence. It had all been so futile, like a game children play to keep from being afraid of the dark. My confidence had been as fragile as glass, as brittle as an eggshell.

I pulled the sheet higher about my shoulders and sat up. In the synthetic, air-conditioned coolness, I felt slightly chilled. Through the closed door, I could hear the sounds of the hospital, muted, remote, like sounds from another world.

David was still at the window, apparently engrossed in the scenery outside. There was bitterness and resignation in his expression. I wondered what he was thinking. I knew he blamed me because I had insisted upon having this baby. He had opposed it with every conceivable argument. Then, while I was carrying it, he had been cool and distant. For nine long months, he had scarcely touched me except to satisfy his passion and even then there had been no tenderness—only the driving, animal-urgency of his lust. I had convinced myself that once the baby was born, it would be all right. Now I realized I had never considered how he would react if the baby died.

I tried not to think about it. The baby couldn’t die. Not again.

The door opened and Dr. Johnson came into the room. His face was grave. He couldn’t hide the defeat in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. Changing the blood didn’t help. The baby’s condition is the same.”

I felt as if I had been slapped.

“Is he dead?” I asked in a small voice.

“No. But his condition is critical. Unless there is improvement soon it’s only a matter of time.”

“Is there anything else you can do?”

“I’m afraid not. It’s up to the baby now. And to God.”

I felt a wave of anger. God, I thought bitterly. What a mockery it was to speak of God. There was no God. God was a fairy tale, an illusion. Would God allow a tiny baby to die? Would he allow three babies to die? If there was such a God I had only revulsion for Him.

“How much longer?” I asked.

“It’s hard to say. A few hours more or less. There’s really no way to tell.”

I imagined the bitter, futile struggle the baby was waging against death. From experience I knew how tenaciously a baby could cling to life. It was hard to believe such a small creature could battle so valiantly. I remembered the symptoms that had destroyed the other babies: the rapid breathing followed by convulsions which caused their arms and legs to jerk erratically, and finally the breathing gradually becoming shallower and shallower until it ceased entirely. Would this baby follow the pattern of the others or had changing the blood weakened it? What stage was it in now? Had the convulsions started?

I sat up and slid my legs out of bed, not caring that the sudden movement hurt the stitches in my womb. I wanted to scream that the baby wouldn’t die, that it couldn’t die. But in my heart I knew mere words were no more effective than the incantations of a witch doctor.

The doctor and David had given up. I could see it in their eyes. But I hadn’t given up. Nor would I. Not as long as a spark of life remained. Until the final moment, I would hope for a miracle.

“You will do what you can, won’t you?” I asked the doctor.

“Of course. We will do everything possible.” He said it with the air of a man who had no hope.

I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to curse and cajole and threaten, but I knew it would not help. Instead I nodded listlessly.

With a sense of impending doom, I settled down to wait.

Somehow time passed. It passed at a snail’s pace—a slow-moving procession of sluggish minutes and plodding hours. But it passed.

I lay on the bed, my body taut with fear while David paced the floor. Occasionally he would go out into the corridor to see how the baby was doing. Each time he came back I could tell by the hurt, bewilderment on his face there was no improvement

As time passed, the baby grew steadily weaker. His breathing slowed and the convulsions started—the jerky, puppet-like twitch that racked his body.

I was frantic. Forgetting that I had denied God only a few hours before, I tried to pray. I prayed with my heart instead of my mind—desperate, quavering, fearful. I made rash promises, offering illogical trades and symbolic sacrifices but it did no good. If there was a God, He did not heed my prayers. The baby’s condition did not improve.

Finally, just as the sky darkened in twilight, the doctor told us he was dying. David and I went down the long hallway to a tiny room adjacent to the nursery to look at it for the last time. As I stood there, seeing the tiny, jaundiced body, the perfect miniature hands and feet, I realized this baby was a part of me. It had been conceived in my body, nourished by my flesh. Yet now, when it needed me most, I was powerless to help.

I think David felt even worse than I did. He just stood there, gray-faced and tight-lipped staring at the baby. I could see the agony reflected in his eyes and I realized it was my fault, because I had insisted on having this baby against his wishes. I promised myself grimly that I would never put him through anything like this again.

After a while I reached through an opening in the incubator to touch the baby. I stood there a long time with my hand on the baby’s chest, feeling the heart beats slow, the breathing diminish, and I prayed that somehow my strength could be passed on to the baby. My hand was on the baby’s chest when he died.

It is strange the memories a person carries away with them. I can remember the piercing wail of a police siren off in the distance. I can remember the smell of antiseptic mixed with my own perfume and the exact color of the paint on the walls. I can remember feeling a dreadful calm and a frozen emptiness. I remember thinking this was the end.

I cried for a moment and then David helped me back to my room. Dr. Johnson was waiting. Silently, he helped me into bed and gave me a pill. He touched my arm compassionately.

“Don’t let this throw you,” he said. “I know it’s rough but you’re young. You will get over it. One of these days you will find you have almost forgotten.”

”What will make me forget?”

“Time,” Dr. Johnson said simply.

I had an urge to laugh. Such a homely little philosophy. I wondered if they taught pat little bromides like that in medical school or if he had invented it himself. He was more of a fool than I had thought. There wasn’t enough time in eternity to forget the babies we had lost.

As the doctor left the room, my laughter died in my throat. I think that was the moment when I felt the full impact of what had happened. The sense of loss and failure threatened to choke me. My baby was dead, permanently, immutably dead.

Once in a motion picture, I heard a woman give an animal scream of anguish. At that time I had thought it was a classic example of over-acting, the way the line in Shelley’s poem, which reads, I fall upon the thorns of life; I bleed, is too dramatic, too intense. I wanted to scream like that. I wanted to scream my frustration and despair at the top of my lungs.

I leaned against David, needing his strength. In the back of my mind a nagging voice reminding me that it was my fault. If it hadn’t been for me, there would be no pain now.

“What will we do, David?” I asked.

“We will go on.”

“How can we?”

“We just pick up the pieces and go on with our lives.”

Did he really think it was that easy, I thought, remembering our lost hopes and dead dreams? Our lives would be empty without them.

“I can’t,” I said brokenly.

“You have no choice.”

I sank down on the bed, feeling drained. This was the end, I thought again. There was nothing to live for. I remembered the coolness that had existed between us in the final stages of my pregnancy and knew it would be worse now. There would be no more babies, no more hope.

“Do you still love me?”

“More than ever.”

“Then take me home.” There was no longer a reason to stay at the hospital.

I climbed out of bed, took my suitcase out of the closet and began to pack. At the bottom of the case, beneath a spare robe, I saw the tiny, blue jumper I had brought for the baby to wear home. A sharp wave of bitterness swept over me. It wouldn’t be wasted, I thought grimly. At least he could be buried in it.

*************************************************************

In the absence of death there is life. It is measured in seconds and minutes and days. The computer doesn’t exist which can translate it into terms of boredom and ennui and despair.

David and I returned home. We returned to a bedroom painted in bright pastel colors and decorated with pictures of lambs and rabbits. We returned to a large fenced yard, which would never echo with a child’s laughter, and a crib that would always be empty.

The first few months after the baby’s death were difficult. Life was a disheartening, painful business. More than once as the leaves on the trees outside our house turned yellow and the grass lost its lush greenness, I wondered if it was worth the effort. But I hung on.

Gradually, in small, almost imperceptible ways, my life improved. There was a new dimension in my relationship with David. I told him of my guilt because I couldn’t bear him a child. Surprisingly, I learned he had blamed himself for what had happened. I came to realize that guilt was normal. People tend to blame themselves for tragedy.

As time passed, I even made a kind of peace with God. It was a troubled, uneasy peace—more a truce than a settlement—but it satisfied me. I still couldn’t understand why the babies died. I still felt bitterness. But I no longer demanded an immediate explanation. Instead, I tried to fit it together in my mind. I read; I pondered; I discussed. It was, I discovered, like fitting together a gigantic jigsaw. In the end I realized how complex life is. I decided I wasn’t meant to understand. No human intelligence is able to understand. I decided to withhold judgment. Each night I prayed for the wisdom to understand His will.

It is impossible to select a specific time and place when I started to hope again. I suppose it is like swimming against the tide. You fight against it for a long time without making any progress and then, just as your strength is exhausted, you see that you are moving forward and you know the tide has changed.

One morning I awakened with a sense of contentment. The house was utterly still and I knew David had gone to work without waking me. Outside the window, I heard the chirp of a sparrow. Although the ground was covered with snow and food was scarce, it sounded cheerful. It sounded as if it found joy battling an unfriendly environment.

I lay in the warm bed for several minutes, listening to the staccato chirps. Abruptly I realized I hadn’t thought about the babies for several days. My life was too full to be miserable.

I smiled to myself. Whatever the reason, I was happy.

That day marked both an end and a beginning. I crawled out of bed and hurried through my housework. Then, as I sat down to drink a cup of coffee, I picked up a magazine and started thumbing through it. The pages fell open to an article about adoption. I had an eerie feeling it had been written especially for me.

The rest of the day I was bubbling over with excitement. When David got home I guided him to a chair by the fireplace.

“Have you ever thought of adopting?”

“Why do you ask? Is it what you want?”

“Yes,” I said. I felt as if I was balanced above a precipice and a step in either direction would send me crashing to my death.

“Then we better look into it,” David said.

I wanted to cry. “I love you, David,” I said.

The next day I phoned an adoption agency. The red tape was terrifying but we somehow found the strength to get through it.

It has been two years since I made that call. No longer is our house an empty shell. Now it echoes with the sound of laughter.

We have three little boys, ages two, four and five, who happen to be brothers. We were offered a choice between them or a baby. We chose the boys. We have had them a little more than a year now, long enough for the adoption to become final.

They are fine boys, bright, lively, mischievous. Mark, the oldest is in the first grade. Andy and Larry, the two youngest, spend their days playing in a sand box in our back yard. Often I stand by the window to watch them. Sometimes I get a lump in my throat so big I can hardly swallow.

It has been a good year for us. David and I are content. It isn’t a surface cheerfulness that is worn like a new dress to impress others. It is a quiet joy that comes from the inside.

I don’t know why my life turned out as it has. Is there a divine plan? Did a higher power take our babies so we could provide a home for three small orphans? I don’t know. I know life can be brutal; I know suffering exists. I don’t know why.

I only know the result is worth the effort.