Real Miracles, Healing Stories
Isolette Dwelle Vega—NICU Miracle Baby
ISOLETTE—By
Janna Dwelle Vega
When the baby stops
breathing, an alarm rings in the NICU.
At home, the process is reversed:
when the phone rings, the mother stops—
The baby lives in a box.
That plastic box, there.
Imagine a baby-zoo,
a greenhouse of babies,
Happy-Meal babies (plush toy included)
One baby to go, please, but no, these babies are only
For here, they do not
go
The baby is an electrical appliance
on a short cord.
In a rocking chair within the small radius
of her electronic tether,
The Amazing Traveling Parent Show
comes to the baby.
this community, colony of moms,
our lives in orbit
around the NICU—
I introduce myself where we meet
at the phone outside the locked door,
scrub-in sink, breastmilk freezer
(we don’t shake hands. We have all scrubbed, but we are nervous
of hands.)
Not baseball stats anymore
but baby stats. Units
of measurement, units of progress
or regress
c.c.’s of breastmilk, grams of baby,
frequency of desats, occurrence of apnea
her
body barely filling
my two
hands
graying,
unmoving.
In my hands
she
has stopped breathing
statistics, routine notation
on today’s chart
The Amazing Traveling Parent Show
goes home empties
the dishwasher, explains
how to put on pants
pumps breasts, grades quizzes, changes
wet sheets, slices onions
defines Amen
At Entrance Five in maternity wear, belly not yet re-sized,
new mom watches new dad strap in new baby
to drive home, finished
with this hospital. To see my daughter,
I stride into Entrance Five pulling off my sunglasses
fiercely
aware there’s room for jealousy in a flat belly.
I hate the phone at the NICU door
where I ask to be let in.
It’s Janna Vega to see Elena, each day
a bead on my rosary
this prayer repeated
Amen means “thank you, God, for listening.”
gas prices record high and rising
I am driving back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and
driving
to Costco to fill the tank again
I find myself in the hospital parking lot
instead, confused and wondering
who was steering
which of my fragmented selves
chose to be here
again