The Puzzle of Elijah - страница 29

“It is real. What do we do now?” I asked my husband.

Oleg hugged me tight. I wanted to hold our newborn son and have some quiet time with him, but it wasn’t possible. I felt a strange wave of emotion like he was mine, but at the same time not mine. I tried so hard to control my feelings and to not cry. “This is serious. We and our baby are in deep trouble,” I thought.

“Your baby has jaundice, a medical condition with yellowing of the skin and whites of his eyes, arising from excess of the pigment bilirubin,” the nurse said. “We need to turn on the special light that will help his jaundice go away. I need to cover your son’s eyes with black glasses, close his incubator and keep him under the lights.”

Oleg and I stepped aside. I didn’t want to leave our son, but due to my pain, we returned to my room for more medications. I needed rest, and it was time for me to pump more milk. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I couldn’t say a word to Oleg, who laid quietly on the couch with his own tears.

When I calmed down, I called my sister, Luda. One of her children was also born premature.

“Olga, I know what you are going through,” she said. “I feel your pain.”

We both talked and sobbed. It was easier to talk with someone who had had similar experience and understood. I was so grateful for my sister’s support.

…….

In the afternoon, Oleg brought David, Kristina and Michael to visit me and meet their baby brother.

“Mom, why did the doctor cut your stomach? How big is your cut?” Michael asked, scared.

“The baby would have died if the doctors had not cut my stomach,” I answered. “The cut is about five inches long.”

“Did it hurt, Mom?”

“No, it did not, because the doctors used numbing medications during the surgery,” I answered. “But it hurt after the surgery and it hurts now.”

“How long it will take to heal?” Kristina asked.

“About two weeks. I will need to be very careful when I come home. You guys will need to help me a lot.”

“Mom, we will help you.” Kristina laid by me on my hospital bed and hugged me.

“Why was the baby born early?” David asked.

“Because Mom’s blood pressure raised very high,” Oleg answered. “Mom has some health problems. We need to take good care of Mom.”

“How soon will you and the baby come home?” David asked.

“I will come home after about four days, but the baby will stay at the hospital for a while. He needs a surgery on his heart.”

The children were sad. Even children know that heart surgery is serious. They had no more questions. We were all quiet. After getting the information they wanted and seeing that I was likely to be okay, they just turned the TV on and watched cartoons. How much could we expect from our children? David was the most concerned, but Kristina and Michael, because of their age, didn’t understand much.

After spending a few minutes with me, the children wanted to see their baby brother. We thought they could handle it. Seeing the wires and tubes, attached to the baby, the children were scared because they didn’t understand what was happening. They knew that their brother was in a trouble and that he was sick. They didn’t want him to die. This was the first time they ever experienced the possibility of death. Oleg explained the problems with the baby’s heart and asked our children not to be scared, but to pray for God to help their baby brother.