Slider by Stacy Borel

Author:Stacy Borel [Borel, Stacy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Published: 2015-09-20T23:00:00+00:00

IT WAS BEFORE MY FIRST twelve hour shift of the week and I decided to do something unplanned. I decided to stop in the NICU to check on the baby boy I’d helped deliver last week to see how he was doing. I hadn’t ever been in here other than to do a few hours of clinicals. A few monitors were beeping and I was looking around the room at all the incubators and infants fighting for their lives. I viewed this room like I did the Oncology floor. People fighting for their lives wasn’t my cup of tea. I was better off bringing lives into the world and sending them on their merry way. Not pushing them to take their next breath and watch the families cry or grieve over loss. I’d seen enough of that to last me a lifetime.

“Can I help you?” A tall blonde nurse approached me. She had gentle eyes and a soft voice.

“Um, yeah I was actually looking for a baby that I helped deliver last week that was brought down here.” Crap, I didn’t know his name. “He was unnamed when he left L&D, but the mother was an addict.” I wracked my brain for her name. “Adalyn March.” It occurred to me. “So it would be Baby March.”

Her tone became even softer. “Oh yes, he’s right over here.” She led me to a far corner of the room. “He’s quite the little fighter.”

As we approached, a baby small enough to fit in one of my hands was lying on his stomach, monitors attached to his frail body covered by almost transparent skin, a feeding tube in his nose that likely went directly to his stomach, and a breathing tube. It was almost painful to see. Such a small life fighting with everything he had, when he didn’t deserve to be brought into this already cruel world in such a harsh manner.

“Has his mom come to see him?”

She looked perplexed. “Unfortunately, Baby March was abandoned. The day she delivered and was put in a post-partum room, she walked out a few hours later and hasn’t been back. Nobody knows any contact information, and she never asked any questions about him before she left.”

My hand automatically went up to my mouth. I felt like I wanted to be sick. How could a mother carry an infant, give birth, and just abandon it? Doesn’t matter that she didn’t carry him to term. He was her child. He would have loved her unconditionally and expected nothing in return other than what she could offer him. I just couldn’t understand it.

The nurse, whom I’d learned was named Cassie, told me the baby’s stats and what the doctor was expecting from him over the next couple of days. When babies came down here to NICU, they were usually checked in on every hour. They were given short term goals because that’s what the staff had to rely on. Baby steps, if you will. Anything past that was just asking for too much too soon.

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