Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley

Author:Sarah Polley [Polley, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Published: 2022-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

When I put my hands on Eve’s body, through the holes in the isolette, I see on the monitor that the heart rate steadies and oxygen levels go up. I watch as the monitors confirm what my hands are telling me. My child needs and thrives by my touch.

The nurses call the NICU mothers “Mom.” Always. It’s a genius trick. They don’t have to learn as many names, and the women there, who are separated from their children, are acknowledged, many times a day, as their babies’ mothers. After I’ve been called “Mom” for two or three days, I start to wonder if I might actually be one.

I desperately want to hold my baby, whose breathing has worsened and who has now been put on a CPAP machine, a machine with a breathing mask which covers almost the entire tiny face. After a few days, I am allowed to hold Eve next to my skin. My entire body relaxes, for the first time in recent memory. I say to David, “It’s like a thousand lemonades in the desert.” No one explicitly tells me that my baby will be fine, and I have no rational thinking skills to speak of in my current state, so I hold Eve, each time, as though it’s the last time. I am thankful for every second I have my baby on my skin. I am in a state of wonder every time Eve’s eyes open. I try to capture these moments with every molecule I have, in case suddenly there aren’t more of them.

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