A THOUSAND WORRIES

Dear Spike:

I didn’t expect to get to see you again so soon, so I suppose I could look at what happened today as a blessing.

But right now, I’m tired and confused and worried. And other than that, I’m not sure how else to feel.

I know that, for the moment, you appear healthy. Your tiny heart is beating about 140 times per minute. You’re moving your tiny, stubby arms and nodding your head up and down in the most adorable little dance I’ve ever seen.

And the doctors say — for the moment — we’ve nothing to worry about.

I wish I felt so confident.

•••

I was dreaming of you, early this morning, when your mother called to me from the bathroom.

“Come here,” she called. “Come quick.”

Spoken at that hour, those words could not have been more frightening to me. I rushed in to find her standing above the toilet, bright red blood swirling in the water. There was lots of blood. Lots of blood.

Her face was white. Her eyes were panicked. She looked lost and helpless and scared and so very, very sad.

“It’s OK, right?” she begged of me. “Is everything is going to be all right?”

I couldn’t speak, except to tell her to put on some warm clothes.

“We need to get to the hospital,” I said.

•••

Twenty minutes later, we were in the waiting area of the emergency room. It was a quiet morning at the hospital — so much so that one of the nurses was watching a “Grey’s Anatomy” video on her computer.

If we’d arrived the morning before, we would have had to wait behind several car crash victims and an overdosed drug addict. Instead, we were admitted immediately and, within minutes, your mother was lying on an examination table, a puddle of cold blue goop spread out across her belly.

It didn’t take the nurse long to find your heartbeat. It sounded like a tiny rotating helicopter blade — whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh — the most soothing sound I’d ever heard.

The nurse smiled and nodded. Your mother cried. I exhaled a thousand worries.

But that didn’t explain the bleeding. And after the doctor came in and examined your mother, he couldn’t explain it, either.

“It happens sometimes,” he said. “In 95 percent of these cases, the pregnancy turns out perfectly normal.”

The nurse smiled and nodded. Your mother cried.

And I inhaled a thousand new worries. I play too much poker to be comforted by statistics.

•••

To understand what had gone wrong, we would need to have another ultrasound taken. But the earliest they could get us in was 3 p.m. We went back home awash in worry.

We spent the day in bed, watching one bad comedy after the next, desperately trying to laugh away our fears.

“I didn’t know you could love something, so much, that you’ve never even met,” your mother told me between films. “And now my heart hurts, it hurts so much.”

I held her head against my chest and fought the instinct to tell her everything was going to be just fine. I simply stroked her hair and told her to sleep. And she did, for a spell.

•••

It was so wonderful to see you on the ultrasound screen.

Your head is so much bigger now than the last time we had your picture taken. And rather than turning somersaults, you now seem to be engaged in a little dance: Arms up, head back, arms down, head forward.

Your heart seems bigger, too. And even though I’d heard it earlier this morning, it was a relief to see it flutter on the screen.

Information moves so fast, these days: Within five minutes of wiping the goop from your mother’s belly, the radiologist returned and lifted a telephone receiver from the wall.

It was Dr. Stewart, calling from her clinic across town. She’d seen the pictures and was satisfied that you were doing well. The bleeding appeared to be caused by your placenta rubbing against your mother’s cervix.

As problems go, this is a fairly normal one, she said.

•••

Your mother’s sleeping now, and though I hope she’s not dreaming about doctors, ultrasound machines and bright red blood, I doubt that’s the case. It’s been a long and frightening day — the type of day that tends to follow you to bed.

I’m about to turn in as well, though I’m not expecting to sleep: After coming home from the hospital, your mother was bleeding again. And it happened again later in the evening.

Dr. Stewart told us to call her if the bleeding persisted “for a long time.” Thus my confusion and worry.

We’ll call Dr. Stewart tomorrow to get a bit of clarification on what “a long time” means. In the meantime, I’ll focus on the beautiful blessing of having seen you again, today.

And I’ll wish to see you again — under less frightening circumstances — very soon.

Love,
dad