Luna and Estella, one month old

Luna and Estella turned one month old tonight. Their birthday was a August 18, 2009. They've made it about 31 days.

The pictures here are from tonight. Both of them are strapped into their breathing devices. Luna opened here eyes wide. This was right after a bath. There was a teeny glint of life, of passion, in her right eye. She seemed to be staring straight at me, and there was something, I think, inquisitive about it, a bold frank childish curiosity.

I don't know how well they perceive things. I can't picture myself in their isolettes, their little translucent boxes, these giant hands constantly handling them, these faces peering over them every so often, sometimes murmuring; and every once in a while, one of them takes you out and places you against her bare chest and holds you for hours, slowly rocking you.

I decided, tonight, to get a feel for what Jenny must feel when she is holding the girls. After Stella had enjoyed a sponge bath, I asked the nurse if I could hold her. The nurse said sure and wrapped Stella in a small blanket and passed her to me. And, for the first time in my life, I held my third daughter.

I was struck immediately by her weight. I don't know what I'd expected. But she has heft. She has substance. She is is not made of tissue. She is there, more solid than I guess I'd thought. I cradled her head in one hand and her body in the other and held her close to my chest. Her eyes were wide, wide open; I wished my eyes were cameras. I had not seen her open her eyes so wide. I brought her a tad closer to my face. She blinked. She moved her eyes, the darkest blue you can imagine, within their sockets. I just looked at her and felt, very distinctly, that she was looking back at me, and that was a powerful moment, however ambiguous in truth or not.

I think for me, more than any other moment in this long process, that moment of holding her, which stretched on for several minutes, cut deep into me. I felt in tune with something that I should have been feeling for weeks. I'm not saying I haven't felt like her father until now. No it's something different, something more palpable in the act of holding, of touching, of being that close to her, of feeling her exact weight, of seeing her gaze. I think it was, purely, the physical sensation of being a father, not so much the emotional one, and that moved me so much that I was afraid I'd drop her. When it came time for the nurse to take her back, I knew I had to flee the joint. I thanked her profusely, then turned and said good-bye. I felt light. I felt dazed. I played the image of her sweet blue eyes over and over in my mind. There is a chance we will make it through this, but the shape of it all, the outcome, will be nothing like what I've imagined, or what I'm capable of imagining, and I'll be wholly changed. I felt lucky, changed, alone and free. I felt alive.

Infection

Just when you think things are going smoothly, more trouble. Luna's got an infection.

The infection -- they're common, but not good. One of the nurses had noticed Luna looking lethargic; and she had been having numerous episodes of apnea, where she stops breathing. When this happens, you can look up at the monitor and see her oxygen levels plummet. 90%....85%....70%....40%...And the goddamn thing is ringing like a slot machine. Ding, ding, ding. The nurse goes quiet, won't look at you. Makes you sit up in your chair, or in my case, stand up and pace.

What next? Get in their and do CPR, I want to say. On a baby that size? Wouldn't we crush it? I've pictured myself delicately compressing her chest with two fingers and blowing into her mouth. No, the nurses then have to “stimulate” Luna, which means massaging her and patting her back and shaking her, coaxing her to breathe again. They make some adjustments on the machines flooding air into her, through long pipes. They’ve stopped with the nasal canula and gone back to C-Pap, and they’ve set that breathing device to “push” more air into her lungs with each inhalation.

They have also taken some more blood. When they take blood, they take it out of Luna’s heel. Right now it's the only place on her body with fat. I’ve watched it several times. They bare Luna’s miniature foot into the air and poke it with a syringe, the metal thin as a spider thread. A little blood comes into a tiny stout bottle, which the nurse has to thump or flick continually so that the blood doesn’t clot.

I watched them do this to Luna and then sat in the nursing chair in the room for a good two hours until the docs came back with the results. ‘Abnormal.’

Abnormal. A good word for a teenager to hear when receiving criticism about a poem he’s written; not a good word to hear from your doc when you’re talking about your month old daughter’s blood.

Friday will be critical. Is the infection in the blood or in the stomach? Evidence seems to point towards the blood, which isn’t great, but much better than intestines. They’ve begun to pump her with antibiotics. A nurse told me last thing this afternoon – ‘You’ll have a different baby by tomorrow afternoon.’ What they’re suggesting is that the antibiotics work quickly. We can only hope.

I spent a little time in the evening, in the dark, hunched over Luna's isolette, just staring down at her. Really I think she is going to be all right. In the panorama of problems, this could be thought of as minor. But she has come so far, and done so well, that part of me thinks our luck could not possibly continue. It worried me, I have to say. She was very still, only her ribs moving with each assisted breath. The nurses always commented about her spunk, her fieriness. They've seen none of that today. I walked off and doused my hands with disinfectant and then went back to the isolette and opened one of the small rounds doors. I reached in with one hand (not the hand with my wedding band on it b/c I'm worried I can't clean it free of germs) and fished her hand out of the blankets and waited a few moments until she clenched my finger. Good luck, kid.

Gas

Minor setback to report this evening. Love those minor setbacks.

Both the girls are suffering from an excess of gas in their bellies. Several theories are being floated as to why, the most likely being Jenny's diet. She was eating some beans & rice recently, and it's thought that the gas off this food was transferred to her breastmilk, which the twins are eating on a regular basis. Possibly, their stomachs can't handle the gassy milk.

Their stomachs are tremendously bloated. There is a fine, fine lacework of veins just under the skin of the tumescent swells. The veins are purplish, red, microscopic. The bellies look painful. Beneath them their legs are very small and bony. I want to squeeze the bellies, gently, ever so gently, and let out the air, give them relief.

I recorded some video of Tallulah the other night on my Flip and took it in and played it to both girls. The Flip video plays back on a small 1 inch monitor, with sound. In the video Tallulah introduces herself to her younger sisters and then tells them to start farting. The sooner they learn to fart, the better they'll feel. Tallulah cracks up giggling at the end of it.

Gotta say, laughing never felt so good. All the same, still worried sick.