LITTLE GIRL LOST

LITTLE GIRL LOST

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Excerpt wc 2,380

Prologue

“Do you have any children?” The question hangs innocently in the air each time I am

asked, often by a woman who has just mentioned her own. And in that space of

ensuing stillness, as I consider once more how best to reply, I remember.

“No,” I often say. But this is not quite the truth. I once was a mother. And though my

daughter is no longer on the earth, she was my child for those brief months she resided

within me. Upon her release from my watery womb, I held her against my proud and

breaking heart.

It was long ago, and sometimes even now it feels as though something imagined, an enchantment of dark and light, whose forces grabbed me by the

mane and dragged me through a crack in the earth into a land without cover or safety, without map or compass.

I think of those irretrievable seasons of her existence. The possibility of what might have been, still visits on the edges of sleep, or in those spaces when

one is unguarded and penetrable by that which is not reasonable

At thirty-six I had, at first, been jealous of the tiny girl in my womb, though it was not an admissible thought at the time. Rather a current of deeply held

fear, cold and secretive, bound by shame, which caused a deceptive ripple on the surface of the lake of everyday thought, making me uneasy, confused.

When I had first been told I was having a girl, I had feared Paul might love her more than me. A thought which now seems unbelievable, that I had, even

briefly, considered her a being with whom I might have to compete for love.

The fear that I would be old, she would be young, echoes of my grandmother’s voice

imprinted within me, the dark cloud of insecurity that enveloped my adolescence and early adulthood, the feeling of not being perfect or beautiful enough to

be loved.

The thought of having to deliver a baby frightened me. It seemed an impossible task rather than a natural one, a gift I might embrace. I was not at ease

in my body, not able to trust its innate wisdom.

***

November 20th, 1989

Claire, I am back in the hospital, my fifth admit in almost six months of pregnancy. They are unable to quell my nausea. Full of water, I am the size of a baby

elephant. Unable to eat, restless, short of breath, the ache in my back constant.

Convinced that my one failing kidney has some underlying disease, my nephrologist plans an open biopsy for the following morning. My obstetrician,

shocked at my condition, agrees. What might happen next? Will I require kidney dialysis? Can I even survive the biopsy? They say they think I can.

They think I am anxious because of the surgery. I am anxious because I am dying.

That evening, I kneel on the floor on a pillow, leaning over a chair, the only bearable position at the time, filling the emesis tray with bile.

***

A priest comes in to give the Anointing of the Sick. We recite a decade of the rosary. My mother’s eyes fill with tears. She knows me well enough to

accurately sense the danger. She struggles daily to be heard by the doctors. Your father and I have placed an unworthy trust in them. They continue to hold

out hope for the pregnancy.

The surgeon, soft spoken and kind, arrives to discuss the biopsy. An anesthesiologist visits. I am frightened for you. He assures me you will sleep through

the surgery. My mother reluctantly leaves at my insistence. I want her to rest. I want to see her before the surgery. She is angry with your father for listening

to the doctors. Just outside of my room I hear her pound on his chest, crying, “You did this to her.” Anguished, I feel unable to help him.

Your father climbs into bed with me, rubbing my lower back. I see the strain on his face. I think of my mother and her cruelty. I tell him I am sorry.

It is only November, my due date months away. I think of the delicate Easter dress I have purchased for you. Will you live to wear it? We have bonded in

these months, in this trial by fire, now love you more than I could have imagined, will do all I can to keep you.

I try to lie still, if only to give your father a break. I can’t. Again and again, I sit up on the edge of the bed to vomit, my thoughts chasing one another.

Are you distressed? Are you getting enough oxygen? Do you tremble when I tremble? Desperate to sleep, I swallow another sleeping pill I am given. I must

survive tomorrow’s surgery.

I see your father’s sagging shoulders, the dark circles beneath his eyes, his chin in his hand. He is as weary and concerned as me. “I’m so sorry dear,” I

say to him. I know he has been doing everything he can to ameliorate my extreme discomfort. I urge him to settle in his sleeping chair. “Please, try and

sleep,” I whisper. Leaning back in the chair, he reaches for my hand. Bone tired, we at last mercifully sleep.

***

Someone placing my finger in a device to measure my oxygen awakens me. It feels like a dream. An oxygen cannula placed over my head. Soft, tiny

prongs entering my nostrils. Falling back to sleep again. I awaken once more. I trudge to the bathroom, slowly pushing the IV stand along with me. Grateful

to see your father sleeping. Unaware of the oxygen cannula I have knocked off. I am relieved to feel you kicking. The hard toilet seat pressing against my

edematous hips, making deep indentations. I see I have lost control of my bowels. Yielding to my frailties, I take off my panties, set them aside,

maneuvering myself back into bed with the last of my strength. That sense of calmness. Those words in my head as I drift off: Good night, little one.

***

Your father startled awake by a room full of people and a flurry of activity, finds me unresponsive, barely breathing. What had not been clear before is

terrifyingly clear now: Pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure. I have been drowning in my own blood and fluids. I am being shaken. Your father is

calling, “Breathe, my love, breathe.”

What I remember about my trip from the maternity floor to the Intensive Care Unit is coming to briefly as they load the gurney into the elevator. They are in

such a rush that one of my feet has fallen off the gurney and the elevator doors tap it as they begin to close. When I ask where we are going, I hear

someone say, “The ICU. You’re having trouble breathing.” The next moment I recall is the piercing burn as they draw my arterial blood.

“Am I going to die? Is my baby alright?”

***

It is the week of Thanksgiving. Leilani, the ICU nurse who has been assigned to me, is calm, precise, and compassionate as she squirts Procardia under

my tongue every fifteen minutes to control my blood pressure. The staff walking by the open curtained room look in keenly to make certain I’ve not crashed.

It is hard for me to tell if it is day or night, as I twitch beneath the weight of the seizure drugs. I am unable to hold the cup of ice chips I am handed. I am

swollen with fluid. My blood is clotting so quickly they cannot get it to the lab on the same floor as the ICU before it begins to coagulate.

I have many doctors now. Pulmonologists, nephrologists, surgeons, anesthesiologists, neonatologists, gastroenterologists, cardiologists. My nephrologist

remains intent on the open kidney biopsy. It has been rescheduled. I am crying as I wait for the orderly to transport me to the surgery, I worry I will not

withstand. I look again at your father in his faded navy, Yater Surfboards sweatshirt, his brown hair bleached by sun and surf, his handsome face haggard,

one cheek creased by the faux leather sleeping chair, and realize that he is playing a recording of one of our songs, gently placing my earbuds in so that I

can hear. Darling, you send me. I smile. “Sweet dreams, Scoots. I’ll see you in a bit,” he says, leaning in to kiss me.

In the operating room they lift me onto the surgical table, adjust me, strapping my arms out as though I am on a cross. “Please wait,” I beg, as they begin to

cover my mouth and nose with a mask. My air now has a metallic smell. “We cannot wait,” they say.

***

Thanksgiving Day. A monitor showing uterine contractions. My cervix is dilating.

All the signs of pre-eclampsia are present. I know this is what I have. But no one, not the obstetrician, not the nephrologist, will believe me. The next day,

the hospital allows your father to drive the biopsy slides from Santa Barbara to a lab in Torrance, where the pathologist will meet him at the lab and look at

the slides with him. The results are indeterminate, not ruling out pre-eclampsia, not announcing it either. Disregarding the inconclusive results, my

obstetrician offers hope. Despite my condition, despite the pregnancy being just twenty-two weeks, even though I know I will soon have to let go of you, of

this girl I love, the doctor tells me there is still a chance that you might survive. He asks me if I can hold on. For how long, I wonder.

***

It is a cardiologist, who on the following Monday, informs me of the truth of the matter in a grave voice. My body will not survive this pregnancy. The

female neonatologist, who has followed him into my room concurs. She pulls up a chair beside my bed, and says the words I have feared hearing, listing my

options, none of which include your survival. If I am allowed to go into labor, or if labor is induced, you and I will both die. If we are flown by air ambulance to

Children’s Hospital in Pasadena where your omphalocele could be repaired under the best of situations, neither you nor I will survive the trip. There is no

window to help your lungs mature. If we wait any longer, the outcome is dire. She looks me straight in the eyes, kind yet unwavering in her delivery of the

news. “Your daughter is not going to live under any circumstances. And you will be dead within two days. An emergency cesarean is your only chance at

life.” The delivery, at your father’s insistence, is scheduled for early evening.

***

At 6:09 pm you are taken out of me. By the time I awaken briefly from the anesthesia and its affects, I am holding on to life by a tenuous thread. I do not

have the strength to draw you close when you are given to me. You have already died. The neonatologist has gently placed you on me, saying, “I’m sorry.

There was nothing we could do.” I reply, “I know.” I will find out later from a nurse that the neonatologist held you for the slim fifty-five moments you lived,

saying, “I don’t think any child should die alone.”

* * *

The first kiss I am able to give you is on the day after your birth and passing.

A social worker has had the presence of mind and the compassion to retrieve you from the hospital morgue. She has warmed up your cold little body under

lights and brought you to me in the ICU, wrapped in your blanket, your small shroud imprinted with your efforts to survive on this earth. I unwrap you,

examine the tiny, exquisite creature that you are. You have an extra baby toe on your right foot. Your small intestines glisten in a translucent pouch outside

of your abdomen. Your head is enlarged with fluid. You have hemorrhaged. Your head and chest are crimson and violet. Your fingers are curled in little fists,

your lips like mine, your body just one pound, eleven ounces, just shy of my own two pounds when I was born. You have not been bathed. You have the

loamy scent of earth, of leaf mold. I gather you close, your father’s arms embracing us. We smile at your utter sweetness. You lay against my heart, as

though content to finally be in your mother’s embrace. I reach to touch your head with my lips, kissing your softness, greeting you, letting you go. It had not

been meant to be. Your living. Your staying with me. I know this but I do not know how I know. This mystery of you I cradle.

***

Claire,

Once upon a time I was on the cusp of sleep, in that liminal state, where one is not quite here, yet not there, wherever there may be. I was in the bedroom

your father and I share. It was the hour of dusk. I must have been weary or in pain from the endometriosis. I had lay down alone in the old mahogany sleigh

bed we had at the time. It was summer and I had lightly drawn the bedding up. The evening air was mostly still, the softest breeze barely moving the panels

of lace at the windows. A vintage armoire was against the wall beyond the foot of the bed, a mirror in its center. I became aware of a presence. Then saw

her. A tiny girl, around the age you would have been at the time, had you lived. Dancing in her nightgown in front of the mirror. I watched, transfixed. She

walked along the lower edge of the bed, tracing her fingertips as she went, then came along the side of the bed towards me. When she reached me, she

lifted the covers and began to climb in with me. I heard a cry come from my throat, and she vanished into the evening air.