Douglas Kennedy - A Special Relationship

She swabbed the top of my left hand with a cotton ball. 'Little prick now', she said, as she inserted a needle into the top of my hand. 'Now start counting backwards from ten'.

I did as instructed, muttering 'Ten, nine, eig...'

And then the world went black.

It's strange, being chemically removed from life for a spell. You don't dream under anaesthetic, nor are you even notionally aware of the passage of time. You've entered the realm of nothingness, where all thoughts, fears, worries cannot invade your psyche. Unlike that easily permeable state called sleep, you're being kept in suspended chemical animation. Which - after the agonizing trauma of the past hour - suited me just fine.

Until I woke up.

It took me a moment or two to realize where I was - especially as my first view of the world was a pair of glowing fluorescent tubes, lodged above me. My eyes were half-glued together, making everything seem bleary, obscure. More tellingly, my head was shrouded in a freakish fog - which made all voices seem leaden, oppressive, and also left me wondering (for the first few minutes of consciousness) where the hell I was. Gradually, the jigsaw pieces began to fall into place: hospital, ward, bed, sore head, sore body, baby...

'Nurse!' I yelled, scrambling for the button by the side of the bed. As I did so, I realized that I had tubes coming out of both arms, while the lower half of my body was still numb.

'Nurse!'

After a few moments, a dainty Afro-Caribbean woman arrived by my bedside.

'Welcome back', she said.

'My baby?'

'A boy. Eight pounds, two ounces. Congratulations'.

'Can I see him now?'

'He's in the Intensive Care Unit. It's just a routine thing, after a complicated delivery'.

'I want to see him. Now'. And then I added, 'Please'.

The nurse looked at me carefully.

'I'll see what I can do'.

She returned a few minutes later.

'Mr Kerr is coming to see you'.

'Do I get to see my baby?'

'Talk to Mr Kerr'.

He arrived just then. Same white jacket, same shirt, same wellington boots - only this time bloodier than before... no doubt, thanks to me.

'How are you feeling now?'

'Tell me about my son?'

'Quite a straightforward Caesarean... And the cord around his neck wasn't as tight as I feared. So, all in all...'

'Then why is he in Intensive Care?'

'Standard postoperative care - especially for a newborn after a difficult delivery. We did have to immediately ventilate him after birth...'

'Ventilate?'

'Give him oxygen. He did arrive a little floppy, though he responded well to the ventilation...'

'So the cord around the neck might have caused brain damage?'

'As I said before, I was pleased to discover that the cord hadn't wound itself firmly around your son's neck. But we've already run an ultrasound to make certain there was no blood on the brain...'

'Was there?'

'No, it was completely negative. More to the point, his APGAR scores were completely normal'.

'His what?' I asked.

'APGAR is a sort of checklist we run on every newborn child, gauging things like their pulse, reflexes, respiration, and overall appearance. As I said, your son easily scored within the normal range. And in a day or so, we will run an EEG and an MRI, just to make certain that everything in the neurological department is working properly. But, at this point, I would try not to worry about such things'.

Oh please...

'I need to see him'.

'Of course. But you do realize that his initial appearance may upset you. Paediatric ICUs are not the easiest of places, after all'.

'I'll handle that'.

'All right then. But do understand, you will have to take things very easy for the next week or so. You've just had a major operation'.

He turned and started walking away. But then he wheeled back and said, 'Oh, by the way - congratulations. Any sign of the father yet?'

'Didn't he ring the hospital?' I asked the nurse.

'Not that I've heard', she said. 'But I'll check with my colleagues. And if you write down his number, I'll call him again'.

I looked at the clock on the wall. Six-fifteen.

'Couldn't I try to call him?' I asked.

But as I said this, two orderlies showed up, wheelchair in tow. This one was custom-built to accommodate a patient who was wired to assorted drips, as it featured a frame from which plasma and saline bottles could be suspended.

'Let me phone him for you', the nurse said. 'These fellows are going to need the chair back soon. Isn't that right?'

'Always big demand for our best wheelchairs', one of the orderlies said, adding, 'Come on, luv. Let's bring you up to see your baby'.

The nurse handed me a pad and a pen. I scribbled down Tony's work number, his mobile, and our home phone. She promised me she'd leave messages on all three numbers if she couldn't reach him directly. Then the orderlies went to work on moving me from the bed to the chair. I had expected to have been unplugged from my varying tubes - and then forced to endure having the lines reinserted into my veins. But the guys - both of whom looked like members of a wrestling tag-team - couldn't have been more dexterous when it came to lifting me off the bed and into the chair, while simultaneously keeping me attached to my assorted tubes. As soon as I was seated, a combination of exhaustion and postoperative shock seized me. My head swam, the world became vertiginous, my stomach convulsed. But after an attack of the dry heaves, all I was left with was a foul taste in my mouth and runny eyes.

The nurse used a large cotton pad to clean up my face.

'You sure you want to do this right now?' she asked me.

I nodded. The nurse shrugged, and motioned for the guys to take me on my way.

They pushed me through the maternity ward, passing half a dozen women, all with babies by their bedsides in little adjacent cribs. Then we entered a long corridor until we reached a service elevator. When the door opened, I saw that we had company - an elderly woman in a gurney, wired for sound to sundry monitors and feed bags, her breathing a near-death rattle. Our eyes met for a moment - and I could see her panic, her terror. All I could think was: a life ending, a life beginning. If, that is, my son was going to pull through.

The elevator rose two floors. The doors opened, and we were directly in front of a set of double-doors, by which was a sign: Paediatric ICU. The chattier of the two orderlies leaned over and whispered in my ear, 'If I was you, luv I'd keep my eyes down until we get up alongside your baby. Take it from me, it can be a bit distressing in there'.

I followed his advice, and gazed downwards as we crept through the ward. Though I wasn't looking upwards, what struck me immediately was the pervasive deep blue light of the ICU (as I later learned, it was to aid those babies suffering from jaundice). Then there was the absence of all human voices... the only sound provided by the electronic beeps of medical equipment; the steady metronomic rhythm a reassuring reminder of a small functioning heart.

After around a minute, the chair stopped. By this point, my eyes were tightly shut. But then, the chatty orderly touched me gently on my shoulder and said, 'We're here, luv'.

A part of me wanted to keep my eyes closed, and demand to be turned around and brought back to my own room. Because I wondered if I would be able to bear what I saw. But I knew I had to see him - no matter how upsetting his condition might be. So I raised my head. I took a deep breath. I opened my eyes. And...

There he was.

I knew he would be in an incubator - which meant that he seemed dwarfed by the plexiglas sarcophagus in which he had been placed. And I knew that there would be wires and tubes. But what shocked me was the sight of an entire network of wires and tubes running from every corner of his body - including two plastic ducts that had been pressed into his nostrils, and an oxygen meter running from his belly button. He looked alien, almost otherworldly - and so desperately assailable. But another terrible thought hit me: could that really be my son? They say that you should be swamped by unconditional love the moment you first see your child... and that the bonding process should begin immediately. But how could I bond with this minuscule stranger, currently looking like a horrific medical experiment?