After the exam, she gets out a file, opens it, and says, “I have the results of the postmortem testing here.”
I can’t breathe for a moment. Dicken takes my hand.
“The test came back positive for full-blown trisomy 13,” she says.
I know this means every cell of his body carried the triple chromosome, caused by an anomaly in either the egg or the sperm. The news is what I’ve been praying for—nothing ambiguous. If we’d medevacked him to Portland, he would have died on the way or been sent home to die; no medical intervention could have changed the outcome. I have been at times paralyzed with terror that the test results would indicate there’d been a big mistake, that he’d only had a few minor birth defects, or that he’d had the mosaic form of trisomy 13, which is much less severe than the full-blown kind. I don’t think I could have borne knowing we could have had him longer after all.
Sitting there in the clinic with the doctor’s words still ringing in my ears, I feel big relief, followed by a wave of sadness. Dicken squeezes my hand hard. I want to look in his eyes, share this with him, feel all this and express it, but in the sterile room with a doctor who is all business, I can’t relax. I look at my hands and don’t say anything.
“Can we get a copy of the report?” Dicken asks.
“Yes, I’ll have one ready for you at the front desk,” Dr. Moreno says. She looks softer for a moment. Then, out of the blue, she asks, “Do you need a prescription for birth control?”
I feel stunned by her question, or maybe by the insensitive way she says it. I glance down, ashamed, hurt, confused. The suggestion that we should avoid a pregnancy feels like a scolding of some kind. I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel like I have done something wrong. I also feel strangely defensive, protective of all our potential children: How could you have seen that sweet baby we just had and suggest birth control?
“Do you have a method already?” she asks, when neither of us has said anything for a few moments.
“We, uh, we’re not sure, we haven’t talked about our plans or anything like that,” I stammer, feeling like I did as a teenager when my mom mentioned anything about sex.
“Well, if you’re even considering another pregnancy, I would advise a consultation with a genetic counselor first.”
“But doesn’t the full-blown trisomy diagnosis mean it was a fluke, and that we don’t have an increased risk in any future pregnancy?” Dicken asks.
“Yes, but I would still recommend a consultation,” Dr. Moreno says gravely.
I am relieved when the conversation ends and the doctor leaves us alone so I can get dressed again.
*
Later that day, I find the e-mail which Dr. Katz, our kind prenatal geneticist in Eugene, sent me after I sent out the news about Theo’s birth and death. He gave his condolences and offered us the services of his genetic counselor free of charge. I find the phone number and call.
The counselor is very sympathetic. She speaks about losing her husband to cancer and her grief process. She tells me what she knows about Theo’s diagnosis: how in the full-blown cases, there is a split early on in development that affects every cell.
“It means neither of you carries a faulty gene,” she explains. “That would be the case if it were a partial trisomy, a mosaic, they call it.”
“So we’re not at higher risk of this happening again?”
“No, not any higher than any other couple your age.”
“And there’s nothing we could have done to prolong his life, no surgeries, nothing like that?”
“No. You did the kind thing in letting him go,” she says. “He really couldn’t have survived, not without drastic measures.”
“That’s such a relief.”
“You know, if you’d had an amnio, they wouldn’t have let you have a C-section, because of the increased risk to you. That’s how the medical experts view trisomy 13, as hopeless.”
I feel amazed at this, reassured. I am extremely grateful that we didn’t do the amnio, because I feel certain Theo wouldn’t have survived a vaginal birth; he was already slowing down that day. If I’d been refused a C-section, I am sure we would never have known him alive in the world. Again, I can’t help but wonder: Did Theo choose us?
“Do you think he suffered?” I ask.
“No. That part of his brain probably wasn’t switched on.”
“Does that explain why he didn’t struggle? He seemed so peaceful when he died. He just closed his eyes and turned pale.”
“Yes, that makes sense.”
“Is there any way to know what the specific cause of death was?”
“It was probably cardiopulmonary arrest,” she says, explaining that his organs didn’t function properly, that his lungs weren’t strong enough to carry oxygen to his heart. “You see, every single cell would have been affected. It happened early on. Even his placenta was affected, because placentas have the same DNA. That’s why it’s so amazing he survived the pregnancy. The odds were really not in his favor.”
“What does it mean that the placenta was faulty?”
“Well, the placenta is what gets maternal nutrients to the baby and helps it excrete waste. It’s a way for the mother and fetus to share blood, basically. And because your baby’s placenta had the trisomy, it was defective and wasn’t processing nutrients and waste correctly. That means your blood was basically being poisoned the whole time. You probably had a lot more nausea as a result.”
“Wow, that explains it. I really felt sick this time and nothing seemed to help. But I just thought it was because I was older and had an aging liver or something.”
*
Maud is really sweet when I report on the conversation. When I tell her about the faulty placenta, she tears up and says, “Oh, Cinda, I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.”
Dicken is so wrapped up in work, he doesn’t seem particularly interested when I tell him about the conversation. I can feel that I’m mad at him right now. He has so little to give; he seems to be chasing his tail, never landing in silence and stillness.
That I’m not at a higher risk of trisomy than any other woman my age is a relief, though it’s still hard to imagine ever having the courage to try again. Theo’s pregnancy seemed long as hell, and I wasn’t even very afraid until the last month. So ironic, because I was terrified all through Jasper’s pregnancy that something would be wrong with him, that he would die, and with Theo I assumed everything was fine until we had that ultrasound in the final weeks.
I try to take a nap, but for a long time I lie there and wonder when and why that chromosome split. Dicken, in his usual generous way, says it was probably his sperm. But chances are, because of my age, it was my egg that had the problem. I think about how much I traveled in those months leading up to the pregnancy: two trips to Costa Rica, another to England. I recently read that going through airport security systems and being on long plane journeys gives you more than one hundred times the radiation of an X-ray. I also remember how I treated the boys’ hair with a pesticide shampoo after discovering nits when I brought Kevin back from Costa Rica. That must have been March, a cycle or two before Theo was conceived.
Though the doctors and the rational part of me are confident that there is no one to blame in this situation, another part of me feels responsible. There must be a reason this happened, someone to blame, and it is my second nature to point that finger at myself. At times I mount a mama-bear protectiveness toward myself, knowing I have been through hell. Chastising myself for something I may or may not have caused is not only pointless but cruel. But the self-recrimination rears its head when my defenses are low, like a predator taking advantage of a wounded or weakened prey.
The paradox is that at the very same time, I am sure in my deepest being that all is well. The self-blame comes when I forget this basic truth for short periods. I doubt; I tell myself what happened is bad luck, or worse: my fault. I deserve this. I waited too long to have another baby. I was reckless. I brought it
on myself. But I always land in a still certainty, a peaceful awe, a relaxed state that hums all is well.
February 6–7
A massage from my friend Amy this afternoon makes me feel raw, on the verge of big grief. Afterward I am exhausted and overwhelmed and feel postpartum darkness descending—very much like what I remember from a few days after Jasper was born.
The boys are being difficult, and I suddenly wonder how I can go on. Sometimes I feel done with parenting, and I long to follow Theo and be in his world.
I’ve been telling myself I’m a negligent mother. My kids are suffering; I can’t take good care of them because a stupid plan to get pregnant has gone horribly wrong. The aftermath threatens to destroy my health and emotional stability, to bankrupt us and ruin our family. All this wasted time. Months of uselessness, being dependent. I’ve aged a decade. Another disaster I’m trying to justify with New Age teachings by pretending everything happened for a reason and I’m at peace with everything. My skeptical self thinks I’m not doing my time. I’m avoiding the grief. I can’t be this okay with it—there’s something wrong with me.
Am I gloomy because the old me is reemerging? I don’t want to go back; I want to stay open and changed. I want to be special, to have special treatment forever. Maybe I’m afraid of forgetting. I’m afraid things are getting back to normal, that the sacred out-of-time days are over, that my heart is closing again, that Theo’s gifts will mean nothing, that we won’t be special anymore, that we’ll forget him.
*
In bed, with my feet off solid ground, everything spins. I have the sensation of falling. How will I ever sleep when I fall and fall endlessly? To ground myself, I hang onto Dicken’s arm. It is my lifeline, solid, warm, alive. I adore everything about it: the size, the shape, the soft skin. I cling to it, trying to remember our first days together, thinking, Has he always had such an incredible arm?
*
The next morning, Mom, home from her trip back east, is standing with me on the playground, watching Jasper run around. She says to me, “When I look at Jabu I can’t help wanting you and Dix to have another baby.”
“I can’t think about that now,” I lie.
“No, of course not, you’re still grieving. Which of the stages are you in right now, do you think? Depression? Anger?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t really believe in the stages.” I absentmindedly kick at the ground with my foot and the conversation ends.
Later, alone in the car, I think about my mom’s question. I studied the “five stages of grief” model in grad school, and I recognize the various aspects in myself now. But what I see is not a linear progression from one stage to the next. There are layers and layers, many different parts, and they are all happening at once: denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, acceptance, and more—peace, resignation, joy, hypervigilance, confusion. What changes is where my attention is, or maybe which one is most prominent at each particular moment. This can change suddenly, making me feel volatile, contradictory, even crazy. One minute, I’m completely identified with the inconsolable me, the me that will never stop yearning for Theo, wishing things had been different, and then the next minute I feel completely okay with everything, convinced it all happened perfectly. And then suddenly I am in denial, pretending nothing happened, or bargaining with God, promising I will be good from now on if only Theo is brought back to me. Sometimes I can feel more than one part at the same time. The part that accepts and the part that will never ever accept. They are both real and true and I imagine will always be parts of me.
February 8
In the parking lot at Kevin’s school, I see a beautiful baby—the first one that “gets” me, a bald chubby one like Jasper or Grace or Sam. A woman is holding the baby and others gather around, smiling. I look away.
Time is helping in a way, but it’s bittersweet too. Creating a bigger and bigger gulf between those hours with him, and now. The physicality, the memories are fading. His clothes still have his scent, but for how long?
I think of what someone told me once, that for a child to feel loved, he must be held as the center of his mother’s or father’s universe for a time. When I first heard this, I thought about my own childhood, and guessed that my lifelong self-doubt could be traced to my never having felt cherished this way by my mother or father; both admit they loved me but were preoccupied with many other things when I came along. I tried hard to make Jasper the center of my world during his early years. I would guess he felt that, and he easily made his way to being the heart of Dicken’s life. I like to think the confidence and security Jasper exudes reflect this.
And I was preparing to make Theo the center of my universe. I had spent the months of pregnancy clearing out the demands and preoccupations of my life as much as possible to make room for the new heir. Now the center of my universe is gone. I am lost, falling into the void he left in his wake. Everything I see or hear or touch or think is filtered through this center that is Theo. He is the true north, the touchstone, the everything. Without him in this world, there is nowhere to rest. There is only boundless white space echoing into the endless sky all around me.
I hope I land in his universe. I am open to the mystery of the beyond. I am yearning for it, willing to sacrifice whatever I am asked to know where my center is.
*
Maud comes into my bedroom, smiling. She’s holding something behind her back, looking expectant. “I have a surprise for you.” She hands me a weighted Waldorf doll. It is about the size of a newborn, made of cloth, with simple features and wearing a sewn-on light-green, velvet baby-grow and hat.
I take the doll into my arms and feel its weight, cradle it to my chest. It takes me right back to holding Theo, and I start to weep. When I can see again, I look up. Maud is crying softly.
“Isn’t he sweet?” she says.
I nod. He is so sweet.
*
At dinner, Jasper says he doesn’t want anything to eat. This is not like him at all, my hearty boy with the big appetite. He’s never been picky, has rarely turned down food.
“Have some pasta,” I say. “It’s really good with cheese.”
“I don’t want any. I’m getting chubby.” He looks at the bowl of pasta making its way around the table with big eyes but doesn’t take any.
“Please eat something,” I plead.
“No!”
“Honey,” Dicken says to me, “leave him alone, you’re only making it worse.”
I have to leave the table. I can’t watch Jasper refuse food, or say anything negative about his body, especially now, with my great sorrow about Theo not being able to nurse or digest food. He was so scrawny.
February 9
A neighbor, Tim, e-mails a link to a story that aired on National Public Radio yesterday. His e-mail says, I assume you heard about this, but I have not. The story reads:
Some scientists have proposed that when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or a daughter, but a gift of cells that stays behind and protects her for the rest of her life. That’s because a baby’s cells linger in its mom’s body for decades and—like stem cells—may help to repair damage when she gets sick. It’s such an enticing idea that even the scientists who came up with the idea worry that it may be too beautiful to be true.
I close my eyes and concentrate on every sensation in my body, wondering if there is a way I can tune into Theo’s cells, the ones still floating inside me. Theo preserved in me for decades, maybe my whole life. I am one with him. I hear priests reciting prayers in churches from my childhood, Body of Christ, Blood of Christ. This is communion.
*
Later, lying in bed, I again close my eyes and sense in, imagining I can feel Theo’s DNA in my bloodstream, alive and even healing my own body at this very moment. As I’m visualizing this, I see the structure of DNA in my mind, and recall that a scientist in a documentary I once saw described the double helix shape as resembling a radio receiver. This scientist hypothesized that so
mething about DNA acts to receive information from an unknown source, maybe an unseen creative force, what some would call God. I can’t remember exactly, but it has to do with quantum physics and the way the genetic code translates into life.
I think of all this and wonder if Theo’s spirit is sending me information through DNA from wherever he is—the other world, the beyond, the place we all come from and will go back to eventually. Maybe this is why I feel my attention is somewhere else: not in this world, not on my life. This would explain why I am much more interested in where Theo went than in where I am right now. I don’t care about my own survival anymore. I don’t feel drawn to earthly things, to dramas happening around me. I just want to lie on my bed and beam myself to Theo. My body is heavy on this bed, my heart is here in my chest, aching and beating, but my soul has gone with Theo; it is flying in some other universe.
February 11
It has been four weeks exactly. I am up much of the night, heat blasting through my body, especially my hands. I think of Theo’s body burning in the furnace at the crematorium. What is this heat? Am I having postpartum hormonal flashes? Or am I burning up in some sort of karmic fire? Is this the part of me that’s connected with Theo, the cells he left behind that made an imprint on my own?
Dix wakes in the night, crying, “I miss our little boy.”
February 12–13
Kevin and Jasper are off in town for a night. Dicken and I have a sauna in the moonlight. The first full moon since Theo; I feel heartsick.
We make love in the morning. I am hungry: I want Dicken, all of him, to be inside me. I feel a desperate urge to get pregnant. But Dicken withdraws. I am sad afterward, thinking of all his wasted sperm. Lying there, I suddenly think of Theo’s body. I don’t remember ever seeing his penis or bottom because they were covered by his diaper. I think of how he’ll never get to enjoy those parts, how his balls probably didn’t drop, how no lucky woman will ever love his beautiful chest, feel about him the way I do about Dicken.
I am empty, and nothing can fill that place. Not Jasper or Kevin, or songs, or poetry, or travel, or pottery, or music, or movies, or even Dicken.
Five Hours Page 19