The Dream Daughter: A Novel

by Diane Chamberlain

  “Breastfeeding can be a challenge at first,” Celeste warned me, setting Joanna in my arms. The curtains were closed to the cubicle and the front of my yellow gown was open. I’d been reading up on nursing practically from the moment I learned I was pregnant and I expected the challenge Celeste talked about, but as soon as I touched my nipple to Joanna’s lips, she latched on. I was delighted. My breast felt a little pinched and tingly as she sucked, but soon the discomfort passed and I felt only warmth. “Is she getting any milk?” I asked Celeste. “How can I tell?”

  “She’s doing beautifully,” Celeste said. “And so are you. I’ll leave the two of you alone. Just give a shout if you need me.” She slipped out of the cubicle and I looked down at Joanna. Her blue-gray eyes locked onto mine and they didn’t leave my face until she’d finally had enough to eat and fell asleep in my arms.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, Dr. Nguyen stopped in the cubicle while I was holding my sleeping daughter skin-to-skin.

  “Joanna’s doing so well that she’ll probably be released directly from the CICU,” she said. “There’s no reason to put her and you through the hassle of a move to the step-down unit for only a couple of days.”

  “A couple of days?” Oh my God, I thought. That would mean I could take her to the condominium on Sunday or Monday. The second portal was Wednesday. I felt my heartbeat quicken at the thought of actually doing it. Actually stepping off the bridge with Joanna in the sling.

  “Uh-huh,” Dr. Nguyen said. “She should be ready to go by then. Celeste said you’re already a breastfeeding champ. She says you two are a great team.”

  Her words made me feel like crying and I forced a smile to keep the tears at bay. Joanna and I were a great team! I loved taking care of her. Bathing her. Changing her. Cuddling her. Nursing her. I loved the intimacy. The undeniable bond between us when she looked into my eyes.

  “Thank you for making her well,” I said.

  “My pleasure,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted on when she’ll be able to go home.”

  That evening, I left the hospital early enough to walk to a children’s store where I bought everything I’d need to have Joanna in the condo with me for the few days before we stepped off. I knew the hospital wouldn’t let me take her without one of those car seats for the cab, so I bought the least expensive one they had, knowing I would use it once or twice at the most. Buying the car seat made me laugh to myself. The hospital was worried about me transporting my baby a few blocks in a cab. Imagine what they would think if they knew I planned to jump off the Gapstow Bridge with her.

  I bought disposable diapers—I wished I could take a crate of them back to 1970 with me. Patti used disposable diapers with John Paul but they were much bulkier than the 2001 variety and they needed to be secured with pins rather than tape. I bought diaper cream, a thermometer, two bottles, a few burp cloths, and a couple of onesies. Everything else could wait until I got to North Carolina. The salesgirl tried to sell me a baby-care book, but I already had two of them that I’d read cover to cover.

  I was both excited and nervous about the thought of having Joanna alone with me in the condo. Although I was doing most of her day-to-day care now that she was free of her tethers, I was used to having the nurses nearby to answer any questions that arose. The thought of being entirely alone with her, feeding her every two hours, getting little rest for myself, was exhausting. I reminded myself that wouldn’t be the situation for long. I would soon be home in the Outer Banks where I’d have all the support I needed. How I missed my family and the simplicity of my old life! I missed my beloved Outer Banks and the never-ending sound of the surf. The only things I could imagine missing from 2001 were my iBook and the microwave, which I’d come to love despite my early misgivings. But I would trade in both of them, plus my phone and more, to be in our beach cottage with my daughter.

  * * *

  The day Joanna was to be released, two days before the second portal, I arrived in the CICU carrying the car seat, my nerves tied in a knot. I walked through the unit to Joanna’s cubicle only to find her isolette gone. I stopped short, my heart in my throat. I remembered two times I’d seen a parent walk into the CICU only to find their babies missing. Neither of those situations had a good outcome. Maybe the nurses were getting Joanna cleaned up and ready to go?

  Then I heard Joanna’s cry. I knew that cry. To another person, it might have sounded like every other cry in the nursery, but to me it was distinct. I looked in the direction of the sound—the front right corner of the CICU—and saw Celeste and a couple of other yellow-gowned nurses or doctors huddled over an isolette. I raced toward them.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. I actually pushed a nurse aside so I could see my baby and my heart sank. She had those blotchy red cheeks that told me she’d had a good crying session and there was a new IV in her arm, the little oxygen cannula at her nose. “Oh, no,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

  Celeste stepped away from the isolette, tugging me with her, hand on my arm.

  “Joanna had some blood in her diaper this morning,” she said.

  “What?”

  “They have to take her for an X-ray to rule out enterocolitis. Just as a precaution. She—”

  “What’s that? Enterocolitis?”

  “A type of colon disease. I think it’s unlikely in Joanna’s case, though, so let’s not borrow trouble. It usually happens to preemies, not term infants, and not as old as Joanna.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the isolette. “Although I’ve seen it happen with an older infant who had a heart defect,” she said. She was thinking out loud now, talking more to herself than to me, unaware of how she was escalating my panic.

  I watched as a nurse wheeled Joanna’s isolette out of the CICU. It reminded me of the only other time I saw her leave the unit: the day she had the dilation. I wanted to follow her, but I had too many questions for Celeste. “Where are they taking her?” I asked. “And if the entero … whatever it is, isn’t the problem, then what would cause the blood?”

  “Milk allergy,” Celeste said. “Think about it. We started adding some of your milk to the formula in her feeding tube at the end of last week. Then you just started nursing her full-time. She also had a mild rash … a hivelike rash … on her neck early this morning. So an allergy is my best guess, but we’ll know very soon.”

  “Would that mean I can’t nurse her?”

  She nodded. “Possibly, though Dr. Davidson might want you to try changing your diet first. But I think this was an extreme enough reaction that he’ll say it’s not worth the risk. Why don’t you go to the cafeteria and have a cup of coffee and then come back down? We should know something very soon.”

  I nodded, but instead of going to the cafeteria, I walked back to Joanna’s cubicle and sat down in the recliner. I didn’t shut the curtain. Instead, I riveted my gaze on the door to the CICU, waiting for my baby to come back to me.

  * * *

  “The X-ray was clear,” Dr. Davidson, the pediatrician, told me nearly an hour later, “so it looks like your little one is allergic to your breast milk. This may clear up over time, but for now, you shouldn’t try to nurse.”

  “Can I eat differently?” I asked, remembering what Celeste had said, but he was shaking his head before I even got the question out.

  He pulled a prescription pad from inside his yellow gown. “I’m afraid this is a pricey formula, but it’s the best,” he said, handing me the piece of paper with the name of a formula written on it.

  “Is there a substitute for this?” I asked. “A … less expensive substitute?” I wasn’t worried about the cost. I wanted to know what on earth I would be able to feed Joanna in 1970. I doubted this formula existed then.

  “They have rebates,” he said, “so let’s get her started on that and see how she does over the next week or so while she’s still here in a controlled environment.”

  “The next week or so?” I nearly shouted. “She was supposed to be discharged toda
y.”

  “You can understand why that needs to be postponed, can’t you?” He looked at me curiously.

  Of course I could understand it. I was just miserably disappointed. The next portal was August 22, two weeks away. Two more weeks in 2001 when I’d had my heart and mind ready to see my family. My home. I was ready to start my real life with my daughter.

  “Yes,” I said. “I understand.” My breasts felt suddenly heavy and full, and Dr. Davidson almost seemed to sense my discomfort.

  “Get yourself the tightest sports bra you can find,” he said. “It shouldn’t take too long for your milk to dry up.”

  I spent the rest of the day holding Joanna. I could see the remnants of the rash on her neck, the fading pink spots. I fed her from a bottle, which she didn’t like any more than I did. Plus I was depressed that it would be two more weeks before I was able to take her home. I thought of Hunter and Patti waiting for me once again, hoping this time that I’d show up. They’d worry something had gone wrong when I didn’t. Something more ominous than Joanna needing more time in the CICU. I felt a tear roll down my cheek and watched it land on Joanna’s nose. She didn’t seem to notice. Her gaze was riveted to my face, her little lips not moving on the nipple. She was truly looking at me, truly seeing me, and I suddenly felt the attachment between us in a new, intense way.

  “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,” I sang softly to her. “Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.” She seemed to study me with fascination as I continued the song, and I smiled down at her. “If that mockingbird don’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.” Her lips spread across the nipple, let it slip from her mouth. Crinkly-eyed, she let out a little gurgly sound. “And if that diamond ring turns brass, Mama’s gonna buy you a looking glass.” I touched my finger to her nose. She gurgled again, following the sound with the most beautiful gummy smile I could imagine.

  Oh, my baby. Tears burned my eyes and I hugged her to me tightly until she wriggled in protest. Then I patted her back, burying my face against her sweet-smelling neck.

  “I will never, ever let you go,” I whispered.

  25

  Myra was not pleased when I told her I’d missed the second portal

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said angrily. “You said she’s fine now. Why do they need to keep her another week?”

  “They want to be sure she’s handling the new formula well,” I said. “I’m upset, too, Myra. I was all set to go, but we have two more portals. Hunter thought of everything.”

  She didn’t speak for a moment. “All right,” she said, surrender in her voice. “The next one is … what? The twenty-second?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” she said again.

  “There’s no problem with me staying longer in your friend’s condominium, is there?” I wondered if she was uncomfortable having me stay there for so long a time.

  “No, no problem.”

  “How was your move?” I asked. “How’s Virginia?”

  “Hot as blue blazes,” she said, clearly in a sour mood. “I’ve got to run. Do what you can to make that portal.”

  “I will,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  As usual, she left the line without saying good-bye. I felt a flash of sympathy for Hunter, growing up with so little warmth from his mother. I hoped she treated him with more kindness than she did me. He was her son, after all, while I was nothing but a nuisance to her by now.

  * * *

  On the fourteenth, one week after Joanna’s allergic reaction, she was discharged. I was a wreck, far more nervous than I’d anticipated being. I’d worn the sling to the hospital, and for the first time, I slipped her into it. “Slipped” was probably the wrong word. For months, I’d imagined sliding her easily into the sling, but when it came right down to it, “wedged” was the more accurate word to describe the experience. Joanna whimpered as I tried to balance her and pull the sling open at the same time, but once I finally had her in place she settled down quickly—magically, it seemed—and I drew in a long breath of relief.

  Celeste and a couple of the other nurses hugged us good-bye. They let me take a donated mobile of cute little sea creatures with me.

  “To hang over her crib,” Celeste said. I had no crib, of course, but I would find a way to rig it up over the bassinet for our final week in 2001.

  Outside, one of the hospital volunteers found a taxi for me, but the driver was impatient as I struggled with the car seat with a seven-and-a-half-pound baby hanging from my chest. I’d studied the instructions for attaching the car seat to the seatbelt, but the belt on the taxi was twisted and old and I finally gave up, cursing under my breath. “Just go,” I told the driver, who was by that time muttering to himself in a language I didn’t understand. I braced myself with an arm against the back of the front seat as he dodged in and out of traffic, and I breathed a sigh of relief when he finally pulled up in front of the condominium.

  I had the elevator to myself and peeked inside the sling to be sure Joanna was breathing, she was so still. Whoever invented the whole sling idea was a genius, I thought, watching my daughter breathe in and out, in and out. She was as still and calm as she was during kangaroo care. I leaned over to kiss the top of her head.

  Inside the condo, I hated to disturb her by transferring her to the unfamiliar bassinette so I left her in the sling as I curled up in one of the corners of the three-sided sofa. Using the remote, I turned on the TV, leaving the volume soft as I switched the channel to a soap opera I hadn’t seen since the day Joanna was born. Then I promptly fell asleep.

  * * *

  For two days, everything went perfectly. Joanna and I fell into a routine. Feeding, changing, napping, bathing—which she hated. Other than bathtime, she was good-natured, her smile increasingly easy to elicit now. I have a good baby, I thought. For all she’d gone through in her first five weeks of life, it seemed a miracle that she was so easygoing. On the third day, though, that changed. She woke up crying and nothing I did soothed her. She fought the confines of the sling. She turned her head away from the bottle. When I held her as I walked back and forth across the living room floor that evening, the lights blinking on in the sea of buildings outside the windows, I felt the heat of her temple against my lips.

  Fever.

  I found the thermometer, laid her down on the blanket I used for her “tummy time,” and took her temperature: 102. Horrified, I called Dr. Davidson, berating myself the whole time for not checking for fever earlier.

  “Get her back to the CICU right now,” Dr. Davidson said. “I’m already at the hospital. I’ll meet you there.”

  I wedged Joanna into the sling, noticing with some horror that she was no longer crying or even whimpering. Instead, she’d grown terrifyingly limp and listless and I rested my hand against her back through the sling as I rode the elevator down to the lobby. I wanted to be able to feel her breathing.

  I told the cab driver it was an emergency and he whipped through traffic like a professional hot rod driver and refused to let me pay him when he dropped me off at the hospital. While I was touched by his kindness, I was too frantic by that point to do much more than thank him as I raced out of the car.

  Dr. Davidson was waiting for me in the CICU, and once again, Joanna was placed in an isolette. She was wheeled into one of the isolation rooms and I wasn’t allowed to follow her. In all the time Joanna had spent in the CICU, she’d never had to go into one of those rooms. I knew what would happen there. A spinal tap, among other things. I knew of two babies who’d been diagnosed with sepsis after visiting that room, and I knew that one of those babies never recovered. I stood near the CICU doorway, my fist pressed to my lips.

  “Did you scrub in?” a nurse my own age asked me. I’d seen her once or twice before but didn’t know her name.

  “Oh,” I said, shaking my head. “Sorry.”

  “Go do that.” She pointed behind me to the foyer and the sink. “Then you can wait in the lounge.”

 
; * * *

  It was nearly midnight by the time Dr. Davidson joined me in the lounge. Although a couple of other parents had come and gone as I sat there feeling alone and scared, he and I now had the room to ourselves.

  “It’s not meningitis.” They were the first words out of his mouth. “But she has a bacterial infection. It’ll be a day or two before we get the lab results, but we’re starting her on IV antibiotics and I’ll readmit her.”

  “How serious?” I asked.

  “In another baby, I wouldn’t be too concerned,” he said. “But given Joanna’s heart history, we need to treat this aggressively.”

  “Will her heart be all right?” I asked. “Will she be all right?”

  “We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure she is,” he said.

  “How long do you think she’ll have to be here?” I asked. “I mean, if everything goes okay.”

  “She’ll be on the antibiotics a couple of weeks,” he said.

  I shut my eyes as panic bloomed in my chest. We wouldn’t make the third portal.

  “You’re exhausted,” Dr. Davidson said. “Go home. Get some rest. You can come back in the morning.”

  “I want to stay with her,” I said, opening my eyes.

  “Go home,” he said again, this time with a small smile. “Doctor’s orders. She’s in good hands here. If anyone should know that after the past five weeks, you should.”