Letter to Louis Read online

  Letter to Louis

  ALISON WHITE

  For Louis, Greg, Tasha, Jack

  ‘Where are you going today?’ says Pooh:

  ‘Well, that’s very odd ’cos I was too.’

  ‘Let’s go together,’ says Pooh, says he.

  ‘Let’s go together,’ says Pooh.

  ‘Us Two’ by A. A. Milne

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Zero

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  ZERO

  The doctor is pacing around my trolley, checking the trace. He’s threatening to deliver you here and now in this waiting room. Is it really so serious? You’d think I’d feel more. I try to keep calm. I take long deep breaths like my father taught me years ago when I couldn’t sleep at night. I watch the clock above the door. The silver hands move slowly around its face and I hope that Greg will appear. He’ll get home, get the messages, get here in time.

  You are lifted out wriggling: no sound, no cry, away from my sight, lost behind doctors in the far corner of the room as I lie paralysed. The anaesthetist whispers into my ear from behind.

  ‘It’s a boy,’ he says.

  All I can see is the dulled green cotton of the operation sheet placed across my chest. It has drooped lower, one more inch and I will see the slice, my body open.

  The blue-dressed doctors are busy; four of them crowd around you under the strip-lights but no one is speaking. And then you are gone. You disappear to the sound of a foghorn, a booming box on wheels.

  ‘Where is he going?’

  ‘Intensive care,’ a voice filters in.

  The two obstetricians remain. They stand over me, studying what is hidden from my view. One is looking down concentrating, moving her hands in a sewing motion.

  It is hot, so very hot. Am I in a cupboard? A fan is churning the air but it isn’t helping me, my mouth is dry and parched, and I feel feverish. What is this room? There is medical equipment, a broom, but no windows. I am alone in this strange room and a nurse keeps appearing and disappearing as I vomit and bleed. A pain has begun to throb in my numbed waist. There is a syringe of yellow liquid attached to my hand: I feel its cold texture trickle in. The door shakes, the handle lowers and Greg bursts into the room. He’s clutching something; it’s a blurred blob on a Polaroid. I beam at him.

  ‘Greg! We have a baby boy – a “Louis” – and you thought it would be a girl!’

  He doesn’t smile back. He collapses onto the end of the bed and his shoulders heave.

  ‘It’s okay’, I say, ‘everything’s okay.’

  I don’t recognise the sound. My mouth is open but the noise I can hear is distorted; high pitched but deep, it sounds like a cow. It feels like my blood has turned to mercury and is pouring rapidly through my veins and spreading out across the floor. I’m trying to scream Greg’s name for help.

  The shower tray is cold and hard. The nurse helps me up and into a wheelchair, back to the hospital bed where I have been lying for the last sixteen hours since you were born.

  I’ve been feverish all night, drifting in and out of sleep, vomiting, feeling throbbing pain in the wound. Behind my closed eyelids I’d seen your head, your body being lifted out wriggling, your eyes glued closed, your tiny mouth gasping but making no sound. Later I will know that your heart was not beating. You were dying as you were born.

  I’m in a chair. The nurse wheels me out of the lift and presses the buzzer.

  ‘It’s mum for one of the new ones,’ she says.

  The lock releases and I’m wheeled through, turned down a corridor. I can feel the warm air on the bare skin of my back, between the ties of the gown. I’m clutching a sick bowl. It’s been twenty hours since you were born.

  I’m going to see you.

  I’m wheeled past the notice board with babies displayed. I don’t register it today. That will come later when I will hover here waiting for the doctors’ round to be over. I will stare at pictures of babies going home with their mothers, and tremble as I block out the board alongside showing those who don’t.

  Will I be able to tell which you are?

  I’m wheeled through another set of double doors and the heat hits me. Blinds are pulled down across all of the windows, fluorescent lights shine from the ceiling and clear plastic incubators line the room in two rows.

  I can see at the end a perfect baby; its porcelain skin seems to glow. It’s large: it must be full term, and is rolled onto its side, unmoving, eyes closed. A man and a woman stand stationary next to it; their eyes are cast down and I sense there is no hope. I learn in that instant that we don’t stare. We don’t talk to each other in here.

  There are three in a row to my left all the same size, teeny ones all on their stomachs, positioned like rabbits with upturned bottoms cushioned in nappies, knitted hats that could fit on an egg. Are you the one with the tuft of black hair? No, she has wheeled me past.

  Now she has stopped.

  I would not have chosen you.

  You are tiny. You look like a flattened frog. Your thin arms and legs are splayed outwards and wrapped in tape, weighted down by splints holding wires that thread into your veins. Your blond hair seems woven and is stuck to your head, your golden skin covered in down. Your eyes are tightly closed. I can’t see the rest of you. There are two large corrugated tubes, one green and one white. There’s a pipe in your mouth. There is white padding and sticking tape. I can’t see your nose, your mouth, most of your cheeks. The pipe is pumping and pumping. Your whole body is shaking from head to toe. Your chest is expanding, stretching your skin tightly across your rib cage then dropping.

  Circular pads are stuck to your chest and I hear bleeping, your heart beating. To the right I see a machine, a squiggle, your heart rate. It suddenly stops and an alarm pierces my ear. You try to lift your splinted arm and I know, even now on first meeting, that you are trying to swat the sound away. A nurse steps forward, presses a pad down on your chest, checks the machine, stops the alarm that’s triggering constantly, making you jump.

  ‘Hello, my name is Natalie. I will be watching over your son.’

  I like her immediately; she is warm and motherly, with dark patches under her eyes and the smell of coffee on her breath. Someone is here for you. I try to smile but instead I’m convulsing, vomit is rising out of my stomach onto my gown. I heave again and fluid erupts with a force that sends it splattering over the floor.

  The alarm is triggering. You are jumping again and I’m leaving you. They are wheeling me hurriedly away.

  A middle-aged doctor rushes past; he stops.

  ‘Are you Louis’s parents? I’m Dr Nook.’

  We nod.

  I’m still feeling queasy, my eyesight is blurring. Oh no, am I going to pass out?

  The doctor tilts his head, running his hand through his thick black hair. He looks like he’s not had much sleep.

  ‘Your son has been giving us a run for our money.’

  The doctor seems wired. His voice is nasal, his words staccato like gunfire; I can barely follow.

  ‘You’re lucky; we’ve got the oscillating ventilator free. Your son needs to be shaken to stop his lungs from sticking together. The steroids should have helped his lungs to mature but there was no time to wait for the
m to work before we had to deliver. So now we have to shake him and pump him with air in order to breathe.’

  ‘Will he be okay?’

  That’s Greg. His voice sounds fuzzy.

  ‘Your son’s condition has to be taken minute by minute, hour by hour right now.’

  My head is starting to spin. The doctor turns away but then he turns back again, taking a breath.

  ‘One other thing: we are sending some of Louis’s blood away for genetic testing just to be sure he is normal. I’ve detected three congenital anomalies: a hypospadias, a single umbilical vein and thirteen ribs. These are all very common and I’m not concerned at all but as there are three it’s our practice to check.’

  He’s gone. His footsteps clip quick down the corridor, stop and turn through the intensive care doors. An alarm rings out, is cut dead. The doors swing shut.

  In my bed I’m wheeled into a lift, down and out again, along the corridor and through swing doors into East Wing. A ward sister walks towards me as I enter.

  ‘I’m ever so sorry. I’m aware of your circumstances but I’m afraid we can’t give you your own room right now: there’s been a spate of deliveries; you’ll have to stay in the main ward for now. I’ll move you as soon as I get the opportunity.’

  Beaming visitors are huddled around beds, and past their shoulders I glimpse mothers propped up with pillows holding their swaddled babies, displaying them to their audience. I’m wheeled to an open cubicle with an empty bed and am asked to swap over. Shifting my body weight, I can feel a tug, the stitches pulling the skin, my wound starting to ooze as I hear my name.

  ‘Alison! What on earth are you doing here?’

  I turn my head to see Nicola. She’s standing fully clothed with a baby in her arms. Nicola is an acquaintance, she was two months ahead of me and we’d been sharing progress whenever we’d met on the street.

  ‘This is Matthew, isn’t he perfect?’

  I’m trying to nod.

  ‘What are you doing here – you’re not due yet?’

  ‘I’ve had a baby boy – his name’s Louis; he’s up in intensive care.’

  We both look at Matthew; there’s nothing more to be said. Then Nicola speaks in her awkwardness.

  ‘Oh my god, how dreadful, I couldn’t cope with that.’

  There’s another nurse. She is tickling my breasts. The blood has drained from my face and I can feel bile rising from my stomach into my throat. She doesn’t seem to notice my revulsion. My breasts are rock hard, skin stretched over solid what? What is in there? God they hurt.

  ‘You need to extract some milk for your wee bairn. This first milk is the royal jelly.’

  Oh shit this is hideous. She is gently pattering her pudgy white fingers on the skin, lightly tickling. She must be trying to mimic a baby’s hand. She’s stopped and stood back, thank goodness.

  ‘Now here’s the machine for you to borrow. You need to turn it on like this and attach the suction pump to your breast and screw the bottle onto it here.’

  I’m confused.

  ‘There aren’t many of these at the hospital but you qualify and it should be easier for you than hand pumping. Now you must get started straight away. You’ll need to ask your husband to get you a steriliser for all the parts.’

  ‘Oh.’ Steriliser? Where from?

  ‘Here’s some bottles. Write your hospital number onto these labels, put them on your bottle and bring them up to the ward freezer. We don’t want them accidentally giving your royal jelly to the wrong wee bairn now, do we?’

  She talks in a voice that is girlishly hushed. Her hair is mouse-brown and she’s tall with pink moist lips. She seems different to the other nurses – lonely. Although I feel sorry for her, my overriding feeling is disgust. I don’t want her to touch my breast.

  ‘I’m going to go and get you a sheet that your son has been lying on; its scent will help to stimulate your milk.’

  She returns with a brushed-cotton sheet. There are bloodstains.

  ‘This is your son’s, give it a good smell.’

  She stands there.

  Please just go away, will you?

  I’ve never been admitted to a hospital before: this is totally alien to me, the bright lights, the heat, the staff, these procedures. This isn’t what I learnt in the antenatal class. There’s another woman in this small room tucked down the corridor from the intensive care unit; we are both in hospital gowns, pale and silent. We haven’t acknowledged each other yet. I don’t think we will.

  ‘Now you need to go on the pump at least every four hours both day and night, preferably try three hours to start with, that will help to get your milk flowing, it will help to give your baby the best possible chance.’

  This is all that I can do for you right now.

  ‘Doctor, last night as I sat watching Louis I touched his hand through the incubator’ – rested his tiny finger the size of a matchstick on mine – ‘and he opened his eyes for the first time and I thought I could see terror there. Could this be so?’

  The doctor jerks backwards suddenly in his chair, tilts his head and looks at me with his ageing angular face.

  ‘I’m a doctor, we don’t do feelings,’ he says abruptly. ‘He’s on morphine, so he should not be in any pain. I think only about keeping him alive.’

  He pauses, sighs, speaks again softly.

  ‘You need to be aware that this is going to be like taking a rollercoaster ride. Hopefully in a few months’ time you will take your baby home with you.’

  ‘Do you have his birth certificate yet?’ a nurse asks gently. There’s something in her tone – why the urgency? I’m sitting by the incubator staring at you, looking at every detail of your body. I feel happy; you are five days old and I’m thinking how well you are looking.

  ‘Could you come into my office a moment, please?’

  My heart lifts. I like these occasional discussions with Dr Thompson on your progress. I’m still feeling elated since our last chat when he told me your ultrasound brain scan was exceptionally promising, no bleeds at all.

  ‘Your baby is giving us serious concern. We believe he may be developing necrotising enterocolitis. He has not passed any stools yet and his stomach is grossly distended, these are the usual signs. There is a real chance his gut will rupture in the next couple of hours, with little chance of survival if it does. You need to be prepared for what might happen very soon.’

  I am plummeting down a black hole. My arms are outstretched, fingers splayed, slicing channels down the clay-slimed walls. I’m hurtling faster and faster, down and down. There is no end.

  I go down to the ward and find the telephone for patients. Holding the receiver tight to my ear I drop coins into the box. I’m calling my uncle Len, a paediatrician. I’ve been calling him every day since you were born.

  I’m having difficulty speaking through my sobs.

  ‘They are seriously worried about Louis. They think that his gut might rupture and he might die. I haven’t even held him.’

  I’m sobbing uncontrollably.

  He talks to me gently, asks simple questions. He takes a practical stance.

  ‘Look, you are on day five and it’s a medical fact your hormones will be plummeting. You would be feeling mixed emotions even without these terrible circumstances. You must take some deep breaths. Go back up to his incubator and sit by his side. That will make you feel more in control.’

  I sit motionless by your incubator.

  Now all I can see is your stomach swollen. Your belly button is black and flattened and your skin is stretched taut over your abdomen; like a crust on a baking pie, it looks like it will split open at any moment.

  The room is peaceful; it is ‘quiet time’, just the bleeps of the monitors, the babies all sleeping. The porcelain baby has gone. Its incubator disappeared from the room some time in the night. I think of those parents and I feel pain and a sense of dread. The little chapel set back off the stairwell. Please, no, don’t let it be you too.

 
There are sounds of hospital activity from the corridor outside. A nurse appears beside us, begins to clean your mouth with cotton buds, removing scum that has formed around the ventilator pipe.

  ‘Would you like to help?’

  She’s kind. I dip the bud into a tiny bottle of sterilised water; gently wipe your dry, white-crusted dribble away.

  ‘This isn’t usually allowed but I need to change the sheet, would you like to lift him? Be very careful with the wires.’

  My heart leaps. I place my hands through the windows into your womb and slide them carefully under you and gently lift. Our skins are touching at last. The beat of my heart is pulsing in my hands, and I do not want this moment to end. I can feel your fragile weight, our warm skins melting together.

  ‘Place him down now.’

  Her voice filters in and as I slowly lower you, thick black treacle-like globules ooze from your bottom, drop onto the sheet.

  I’m here at last, you can let go now. Doctor, doctor, he’s going to be okay.

  *

  The nurse tuts. ‘I’m going to have to change it all over again.’

  I’m soaring high above the hospital rooftop, racing through the grey clouds, further and further, the dense clouds are thinning, seeping light, I burst through them into blue sky.

  ‘Len, Louis is going to be okay, he’s just done a poo. The doctor is saying the main danger is over, the x-ray has come back clear.’

  Years later your great-uncle Len enjoyed telling me how he’d walked around his hospital that afternoon with a grin stretched across his face. A colleague eventually asked him, ‘So why are you looking so pleased?’ And he’d answered, ‘Because a little boy in Scotland has just done a poo.’