About Whitaker

Baby Whitaker Steel, born 9/11

Those sliding glass doors. The sound of them swooshing open. That's one detail I remember so clearly; standing alone, slack armed in front of the doors leading to the emergency room at the Children's Hospital. Such an odd recollection.

I remember the red ropes too. Waiting in line between those bright red ropes imprinted with a teddy bear. They directed me toward a desk, where sat a beautiful black woman, her makeup somehow both garish and gorgeous; bright pink and blue lids shimmered under impossibly extended lashes. She was perfect. When she asked me where I was headed, I just wept, embarrassed, barely able to say aloud that I had come for my son.  She'd prepare and hand me a sticker to wear on my shirt, a proclamation of my visitor status to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. And she'd look right at me, her eyes filled with remarkable kindness. She never once avoided my eyes, swollen and ugly with shock. I remember her looking at me as if I were not a person falling apart, but one who was whole. I loved her for that.

I remember too, how long the hallways were, how it took a century to get from the elevator to my baby. And how not one of the rooms on the way to him, was empty. Each room held a tiny body in a tiny crib, strange hues of blue or orange or yellow emanating through the hush. I remember the beep of machines, and how Seth and I talked about whether we'd dream with that sound in our brains someday, if we ever all came home. If we ever slept.

I don't remember giving birth. I didn't see or touch Whitaker when he was born. I didn't hear his first cry, didn't see if his eyes were open wide with wonder or confusion or pain or whatever he felt when he made his way to the world. I don't know if his skin was wrinkled or how he smelled. I don't know who it was that first touched him, who bathed him, who diapered, wrapped or rocked him.

When Whitaker was born, and for several hours after, I wasn't even conscious.

This is the first time I touched him, several hours after he was born.
I don't have any memory of this moment in real life, only this picture for proof.

I had an awfully intense and very short labor that culminated when an OB (who I'd met only once before at a routine prenatal appointment) marched into an already chaotic room, and announced "I'm calling a code."

And because my medical background consisted of nothing more than watching Grey's Anatomy, to me a code meant someone was dying. I didn't know if it was me or my baby, and nobody spoke to me again until seconds before I was put under anesthesia.

I remember that too, how I was laying on my back surrounded by the turmoil of 20 people shouting instructions to each other and metal things banging against other metal things. They were prepping my body for surgery, but nobody said a word to me. Not. One. Word. A woman finally appeared above my strapped down, laboring body, and explained that I would feel a needle in my neck and then go to sleep. Maybe she recognized the utter panic in my eyes. Maybe it was that or maybe she was just doing her job, but right before I felt the sting of the needle, she said "It's going to be OK."

So Whitaker, due to a sustained, substantial decrease in heart rate, was brought into the world by emergency C-section. It was less than ideal, and I think he was moments from being born the old fashioned way, but the result was a six and a half pound gorgeous baby boy.

And for a little while, things seemed pretty normal. Grandparents smiled broadly as they held the new little bundle. Lakeland became a proud big sister, and Seth and I settled in, startled by the surgical part of Whitaker's birth, but relieved to have it all behind us, and the wonder of a new baby in front of us.

My three favorite faces.

Relieved and so completely in love.

There was a slight movement in Whitaker's arm that first day, an odd tic that was barely noticeable, but seemed strangely rhythmic - almost like a hiccup. I asked a pediatrician about it, and was assured that newborns just do weird shit when they adjust to their new environments. Unconvinced, I videoed it with my phone and showed another pediatrician, and in those moments, with the right person viewing a 14 second video, everything changed. We learned that Whitaker was experiencing seizures, and with urgency, a swarm of doctors started tests to garner as much information as possible, as quickly as possible, about his condition.

After a painful lumbar puncture and a slew of other tests I've long since forgotten, Whitaker was prepared for transfer to the Neonatal ICU at Children's National Medical Center.

One day post surgery and out of my mind with terror, Seth and I began negotiating my release from the hospital. And then I was in the front of an ambulance while a critical care team wearing full on freaking jumpsuits sat next to a high-tech plexiglass crib containing our newborn.

What the team wore - minus the helmet.

The critical care ambulance that transferred
us from Virginia Hospital to Children's National.

Whitaker met his first week of life with a barrage of examinations. His tests included EEG's and MRI's, along with tons of antibiotics in case his condition was the result of some kind of infection. He was given dose after dose of anti-seizure medications.

His small body was bruised everywhere, his lips so chapped they looked like swollen little pillows. Whitaker spent a prolonged period of time attached to an EEG and we weren't allowed to hold him. We just waited on diligent watch for any sign of seizing, while the electrodes attached to his head wrote a squiggly-lined story on a monitor about what was happening in his brain.

And because it's impossible to explain the torture of not be able to touch, help, feed or soothe your baby, I'll share some of the pictures we took during those days Whitaker was in the NICU.

These pictures are intensely private, but important too, in unveiling Whitaker's story.

Seth snuck his dingy old raggedy-ass childhood Pooh-bear into the hospital room.

Whitaker's head wrapped in what looks like a long stocking.
Underneath that white gauze, EEG wires are attached to his head
to monitor his brain activity. I think the test was 36 hours or so,
and during that time, we couldn't pick him up.

This was after the EEG was removed. He was so dry from the lamps, and I longed to nurse him. 
Seth and I wet his lips with our own saliva. 
Both of his feet are wrapped in bandages, one holding a 
monitor and the other a needle for administration of his medications.

Our tiny peanut. 

Here Whitaker is being prepped his first MRI. He slept through the whole thing,
and his neurologist got images that allowed her to diagnose the problem.

Whitaker's medical team discovered that he was seizing due to a subarachnoid hemorrhage. His seizures were long and intense, 6-10 minutes compared to the average newborn seizure of 60-90 seconds.

I remember sitting in a room full of brilliant neonatal neurologists, dumbly looking at films of Whitaker's brain. Seth would engage in conversation and ask thoughtful questions, one pen-wielding hand poised over a notebook, the other on my knee. (Seth was a champion from the time we arrived at the birth hospital until we arrived home as a family of four. The drive to the hospital while I was in labor however, was like a scene in a romantic comedy movie - Seth was swerving in and out of traffic while I yelled at him for his lack of driving skills.)

In each meeting, I just sat there stunned, quietly crying. Not understanding. Only wanting to hold my baby, only caring when I could feed him. Never even wondering when we might go home but with needs simply centered around when I could mother my child.

On the 17th of September, Whitaker got to come home. Seth and I learned how and when to administer his medications. We set alarms as reminders and established a medication station in the kitchen. Every blanket and burp cloth was stained pink with spat out phenobarbital. It was fucking awful.

Those first months, we scrutinized Whitaker's every move. The need to be alert and attentive to anything out of the ordinary was exhausting, but the acute gratitude for his just being alive proved a heavy counterweight.

After follow up EEG's and MRI's, in mid-December we learned three month old Whitaker could be weened off the anti-seizure medications. It was loosely determined that his hemorrhage was due to a "one time event", as there were no signs of arterial or venal abnormalities. I feel so sure that the trauma of birth was to blame. The poor kid could literally see the light at the end of the tunnel and was abruptly yanked through time and space, up and out a completely different opening.

A follow-up EEG on October 6 still showed
some abnormal "blips". Note how cute he is,
even hooked up to all the scary wires.

December 11 EEG was normal! Look how excited he is!!

Whitaker had the best medical care imaginable. His doctor was brilliant and instinctive and aggressive. She was forthcoming and concise. She saved our baby, and she's saving more babies right now. That's what she does. She saves babies. I now know a woman who saves babies for a living, and that's pretty much awesome. Not as awesome as a healthy baby would have been, but nonetheless, I know an actual hero.

Our family received love in every way, in bounds, from places near and far. There were phone calls and messages, flowers and gifts, random queso drops and bacon deliveries. People checked in often, sent jokes and well wishes, and bought plane tickets and flew to us. That too, was amazing.

The thing is, you can never imagine the feeling of loss when you give birth and have no memory of the experience. Can't fathom the nightmare of walking into your house without your baby in your arms. You can't anticipate that you might be a person standing in between those red ropes, waiting for a name tag so you can see your baby in the intensive care unit.

You can never know what you are able to endure until you have no choice but to withstand that thing.

I wish that I didn't know these things, that my family didn't experience this hardship. But I know that we are lucky. We got to walk out through those sliding glass doors, baby in arms. I'm thankful. And that's the story about Whitaker.