He settles into the rocking chair opposite us, Liam and I in the thick of a skin-to-skin cuddle. He straightens his hospital whites and clears his throat in a distinctly bad-newsy sort of way.

"So… on the latest ultrasound we could see damage everywhere, in every part of his brain."

I never know what to say when they tell us things like this. Especially when he is curled up under my chin, his chest rising and falling, mouth open contentedly, catching flies. All making me swell with denial. The doctor continues.

"Based on these results alone, I’d say he should need a tracheostomy to keep from choking on his own secretions. I'd say this would be a baby without much of a future — at least not the kind of future you'd call healthy or happy. A baby with a brain that looks like that shouldn't be able to clear his own throat, and that's not good."

"But he does. We don't understand how, but he does. It's amazing. It's like he's rewiring — we can see that the parts of the brain that have been injured are being walled off, and presumably he's growing around it. He's making new connections — and not just in the brain stem which controls vital signs, but in the cortex, which controls complex movements and thinking. You can tell by the way he squirms."

<Liam gurgles, coos.>

"See? Look at that. He should not be able to do that, to make those sounds, to talk to you like that. In my career I've been wrong a few times about some babies, babies I've said won’t make it. Not often. He's one of the few. I don't want to give you false hope, but let's not base our assumptions on what we see on the screen. Because in this case, what we see on screen doesn't match what we see him doing. Clearly, he wants to be here, and he's going to chart his own course."

<Liam sneezes several times.>

"Wow. You know how complicated it is for the human body to orchestrate a sneeze? Diaphragm, nasal passages, lungs, mouth. That's cortex. This is why we should draw our conclusions from him rather than from the ultrasounds alone."

<Liam yawns.>

<Doctor gestures at us, pleasantly exasperated.>

"From what we see on his brain, he shouldn't be able to do that either. I don't know what else to tell you, other than we'll all just keep supporting and watching him. That's a very industrious little boy you've got there."

We wrap up our chat and the doctor walks away, still shaking his head in wonder.

The pessimist in me grumbles he’s blowing a little sunshine our way to soften the ‘brain damage everywhere’ news. He’s cutting us a break, seeing no point in deflating us with an unmendable truth.

But the doctor is genuinely puzzled, I'm sure of it. In front of us was a man passionate about neonatology, and who is not accustomed to being proven wrong.

Apparently it's not only god who’s a tinkerer. It's my son, too.

+++++++++++++

"You okay here?" says the nurse, peering in around the edge of the curtain. The doctor has just left. "I'm off on break. When you're done cuddling, feel free to put him back in bed, and he'll need a change too. Okay?"

She whishes off cheerfully amid a flurry of beeps. Then it dawns on me: she meant that I'd be doing all that m-m-myself.

It cannot be delayed. I am the Dunkin Donuts baker: time to pump the milk. I tilt myself forward, grimacing, still a bit precious in what's left of my abdomen. Get him settled in the crook of one arm, draping sensor wires in a neat cascade off the end of his feet. Open greenhouse, one side at a time. Sneak him underneath the edge of the roof with one eye on the monitors: oxygen sat fine, heart rate steady, respirations normal. Lay him back in his nest, gingerly retracting my hand from under his clammy, floppy silkiness.

I scrub in again, douse with alcohol. Working through portholes I nudge wires out of the way, collect both feet between index finger and thumb, fold the dirty diaper under itself, wipe, slip the new one in place (ten minutes less to write than to do). Finally, tucked in, my Liam stretches and sighs.

Satisfaction finds both of us in this black hole of bewildered doctors and unfavourable odds and day-by-day mystery. Mamalove through it all, mamalove.

For Ben, the prospect of extracting nourishment from my bosom is akin to a hummingbird getting its beak around a pair of ten-pound cheeseburgers.

So what we practice is called Snorfles. More osmosis and familiarity than ingestion — the reinforcement and practice of Boob-As-Happy-Place. Not whatsoever expecting him to latch, or master the art of suck-swallow-breathe. Not quite yet.

I should have had him sign a waiver.

I, the Undersigned, do hereby acknowledge that the activity of Snorfling may or may not result in me being blown to the back of the room by a Fire Hose of Tasty Mama Love. I understand that my mama cannot be held responsible for any mishaps caused by aforementioned fire hose.

_________________
BENJAMIN PETER INGLIS.

Bless him, he was up for it — a teensy latch, but a latch nonetheless. It didn't last long, but it was a start. Snorfles to gurgles, we’ll find our way around each other. Then it will be Liam’s turn. We’ll be a trio, an ecosystem. And somehow that will make them mine.

It means so much to feed my child the way I’m supposed to, without machines. Deep in my animal-self I’m buzzing with ancient recognition, ripe with mama-chemicals and physiological fulfillment.

I don’t need a new drug. I’ve got milk.

+++++++++++

This morning I walked into the NICU to see Liam’s nurse smiling broadly, waving me over. Come and see! She exclaimed. Come and see what’s different.

It's a milestone of healing: he is off the ventilator. He’s just Liam now, all-baby.

He may have hiccups, backsteps. But it is such sweetness to see his face unobscured by complication. He is hoarse but he gurgled at me, and pulled faces in the nervy twitchiness of preemie sleep.

Today, magic from both boys had me smiling all the way home.

I am a red thumbtack on the NICU map of parental distress.

It was a social tea: a fruit plate, muffins and a tableful of "Are You Stressed?" pamphlets. After some icebreaking chit-chat with the other parents I picked up the one in front of me, scanned a 'Checklist of Cognitive Disorders' that read something like this:

• Do you see unfavourable events as a pattern of defeat?
• Instead of recognizing that we all sometimes make mistakes, do you believe you are a failure?
• Do you feel the world has done you wrong?

Check. Check. Check. If I answer yes to all these, do I get a prize? They all chuckle. A sidelong glance from the counselor sitting next to me. Perhaps have a look at this, she says, seeing through my lame attempt at humour. This is our Booklet of Normal Feelings.

Inside my head I snort, ever the cynic. You can’t help me.

Then, the first thing I see:

• Grief at the Loss of a Normal Pregnancy

Suddenly I can't breathe. My eyes well up. Not here. Please no. I can share, but only when cloistered. Spoken words clog my throat. Written words put chaos into manageable packages — but don't require me to look into your eyes and see discomfort there.

I mumble a painfully awkward run-down of the prognosis of last week. With every word I am naked on stage in front of a thousand, then five thousand, then ten thousand people. What was supposed to be an offhand "Phew! Sorry, it's just been a rough week, never mind me…" has now become uncontrolled sobbing in front of a captive audience.

The other parents suddenly fixate on their shoes, regretting the joviality of just a moment before as they compared notes on their textbook preemies, relative hippopotami next to Liam and Ben.

Not to claim a monopoly on NICU stress. They don't need to regret. We're all in this together, and everything is relative. We'd all rather be home.

+++++++++++

Last week I dreamed you were sitting in the NICU at the edge of their bassinets, and there were these endless printer readouts of heartbeats or other bio-info cascading to you as you sat on the floor, and you and your older son were using large amounts of bright washable paint to paint pictures on the readout paper. Next I saw your older son again, lying down in a photo with Liam and Ben on either side of him, they were all smiling. Three happy boy-heads. The colors in the photos were phantasmically vivid, like in all your other photos.

Her name is Sara, yet another unknown voice that speaks to me of dreams I have to co-opt. I don't have dreams like this. I wish I did, but I'm blank.

I could accept if Liam doesn't make it. 'Accept' as in rationalize. I would be forever gutted, but I could distill meaning and reason from it. Conversely, the only other outcome I can accept is that Liam will defy everyone, completely unscathed.

What if he lands somewhere in the vast gulf in between, disabled? This is most likely, by a longshot. He'd have an identical twin without physical challenges. Cruel, so cruel that is. A mirror of yourself, only holding more cards.

Unfamiliar territory, when a child's life veers off the parallel of your own. Such a bloody complicated muck. Anyone could be hit by a bus tomorrow, they say. Having a healthy baby doesn't give you any guarantees. I know this. We've all seen it happen. But I'd much rather have him start his life with ability, not a lack of it.

It's shameful to put this out there, this darkness. But I have to put it in a package, label it, find a spot on the shelf for it. So that someday another newer, neater package can be placed in front of it, demoting it to the background, dusty and irrelevant. Some form of acceptance.

…Liam? He's beaten the odds, day in and day out, consistently surprising all the various experts who've poked and prodded him. Let him surprise you.

Anna said this after the last post. Another bell rings, cutting through the static.

Blindfolded, we are standing either at the edge of a cliff or the curb of a sidewalk, waiting for time to nudge us into the void.

It’s been a train wreck of a day. The wreck didn't happen to me, though. I am the wreck. I happen to others.

I burst out crying when it’s most inconvenient for whomever I’m with. I’m calm when it makes no sense to be calm, and I’m a mess when it makes no sense to be a mess.

But please, please world: give me the space for that to be okay.

Just know that I’m not like this all the time. I change the diaper of my two-pound son. I screw it up and get poop on the bed, which is a pain in the ass for the nurses, but I’m in there, sleeves rolled up, trying. I’m told that this soon, most parents are too afraid. I may cry all the way home but I when I am with them, I am there.

I’m so raw. I feel judged and vulnerable and claustrophobic and illogical. I’ve moved from shellshock and denial to anger, resentment towards every other person walking the streets who, compared to the complete shit luck of our lives right now, must certainly have it easy.

I’m proud of myself. I’m embarrassed of myself. I’m fiercely protective of how I’m facing this, but ashamed of it too. I am drowning in guilt, so much guilt I can’t see straight. That I couldn’t keep them safe. That I’m distracted from Evan. That I resented them for being two. That we’re burdening our families. That I burden Justin by being a mess. That last thing I want right now is for him to have to worry about the boys and me.

I want a pill.

I want everyone who says I need a pill to fuck right off.

I want to be one of Oprah-saints who says she loves her children just as they are and really means it. I want to love my children no matter what. But now, having learned that it’s not a matter of if Liam has brain damage but a matter of how that assured damage will manifest itself, I’m pissed. I’m just plain pissed. I want him to ski at Sugarloaf with us, and get black and blue from sailing, and have girlfriends. I want him to be 'normal', selfish for both me and him.

Then I loathe myself for putting conditions on my son when he's giving this everything he's got.

I grieve all the normal he’s lost. In time I’ll be able to see what he has more than what he doesn’t have. But right now, my boots are stuck in loss-mud and I haven’t got up the nerve to pull out my sock foot and step forward, leaving the boot behind.

He has a grade four bleed on his brain, the worst. So what does that mean? we asked today — something of a pointless question, given that the answer gives us no course of action.

The doctor says: from the location, it will be motor skills that are affected, not mental capacity. It may be like some form of cerebral palsy, anything from barely perceptible clumsiness to a wheelchair. We have no way of knowing. I’ll tell you though, this kid’s got a purpose. 98 of 100 babies would have died, and he didn’t. He could be studied, a case. He shouldn’t be here. But he is. He’s proving us wrong every day, and on every count so far — from his heart to his kidneys and liver, they’ve all healed. He has been injured, there’s no doubt about that. But he’s meant to be here.

I am proud, and furious, and grateful, and crushed.

Let me be all those things. Without a little of everything, I’m going to explode.

Nononono!… ohshitshitshit… a mother duck and her brood wobble in single-file across the highway, as calm and unhurried as browsers at a flea market. In ten slow-motion seconds I slam on the brakes and cars around me swerve. The last duckling twitters out of my lane a mere feather from my tire. I look in the rearview as they scurry into the ditch.

I can see the newspapers now:

…Kate gave her life and the lives of multiple drivers and passengers in near-proximity to save six ducklings from imminent squashing. When informed of the near-miss and of the woman’s valiant sacrifice, the elder Ms. Duck, capable of speech despite a brain the size of a pea, was overheard quacking, "Ducklings? What ducklings?"

I could hardly breathe for the remainder of the drive, heart pounding from the certain and narrowly avoided daylong sobbing session that would have transpired had I hit those ducks.

Would they have tumbled up over the windshield, balls of fluffy adorableness scattered like dandelion seeds by the bow wave of the van? Or would they have been mashed into primal goo in the grooves of my tires? Imagining the tragic end I *almost* caused those duck-babies had me tearing up all the way downtown.

Kitchen string and brittle elastics hold me together these days, just barely. It doesn’t take much for moderate composure to become near-hysterics.

+++++++++++

Ben, the little spitfire, opened his eyes in the past couple of days. Black saucers, all-eyeball. At this point I'm no more than light and shadow but as I move into his line of sight he turns his head as if to address me. Okay mama, here’s the way I want things to be.

When out of his greenhouse for cuddles he needs the tiniest jolt of oxygen to keep refreshed, and can’t stand the tube. He works his fingers underneath, pulls and grimaces. The nurse hears the monitor go off and resets the prongs into his nose. He wrinkles up his face and lets out a gruff OOWAAAAA! in protest, louder than I thought him capable of. Sweet music, wee feisty one.

I changed my first diaper yesterday, for Ben, through portholes for each hand. Three inches across (imagine that), like changing a doll. But verifiable baby, underneath: breastmilk is gravity-fed to him through a tube, and out the other end comes 100% authentic French’s Original Mustard. And afterwards, the contentedness of a clean bum.

Nothing these days is more magical to me than what appears ordinary to everyone else.

+++++++++++

As for Liam: "He's a tough little guy," says our doctor, tall and freshly starched, new to our rotation. "Amazing to think that just a couple of weeks ago, he was on death's door." He shrugs and smiles, then moves along with a troupe of residents in his wake.

For a flash I'm offended: death's door. But it’s fair to say. It was true. I guess I'm just not used to doctors employing such local colour.

They’re weaning him from the ventilator, teaching his lungs to breathe. A long process, but the fact that they’re trying is a milestone in itself. The reward will be Liam’s never-seen face, unobstructed by tape and tubes, cheeks and lips relaxed into the shape they’re meant to be.

They tell us his movements are encouraging. He behaves like an ordinary preemie, stretching and sprawling, curling up on his belly and kicking on his back, craving enclosure.

His grip on my finger is more than a reflex. It says Don’t worry mama, I am here. It is intentional. This is one of those mama-gut knowings. While Ben is all comedy and cantankerousness, Liam is calm, patient, steadfast. Not inactive-mellow but wise-mellow.

I want so desperately to be right about that… more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.

+++++++++++

All three of us share each other, every day. Waiting, passing time. Willing for them to sneak under the wire of cruel fates, to be granted precious uneventful time to get stronger. Two little bums cupped in my palms, a tangle of weightless limbs curled up against my heart like baby frogs.

Evan met his brothers the other day. We brought him in and scrubbed him up and he peered into their greenhouses and smiled. I see baby happy, baby sleeping. Mama boobie milk for Ben an’ Liam.

Wanting all this so much, I am rubbed raw. Love, love like vertigo.

"Hey," I whisper to Justin during the welcome tour. "Did you see that? Separate beds."

"I KNOW," he says, grinning widely.

Later that night we curl up with blankets up to our chins, talking across the gulf between his and mine. I sprawl without fear of toenail crossfire. He sighs contentedly, relishing more than his usual 2.75 inches of bed space.

Kate: I feel like we're at summer camp.
Justin: If we were at summer camp you'd hear a lot of this: <snaps waistband of boxer shorts>
Kate: I don't get it.
Justin: Summer camp's when little boys discover their wee-wees.

(I could not go through this with any lesser man.)

++++++++++++

Ronald McDonald House is lovely people with a lovely concept. But we couldn't hack it. Home is not quite far away enough from the hospital to inspire the tolerance that shared space demands.

One day I walked into the kitchen through the den, jaw-dropped at the sight of a 300-pound ten-year-old kneeling in front of a video game with his nose - I kid you not - squashed directly against the TV like a dog one window away from a parade of all-squirrel marching bands.

The sight of this kid (intially and then three hours later, unmoved) instantly made me want to take up jogging. Even without a motivational pack of snarling rottweilers.

Accompanied by Augustus Gloop's relentless BADABEEEEPing and another guest's apparently near-deaf enjoyment of The Simpsons on big-screen, we shuffle around in the common rooms, hunched over and comparing battle scars like inmates in the prison yard.

"What'd you do to get in here?"

"I dunno, but it's only been two hours and I'm already hoping for early parole."

Given the choice, we'd rather be home each night. Comforting, anonymous and with peanut-buttery Evan hugs to boot. I'm so appreciative that a place like Ronald McDonald House exists, but we need to be where we belong.

For the next three months, we'll commute. We'll keep the highway robbers at Petro-Canada neck-deep in Krispy Kremes and Cristal. But if that's what it takes to have our own space again, so be it.

++++++++++++

So far, the boys are game. We walk in each morning, breath held, exhaling as beloved nurses give us the goods on the previous night.

"Liam's off the dopamine, pressure's stable. Vent rate's at 55, tonight we'll push it down to 50 and see how he tolerates. Oxygen's at 34, sat's at 98 so we've been lowering that too. Blood gasses were a bit high. Fentanyl came off the other day, a good sign. He doesn't need it anymore now that he's had a couple of days to recover from the surgery. His TPN is at 6.4, lipids are on hold at 1.18. He's getting 1 cc of breastmilk every 6 hours, but given the triple-antibiotics we'll give the feedings a break for the next day or two. He sounds wet and crackly in his chest without suction, so we're on top of that. No murmur, temp is fine. He peed 61.8 for 4 ccs per kilo, and his chem strips were 7.6, 6.4 and 8.1."

<blank stare>

"He's a happy boy."

Knock wood.

++++++++++++

Apparently the parent population of the NICU is weighted heavily with fans of the musical equivalent of cats in heat: Top 40 Radio. I go into the feeding room, fluorescent and sterile, almost comically so. The previous pumper has almost always left the radio on Z103.5 THE HITMIX.

Picture it if you will. Your bosom, sucked purple by the Lact-Eze 3000. A pile of two-year-old InStyle magazines that lie there, mocking you, your hands too full to turn pages. A teddy-bear poster that reminds you to Think Of Your Baby. A tear and snot-streaked shirt that should have been laundered three days ago. Bags under eyes. Sweatpants. And the funky stylings of Usher. Usher?

Pssshtkoff. Pssshtkoff. Pssshtkoff. Pssshtkoff.

What cha doing
You know I'm coming over right
(now baby tell what you wanna do with me)
Now you got it hot for me already baby
I'll be there in about uh, give me ten minutes
Be ready
Wear that little thing I like

Pssshtkoff. Pssshtkoff. Pssshtkoff. Pssshtkoff.

Then again, maybe I'm the weird one. I let down to CBC. Maritime Noon. Cross Country Checkup. March of the Valkyries. This guy's voice makes my nipples tingle:

How's that for kinky?

You think you’re a generous person. Then something like this happens and you realize you’ve traipsed through a blessed and oblivious life.

Give or take a few choice words, Lynsey from Lisbon is making us an ‘Unexpected Visitors Will Be Dumped With Vats of Steaming Baby Shit’ door sign for when the boys come home. D’Andrea is sending me her double-pump. Jeanette, Leigh and Marybeth wear Liam and Ben bracelets, and now Tracey too. Brooke keeps a Liam and Ben candle lit. All reach out like sisters.

Family and friends are on heavy grilled-cheese duty, putting lives on hold to wrap Evan in cheerful routine. They mow our lawn, transplant ailing cherry trees and keep our twin-inspired addition, kitchen-gutting and clapboard restoration on track (gluttons for punishment, we are). They send spaghetti and cinnamon muffins and risotto, and gift certificates for sushi and italian food, or come by to share pots of tea and company.

With emails and comments, many of you have shared stories of twin-life and NICU-life and survival and loss and faith. Others have simply sent one line: I’m sorry for you. This all just sucks.

On the last post Wood noted how blown away she was by the comments. You’ve got some wise readers, she said. I couldn’t agree more. I’m fascinated by all of you, wondering what you look like, where you live, what you do. Overwhelmed by your warmth and spirit and common sense.

You’ve kept us afloat. When I’m shaking with helplessness I come here, drink up your words, hot and replenishing and full of good-salts, like miso soup on a hangover.

I used to respond to comments, loved that sensation of sharing a bottle of wine and venting in the company of friends (or having a sleepover and eating platefuls of cupcakes and braiding each others’ hair, as Eve put it). As wonderful as it is that I can’t keep up with you, it drives me nuts that I haven’t been able to acknowledge everyone — new visitors, delurkers, treasured friends I’ve never met.

Intentionally or not, some of you are even teaming up to nag me along with my mother.

My mom: Now Kate, you have to take it easy. Barbara said so.
Me: Who?
My mom: Barbara had a c-section too, and she said you have to be careful to keep taking your medication if you need it.
Me: Right, I remember. HappyMummy43 and Elaine from Yonkers said the same thing.

++++++++++++

We sat upstairs at Pete’s for lunch, in the second-floor window of the Pervy Perch (christened by Justin after he inadvertently looked down a woman’s low-cut top). We ate quietly, still shell-shocked but keeping one eye on the sidewalk, just in case (we don’t get out much these days).

The second floor was almost empty and I thought, What if everyone who’s commented on the blog and sent emails was here right now with us, eating lunch? Imagining it gave me such a vivid sense of company, that rush you get from being stuffed into the same physical space as a mass of people all gunning for the same thing — like being in the stands at an NHL game, hockey fan or not. The electricity gives you goose bumps.

Since then you’ve been with me everywhere. It’s a little crowded but we’re like penguins. You keep me warm in this storm.

I can’t thank you enough.

“I’ve got all this deep… this deep…”

That’s as far as I could get. Lying in bed with Justin trying to articulate all the regret in my head, the deepest, darkest shame, and unable to continue.

My brain tells me to shut the f*ck up. To not indulge this brand of grief for a second. But my heart whines, urges me to wallow.

I want to flip off the universe by having more babies. I can’t believe I’m feeling this way, this almost frantic urge to get pregnant again and again and again. I want healthy babies, a circus-troupe gaggle of them, and normal labours for once, for chrissake, to prove my worth and be absolved of what happened to the boys.

I failed at this pregnancy.

The day before I went into labour I shuffled laps in the backyard after supper, crying and clutching at my belly, feeling like I just wasn’t cut out to carry twins. The night it happened I spent a few hours wracked in bed, then pacing, then sitting with a heating pad on my back. All trying to bear what I thought was third-trimester discomfort.

If I had come to the hospital sooner that evening, would Liam have less blood in his brain? This torturous thought creeps into my head, and I know it’s unfair and ridiculous. I know the damage was done long before I started feeling contractions.

But I still think back to that night and want to scream at myself. I fantasize of time-travel episodes like those dreams of being chased, stuck in slow-motion. I’m screaming but she can’t hear me.

Having more babies would be punishment by sheer intensity of life. Forcing my body into another pregnancy, into proving something to the world with another year of tetherment and a lifetime of offspring-amplified chaos.

Go right ahead, said Justin, gently joking. That’s when I’ll take off to Mexico.

Not long ago, anyone who would choose to have more than two kids was deemed certifiably nuts. And here I am, struck with this primal urge to have as many babies as I can at any emotional, physical or financial cost.

To run myself ragged for the rest of my life, powered by instinctual guilt.

He's out, quicker than we thought. He'll be asleep for a long time, and on pain meds after that... but we're told it went well. They're x-raying him now to see how well the clip is placed on the valve, and to evaluate the effect it has on his lungs and ventilation.

I've got to figure out how to ride these low points. People stared at me for crying freely as I walked down the street, red-faced and hunched over from the incision. It throbs, this swollen patch of numbness.

A swollen patch of numbness. Not unlike the rest of me. Far removed from grace and shit-togetherness.

In the realm of preemies, this was routine. But it was the first intervention aside from the IVs and the medication and the stat-watching. The first time he was wheeled down the hall and away from us to a place where they'd breach his skin.

It got the better of me, the thought of it. And still so long to go.

They just took Liam into the OR for heart surgery. The doctors had to walk us through the risks, make us sign a waiver. She said there was a five to ten percent chance of a threat to his life. His blood vessels are the consistency of wet kleenex, she said. We have to be careful.

Never has five to ten percent seemed so significant.

I am a blubbering mess.