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Chapter Seven

Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out

Both my mom and Rochelle’s mom took me to the NICU. I hadn’t paid attention when Nick had mentioned the short time Noah had been in the NICU. He hadn’t been there long and Nick was so perpetually happy…

I will never forget the moment I walked into the NICU. One of the nurses came and squeezed my hand. She had a smile on her face. I didn’t know how she could be so happy. Surely all of the babies in the NICU weren’t guaranteed to survive, including my two. Surrounded by the possibility of death day after day how could someone keep hope?

“We have your little ones in the bay with a window view,” the nurse said sweetly.

I was handed scrubs, booties for my shoes, and gloves. I didn’t realize until I tried to pull on the gloves how hard my hands were shaking. My world had been turned upside down and I felt like I was drowning fast.

By the time I approached the bins I was sweating profusely.

“They’re both on oxygen and feeding tubes,” the nurse explained from behind me. “We put them in together. Studies show that if twins can be kept together to cuddle that they do better than if we separate them. The probes on their chest are monitoring their heart rate and breathing.”

She kept explaining but I stopped hearing.

“Oh my god,” I whispered.

For over a year the idea of a baby had been something that sounded good but it never seemed like it would be reality. As I knelt down next to the isolette something happened that I will never be able to explain. It was as if they had been with me all my life.

Both had a smattering of dark hair. They were just barely longer than a standard ruler.

They were perfect to me.

“We’ve been waiting for you , AJ.”

I looked up to see Dr. Tresher standing there, clipboard in hand. I stood slowly.

“I am so sorry about what happened to Ro,” she said. “I know this is a lot to handle.”

I nodded. I didn’t know what I could say. Dr. Tresher put a hand on the isolette. Her forehead creased. I knew for a fact that the look could only mean more bad news.

“Now, baby girl McLean’s doing well,” she said softly. “Her breathing monitor’s only gone off once and that was just because it was knocked off.”

I glanced back down at the isolette.

“And my son?”

“The breathing alarm’s been going off almost every hour. He has several lung problems. We’ve begun treatment but his small size even for his gestational age is concerning. I want to air on the side of caution and tell you that there’s a chance he might not make it.”

As if on cue, a monitor started to go off. I stumbled back. Two nurses ran over to help Dr. Tresher while I stood there helpless. I closed my eyes.

Two out of my three family members’ lives were now being monitored in minutes and hours.

I walked out of the NICU and threw up.

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“Alex, honey, you need to sleep.”

“No, it’s been almost twenty-four hours. The doctor should be here soon.”

I was sitting by Ro’s bed. My mom had snuck in to try to get me to stop my pacing, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Every hour I went from Ro’s bedside to the NICU and then back again. I had walked those hallways almost two dozen times. Nurses came and went but no one was able to give me an update.

I didn’t know what was worse. When I was by Ro’s side, I was bombarded with monitors constantly keeping a steady beat. Then when I went to the NICU, more often than not a monitor went off and I braced myself to hear that we had lost our son. So far that hadn’t happened.

Two hours and another trip to the NICU and back brought me to Ro’s side again. Just as I was about ready to go personally hunt down the doctor I had spoken to yesterday, he came up to Ro’s bed. We shared a look.

“There’s no sign of any more cranial bleeding. There’s still some swelling and I want to keep her in the coma for another twenty four hours,” the doctor explained. He pulled up a stool.

“Now are you ready to hear the whole rundown?”

I glanced at Ro.

“One more question. Is she aware that she had the babies?”

The doctor shook his head. “No. And unfortunately…we had to do a complete hysterectomy. There was internal damage to the uterus as a result of the impact and so we had to do the c-section not only to save Rochelle but also to give the babies a chance of survival. There was a lot of hemorrhaging and she required two blood transfusions.”

I exhaled heavily. I knew Ro wasn’t going to take any of this information well.

“She also has two broken ribs and a collapsed lung. Both of which were the least of our concerns but we have addressed them.”

“Do you have any good news?” I said after a moment. The doctor smiled softly and patted my knee.

“The good news is that you have three family members that are quite the fighters. They’ve been through a terrible ordeal. I’ve seen this play out before in a much different way. Someone’s watching out for you.”

He stood up. “I’ll be back around at the end of my shift unless something changes.”

I watched him walk away. I turned back to Rochelle. Folding my hands together, I bowed my head and said a prayer. I knew who was watching out for us.

He had been there all along.

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Two more days passed in which my son continued his battle to stay alive. Finally at the end of the third day Dr. Tresher knelt down beside me.

“He had a great day. He’s responding well to the steroids. I won’t do the Macarena yet, but I’ve seen enough cases to know that he’s turning the corner.”

I smiled. It felt like such a foreign action. Dr. Tresher gave me a hug.

“Maybe if Ro’s up to it, you guys can give these two names in the next day or so,” she suggested. She walked off and I headed to the ICU. I’d been waiting to deliver some good news.

Ro had been taken out of the induced coma after another twenty four hours. It took her another twelve to come around. She had looked so happy to see me even though I had burst into tears when I saw her eyes flutter open.

I held onto her hand as if I was afraid that by dropping it she’d somehow slip away again. I was still holding her hand when the doctor told her about her cranial bleeding, her ribs and her punctured lungs. She took it all with a grain of salt. Her big concern was her babies.

“They’re beautiful. Small, but beautiful,” I had told her. Luckily I was at the NICU when Dr. Tresher told Rochelle about our boy’s lung problems and the hysterectomy. Unfortunately, by the time I came back, Ro was shutting down again.

I was hoping a little good news would bring her out of that funk. I walked into the ICU. There was a lunch tray but she hadn’t touched a thing. I picked up a spoon and poked at the jello.

“It’s alive,” I said. She didn’t answer. I set the spoon down and smiled.

“I have good news,” I said gently. She looked at me.

“The steroids are working. Lung function is getting better.”

Ro’s eyes glistened. Her hand drifted to her stomach as if on reflex. I took out my phone.

“I took a picture for you.”

I held up the phone to Ro’s face. Her eyes devoured my screen hungrily.

“Oh my god,” she whispered. She lifted her hand and touched the screen. She was memorizing every detail.

“They have more hair than me,” I teased. Ro gave me a small smile. Then as soon as it came, it was gone.

“Is it all really going to be okay?” she asked uncertainly. I sank down next to the bed.

“Without a doubt,” I said with more conviction than I thought I had in me. “But there is one thing we need to do.”

“What?”

“We need to name them,” I said.

Ro’s eyes went back to the screen.

“I’ve known since the beginning what I wanted to name our baby if it was a girl,” she said quietly. “Alexis.”

I looked at her in surprise. “Alexis?”

Ro nodded. “There’s not another name in the world I want.”

I smiled. “Then Alexis it is.”

Ro looked at me. “You pick her middle name.”

I opened my mouth and then closed it. I was fine with Ro picking names. Choosing names was a big deal. Our kids would walk around with these names the rest of their lives. Of course, if they were like me, eventually they’d have about fifteen different versions of their name to go by. I closed my eyes and paused for a beat.

“Faith,” I finally said. “Alexis Faith.”

Ro smiled. “That’s fitting.”

She looked back at the phone. Finally she looked at me.

“AJ, I don’t know what to name him.”

I crawled up on her bedside and took a look at the picture. I used to tease Ro about all the crazy names I’d choose if we had a boy. Like Ish. But with all he’d been through in the past three days, that just didn’t seem right. And then it came to me.

“Jonah,” I said quietly. “He’s fought hard for the past three days for life. Just like Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale.”

Reva’s biblical influence was finally paying off.

“I love it,” Ro said. I stared at his little face.

“Jonah Adolph,” I said. “After my grandpa.”

Ro actually laughed softly. I looked at her in confusion.

“Something tells me he’s going to grow up to be called JAM – Jonah Adolph McLean.”

I grinned. Somehow I could so seeing Jizzle’s son being called Jam.