The Puzzle of Elijah. Olga Anischenko

He may not like it. Your baby still needs to be in your womb for more than two months, not being touched.”

      I opened the round windows, put my hands on our baby’s head and legs, and looked at his face. He was so beautiful with blond curly hair and looked so much like Oleg. The nurse told us more about his tubes and wires.

      “An oxygen tube, taped to baby’s mouth, is going down into his lungs to help him breathe. The sensors on his chest check his oxygen, pulse, heartbeat and body temperature. The umbilical intravenous line is inserted though his belly button, so we can draw blood for labs. The PICC line (a prolonged IV) is inserted in his hand, so we can send in nutrition and medications.”

      There was a tiny diaper on my baby and, luckily, his legs had nothing attached to them. Everything seemed beyond our control. Seeing our baby with the tubes scared me.

      “It is real. What do we do now?” I asked my husband.

      Oleg hugged me tight. I wanted to hold our newborn son and have some quiet time with him, but it wasn’t possible. I felt a strange wave of emotion like he was mine, but at the same time not mine. I tried so hard to control my feelings and to not cry. “This is serious. We and our baby are in deep trouble,” I thought.

      “Your baby has jaundice, a medical condition with yellowing of the skin and whites of his eyes, arising from excess of the pigment bilirubin,” the nurse said. “We need to turn on the special light that will help his jaundice go away. I need to cover your son’s eyes with black glasses, close his incubator and keep him under the lights.”

      Oleg and I stepped aside. I didn’t want to leave our son, but due to my pain, we returned to my room for more medications. I needed rest, and it was time for me to pump more milk. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I couldn’t say a word to Oleg, who laid quietly on the couch with his own tears.

      When I calmed down, I called my sister, Luda. One of her children was also born premature.

      “Olga, I know what you are going through,” she said. “I feel your pain.”

      We both talked and sobbed. It was easier to talk with someone who had had similar experience and understood. I was so grateful for my sister’s support.

      …….

      In the afternoon, Oleg brought David, Kristina and Michael to visit me and meet their baby brother.

      “Mom, why did the doctor cut your stomach? How big is your cut?” Michael asked, scared.

      “The baby would have died if the doctors had not cut my stomach,” I answered. “The cut is about five inches long.”

      “Did it hurt, Mom?”

      “No, it did not, because the doctors used numbing medications during the surgery,” I answered. “But it hurt after the surgery and it hurts now.”

      “How long it will take to heal?” Kristina asked.

      “About two weeks. I will need to be very careful when I come home. You guys will need to help me a lot.”

      “Mom, we will help you.” Kristina laid by me on my hospital bed and hugged me.

      “Why was the baby born early?” David asked.

      “Because Mom’s blood pressure raised very high,” Oleg answered. “Mom has some health problems. We need to take good care of Mom.”

      “How soon will you and the baby come home?” David asked.

      “I will come home after about four days, but the baby will stay at the hospital for a while. He needs a surgery on his heart.”

      The children were sad. Even children know that heart surgery is serious. They had no more questions. We were all quiet. After getting the information they wanted and seeing that I was likely to be okay, they just turned the TV on and watched cartoons. How much could we expect from our children? David was the most concerned, but Kristina and Michael, because of their age, didn’t understand much.

      After spending a few minutes with me, the children wanted to see their baby brother. We thought they could handle it. Seeing the wires and tubes, attached to the baby, the children were scared because they didn’t understand what was happening. They knew that their brother was in a trouble and that he was sick. They didn’t want him to die. This was the first time they ever experienced the possibility of death. Oleg explained the problems with the baby’s heart and asked our children not to be scared, but to pray for God to help their baby brother.

      …….

      That afternoon, the doctor came and told us, “During the meeting of cardiologists, neonatologists, surgeons and medical students, we decided to delay your baby's open-heart surgery until he weighs at least five pounds. We think medications will enable his heart to keep working until he has grown larger and stronger, which will give him a better chance for success. We will feed him intravenously and let him grow, while keeping his heart duct open with medications. We will also continue providing oxygen to help him breathe. Your baby will stay at the hospital at least two months before the surgery and few more months after the surgery.”

      Hearing the doctors’ long-term plan, Oleg and I understood that our son would not be coming home any time soon. We had to decide how our family would manage these changes for many weeks to come.

      “Have you decided on a name for your son?” the doctor asked.

      “Not yet,” I answered.

      For a parent, whose baby is born healthy, the most important thing is to give him or her a name. But for us at that moment the most important thing was for our baby to live, not his name.

      “During one of our meetings, one of the doctors called your son the “Russian Prince”, the doctor said. “While you are still deciding on his name, would it be okay for the doctors to use that name for now?”

      I liked the doctors calling our son the Russian Prince.

      “Yes,” I answered. “He deserves it.”

      “During this week, we will need to perform many blood tests on your three-pound son,” the doctor continued. “He may become anemic and a blood transfusion may be necessary. Is that okay with you?”

      We had no choice and signed the consent.

      “Finally, some good news,” the doctor said. “Your baby is stable, so he can start having breast milk through a feeding tube!”

      Oleg and I were so relieved to hear the news and thanked God.

      …….

      On Saturday, friends and family with beautiful flowers and gifts visited us. We couldn’t walk everyone to see our baby. With some we just talked, prayed and hoped for the best.

      Tanya was the first one of my siblings to see our son. When we came to the NICU, the lid of his incubator was raised, and the nurse was changing the dressing on his arm. Our baby’s eyes were covered with black glasses, but he was awake and moved his arms. We could not hear his voice due to the breathing tube in his mouth, but we could see it by the look on his face and by the way he was breathing that he was very upset. He cried without noise. Quietly, Tanya and I stood by his bed, trying to withhold our tears. My heart ached from not being able to help our son. Tanya didn't ask a lot of questions, but later I heard she cried after leaving the hospital, because she saw how fragile and ill our baby was.

      A little later, my brother, Leo, came to visit us with his wife and children. They brought snacks and presents. While I was talking to Leo’s wife, I heard my husband tell Leo, “Being home with the children without my wife has not been easy. I had to clean, cook, send children to school, figure out their school bus stop, read all their school papers, wash their clothes. It is hard to be home without my wife. She does so much. I realized how hard it is to be a single Dad.”

      Later I learned that Leo was calling everyone in our family, asking them to fast and pray for our fragile son.

      …….

      Oleg met his Mom at the airport. His brother and sister helped her arrange