You know, the worst day of my life started at 6 p.m. on January 29, 1998 and ended around 8 p.m. the next day.  The evening of the 29th, Mayira and I went for an ultrasound- she was just into her seventh month and we had had a delightful ultrasound only two weeks earlier, where we saw the baby's heart, liver, even- I swear it- a little smile.  But on the 29th, the doctor performing the ultrasound (who was the wife of our obstetrician) became very serious.  She said that the baby was much too small and was hardly moving at all.  She also told us that the hospital where her husband worked was definitely not equipped to handle this kind of pregnancy.

Mayira and I looked at each other- I am sure I looked incredibly stupid, because I still had a grin on my face (the grin of the eager expectant dad)- not quite taking it in.  Surely the doctor was exaggerating, overreacting, perhaps in a bad mood, who knows?  So we asked her what we should do and she told us, well, there really wasn't anything TO do.  So I said we needed to talk with the obstetrician right away.  She called him and told him to wait in his office until we arrived.

It was about a twenty-minute drive to his office.  Mayira and I, both still with glazed smiles, tried to make sense of what the ultrasound doctor had said.  She had shown us that the baby was only half the size he should have been and that the amniotic sac was not allowing the baby to move at all.

When we arrived at the obstetrician's office, he was also very solemn.  He looked at the pictures from the ultrasound and then told us that it was now in God's hands.  He prescribed some medication for Mayira to take, and she was supposed to go home, stay in bed, and wait for the fetus to expire (euphemism for "baby to die").  He said it was very unlikely that the baby could survive much longer because there was now no nutrition passing through to the placenta and, essentially, he was starving to death. He also told us that it would be pointless to have an emergency cesarean because the baby's lungs were not sufficiently developed to survive outside the womb.

I was feeling like someone had just snuck in the room, punched me hard in the stomach, and snuck out again without being seen.  I saw the doctor, I saw Mayira, but everything seemed so odd, so surreal. The Spanish the doctor was using was just so much noise.

So Mayira and I went to find an open pharmacy to buy the medicine.  It was now about 10pm and we stopped at a small restaurant and drank carrot juice (why carrot juice?  Who can explain what we reach out for in moments of need...).  We finally found a pharmacy and bought the medicine.  We went home and talked about what this meant.  It certainly sounded like the doctor had pretty much given up on the baby.  He wasn't very specific, only that barring a miracle from above, we must move on and accept the idea that the baby would not survive.

That night I could barely sleep.  I don't think I ever felt so homesick for the US, for the support of my family.  At around 4 am, I woke up and had an overwhelming urge to call my sister but I knew that it would be very upsetting to her (ah, that misplaced stoicism I sometimes have!) so I just ran through, again and again, everything the doctor had said.

The next morning, a Friday, we went out to a pharmacy to find another medication the doctor had prescribed (it was an injection- an interesting aspect of Venezuelan life is that pharmacists give injections here).  First I called another doctor to get a second opinion.  He was too busy to see us that day but his secretary set up an appointment for the following Monday. I called my work to let them know I wouldn't be coming in and, fortunately, I told the girl in human resources what had happened.  It was fortunate because she then told my guardian angel.

I don't believe in angels, and my religious beliefs, while warm and positive, are decidedly nondogmatic.  Nevertheless, I have started to believe that the hand of God, as it were, comes not through lightning bolts or the parting of seas, but rather through the small, courageous, selfless acts of good people.  There are so many selfish and cruel acts out there that the kind ones truly are some kind of divine gift.

In our case, the angel came in the form of Morella Morandini, the woman who runs Human Resources at the firm where I do editing.  She heard why I was not coming in and, having had a late term miscarriage herself several months earlier, called me at home to urge me to get a second opinion.  When I told her that I had already set up an appointment for Monday, she pressed the issue, saying that, with these things, minutes mattered.  She gave the name of a specialist in difficult pregnancies, Dr. Eduardo Arias, and made me promise to call him right away.  I promised, but inside I was dreading having to face another doctor who would tell us the same thing- your baby is dying and there is nothing we can do.

As I had that thought, though, it hit me.  Our baby is dying!  We had to do something, so I called the doctor and, through another stroke of fate, the call went directly to him (rather than through the protective filter of a secretary).  I explained what had happened and he said to come right over to his office.  Our angel then called us again to make sure I had contacted the doctor.  When I confirmed that I had and that we were going over there right away, she hung up the phone amid a relieved flutter of wings.

I made Mayira get out of bed (where she had retreated) and we went to see the specialist.  It was around 10am and I figured the whole thing would take a couple of hours.

Once we got there, we had to wait until almost 1 o'clock to see him.  He started to examine Mayira and he turned serious almost immediately.  The first doctor was right, he said, in that the baby is not getting the nutrition he needs.  The placenta is not functioning and the amniotic sac hasn't expanded to keep up with the baby.  Essentially he would soon suffocate as he outgrew the sac.

I explained how the other doctor had told us that the baby's lungs were not sufficiently developed, that in fact he couldn't survive outside yet.  Dr. Arias smiled (the world lightened just a touch at that moment).  He said that, while the situation was very serious, he believed that the lungs WERE developed and that there was another exam- called a Doppler exam- that would be able to give us a better idea.

So he sent us to another doctor in the same hospital, Dr. Rosa Soto, who performed the Doppler. As we prepared for the exam, she started talking with Mayira, asking her in a very warm and accessible way, about the pregnancy, about the situation.  Something about Dr Soto's manner, compassionate and nonjudgmental, connected with Mayira, who suddenly starting crying and crying- letting out all the fear and anxiety she had been holding in since the night before.  Dr. Soto comforted her, assured her that the first diagnosis was not necessarily accurate, assured her that she shouldn't be blaming herself.  She did the exam, told us that while the situation was serious, the baby's lungs, heart and brain all looked very good. Then she sent us down to the coffee shop while she met with Dr. Arias

In the coffee shop, Mayira and I had another carrot juice (neither of us realized that stress brought out an otherwise unrealized need for carrot juice) and wondered what they might recommend.  I was thinking that they might want to perform a cesarean the following week, or maybe there was some treatment to resolve this problem of the placenta.

We met with Dr. Arias.  It was now about 5 o'clock and we had been at the hospital for seven hours.  He told us that the situation, as we already realized, was very serious.  If we waited until Monday, the baby would almost certainly die.  The options available were to have an emergency cesarean the next morning, which was a Saturday, or immediately.  Mayira and I were both surprised- we had been thinking that there would be more time to think about it, but then Dr. Arias added that even waiting until the next day might be too late.  The baby could die that night.

We went outside his office and tried to call our first doctor to find out what he thought about this.  Fortunately, as you will see in a minute, we got his answering machine.  I left a message explaining the situation and asking him to call us as soon as possible.  Mayira and I talked for a little while, sharing our fears, our doubts, and decided that the longer we waited the more risk there was.  In making our decision, we realized there was no decision at all to make- choose life, life, life!  So we went back to Dr. Arias and told him that we wanted to do the cesarean right away.  He went to prepare for surgery and Mayira and I went to check in at Maternity.

About half an hour later, I was walking alongside Mayira as they brought her in for the surgery.  They stopped me at the door to surgery, explained that in emergencies no one can be in the operating room, and sent me back downstairs.  In the elevator going back down to wait in the room in Maternity, our first doctor called me back on the cellular phone.  Don't do it, he said, the lungs aren't developed enough, the baby cannot survive outside the womb. Great.  Just what I needed to hear at that moment.  I explained what the other doctors had said, but he just repeated that it was a big mistake.

The loneliest moment of my life...

Fortunately, just after that, Mayira's family started arriving in full force.  They swarmed around me and kept me busy with questions, assurances, the comfort of shared concern.  About forty-five minutes later, Dr. Soto came in with the good news that the baby came out crying and that he weighed one kilo (2.2 lbs.).  Earlier she had explained that there is a much higher risk for babies who are born UNDER 1 kilo, so that if he were born at 1 kilo, the prognosis would be much better.  As amazing as it sounds, I was celebrating his weight.  Everything is relative...

I later found out that on the Apgar Test for newborns, he scored 9 of 10 after one minute and 10 of 10 after five minutes.

Just a few minutes after getting the good news from Dr. Soto, Dr. Arias came down and told me that everything went very well, that the baby was in an incubator in neonatal intensive care, and that they had put a tube connected to a respirator in his nose. He then told me to go visit my son. Which I did.

It was a shock.  A baby of that size is a disturbing sight.  Nevertheless, I was feeling happy that we had made this decision and that there he was.  I talked with him for a little while, sang a couple of songs, and promised him that life would get better soon enough. Which it did.And so the worst day of my life segued into the best day of my life.  Just like that...