Resuscitate

My son – my precious third son – lay on the resuscitaire.

Tap, tap, tap. He wasn’t breathing but if that tap, tap, tap continued – the nurse’s signal to the paediatrician that she had a heartbeat – I knew he could be all right.

Tap, tap, tap. I was clinging to Matthew’s hand, squeezing it so hard as if it would squeeze life and breath into our son. Come on, I willed him. I don’t think I really believed that he wouldn’t gasp a great lungful of air with my own next breath. I felt like I was gasping for him, that airless room feeling more confining with each passing second. Come on.

Tap, tap, tap. Oxygen. Vigorous rubbing. More oxygen. CPR. Seconds were passing. The consultant stood at the end of the operating table seemingly unable to move. They say if you are worried whether your plane is about to crash or whether the turbulence is actually normal, you should look at the cabin crew’s eyes. That’s when I started crying. When I looked at Matthew he was already crying. The next few minutes were a blur. All I can remember is the silence (it’s never that silent in E.R. in moments of drama) and the nurse’s eyes. The ticking of the clock and the silence. And the anxiety in her eyes.

I let out the breath I had been holding and as I did so, my son clearly took a breath in, for suddenly there came a cry, a lusty I’m-ready-for-anything cry. “He’s breathing,” exclaimed the paediatrician, redundantly.

While Ben was later in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit I would find out that he had had no respirations for several minutes. But by the time Matthew left me on the postnatal ward and went to see him in the NICU Ben was having an illicit cuddle with the nurses. “You caught us,” they said. “He’s doing much better and it really looked like he was smiling at us when we held him.”

He may not have been in my arms but he still knew how to get those cuddles. My clever cuddly smiley boy.