This room is dark and motionless. I lie in the stillness, breathing in the reality of what I was going to face on this day. I was going to hold my baby. I have waited nine long whole months for this day. I struggle to lift my swollen body from this lumpy, comfortless mattress. Every movement is a new ache that empowers my body. Standing in this room I can see minute traces of shadows stirring from the light outside my bedroom window. The smell of dirty socks and strawberry shampoo congests my senses as I step towards my unlit bathroom.
The brown stained linoleum floor in this room is cold and wet. I rub my belly, “soon little one,” I say as I start the water in my shower. The warm feeling from the drops of water on my body is refreshing and motivating. Yet thinking of my baby makes me tremble both with fear and joy. This is my fifth birth yet it feels like my first. The moisture from the steam of the shower fogs the mirror on my medicine cabinet. I wipe away the residue and peer at my glowing, tired features. Time has sure had its toll on me and I am afraid. Can I handle another child, both emotionally and financially? What kind of support will I get from my husband? He failed me so many times before. I can hear him getting the kids up. Soon it will be time to go to the birthing center. With a deep sigh, I press on towards getting dressed and out the door to my delivering destiny. My next stop is a quaint little room on the third floor of San Joaquin hospital.
My family drops me off in front of the automatic doors to the hospital entrance. I stand in the twilight of the morning and wave good bye to my kids as they drive away with my husband. I enter the waiting room where many expecting parents wait—funny how I am all alone. Baby pictures from various ethnic races hang from the textured tan walls and fake, multi-colored wildflowers adorn the lone coffee table. The waiting takes so long that I begin having second thoughts. Maybe I can come back tomorrow; I’m only two weeks overdue. Too late, they’ve called my name.
They lead me to a crisp white room that smells of ammonia and baby oil. New life will begin in this room. Blue checkered curtains suspend from my second story window view and brown, padded chairs sit empty. The sound of a tiny heartbeat echoes through the room from a monitor next to my adjustable hospital bed. Suddenly shadows fall from the ceiling as the room begins to fade into darkness. People rushing around look like flickers of light from a burning candle. Faint voices stir in the background of my diminishing existence. This room full of joy and happiness has turned into a chamber of sorrow and tears. My unborn son suffocating and my blood spilling everywhere—this wasn’t supposed to happen! This is a room where one life was lost and one life was saved. A new life has ended in this room.
Three days after my son is put on life support, I am taken into a big conference room. Everywhere I look there are people in white jackets with name tags holding clipboards. Doctors and nurses hush their conversation about my son when I enter the room. The gloomy look on all their faces tells me what I knew all along. My baby is gone and the damage to his brain is irreversible. Pain shoots through my gut but I know I still have one option left for him. “I want my son to be a donor,” I say with a heavy heart. The silence of the room is broken by the condolences of strangers for my unselfish gift to others. As I leave the room and enter the cool hallway of the hospital, I fall to my knees sobbing uncontrollably; time to say goodbye to my son.
How do I tell my kids? How do I break the news to my family? I cannot contain the anger, fear and sadness long enough to speak. They look at me with solace and know that my news is grim….. I don’t need to speak. My mother escorts me into the neo-natal unit at the hospital were my son lies among the tiny premature babies. He is not like the others. He looks like a giant among the crowd. The nurse gently places him into my arms, wrapped in a soft woolen blanket; his eyes are closed. I rock him for the last time: “I need to let you go now. I am so sorry” I choke as tears roll down my face, “I will see you again, when it is my time, I want you to be the one to meet me there.” I want to remember this moment, I want to stay here forever but I can’t. It’s time for him to go so the nurse takes him from my arms—he is gone.
I sit alone in my pale green hospital room awaiting the news that my son’s organs have been harvested. I feel numb all over my body. My nurse comes to check on the three IV’s attached to my arms and leg. I stare off into oblivion, as the housekeeper spreads water and what smells like pine-sol on the floor. At three in the morning a coordinator from the organ donor association arrives with the news that two little girls will be saved because of my son, two families will hold their children. I am given a consent form to give permission for the hospital to take my son’s organs, mainly his liver and heart; he had a strong heart. I stay up until the early morning hours crying and feeling like I was in a bad dream. The television has been on all night and I turn up the sound when the Channel 29 news comes on. They are covering my story and the death of my son. I watch as a long white limo, carrying my son’s organs, arrives at the airport, where a plane is waiting for his precious commodity. As the tiny plane flies into the distance I cover my head with my thin hospital sheet and go to sleep.
Funerals always seem to bring people together. It’s sad to think that it takes the death of a loved one to make you forget about all the quarrels you’ve had the past year. As I ponder this thought, I walk across the dew covered grass towards the green colored canopy above my son’s grave site. The breeze blows a sweet aroma of pine needles and fresh cut flowers. I can see my son’s tiny white casket that has been filled with many letters and toys alongside his lifeless body. Friends and relatives approach me to offer their sympathy. Today is the day I bury my son, today I breathe in the reality of life and death.
Contributor’s Note: I am involved in a few community programs as well as withCerro Coso College. I am the secretary for the ASCC in Lake Isabella, a tutor, and a peer mentor. I volunteer at the local library and I am a volunteer for the Salvation Army. I am also a full time student and mother. I am also an Ambassador for One Legacy. I write with deep expressions of my emotions and
experiences that have occurred in my life.
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