Phase IV: That-which-has-no-name

When it starts: When they take your child down one hall, and send you down another

General feeling: Terror wrapped in panic swaddled in helplessness

How long it lasts: Until you can hold her in your arms again

How it unfolds:

1. Watch your child disappear through a door in the arms of a stranger. Resist the urge to run after them and grab her away; or scream: “Stop! I've changed my mind”; or crumple into a pile on the floor. Will yourself to be strong. Wonder, for the eleventy-seventh time, what that means, exactly.

2. Wander into the waiting room. Introduce yourself to the attendant who will keep you updated as the surgery progresses. See the attendant’s mouth moving. Hear nothing she says.

3. Sit down with your parents and husband. Open your mouth to talk. Have no idea what to say. Search your mind for the right words to commemorate the few minutes after they take your child away to an operating room where they will stop her heart on purpose and she will die for awhile. Thank God when your mother takes up the mantle.

4. Fidget.

5. Stand up. Walk around. Sit down. Fidget. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

6. Decide you absolutely must talk, or your head will explode. Run through the options of what you might talk about: a) What it feels like when they take your child away for open-heart surgery; b) What’s probably happening to her little tiny body right now; or c) All of the things that could go wrong today. Change your mind about talking. Resume fidgeting.

7. Try not to panic as the attendant whose name you can’t remember approaches. “They did the first incision at 7:41 a.m.,” she says, “and everything’s going well.” Try not to cry as she walks back to her desk.

8. Call everyone you promised to call. Tell them what you know. Do your best to keep a stiff upper lip. Feel it quiver every time you start to talk.

9. Leave the room to get a Diet Coke. Pull mightily against the force that tells you not to leave, that something important might happen while you’re gone. Remind the force that something important will happen, IS happening, and it matters not where you are. Win the battle and be proud.

10. Panic every time the attendant approaches, until finally she says, in a warm, wonderful voice: “No worries. They never send me in with bad news.” Realize she’s another angel.

11. Listen to the updates about your little-bitty girl: 1) She’s on the heart-lung bypass machine and doing beautifully. 2) She’s still on the heart-lung bypass machine and it’s going really well. 3) She’s off the heart-lung bypass machine and they’re finishing up. 4) They’re done and the doctor is on his way up. Feel the panic begin to rise once again in your throat and have no idea why.

12. Walk to a private room to wait for Surgeon B. Try to make small talk as you wait. Fail. Try to breathe normally. Fail. Do your best not to fall apart. Mostly succeed.

12. Wait through the longest 30 minutes of your life.

13. Startle when Surgeon B finally knocks at the door. Search his eyes as he walks in and closes it behind him. Stand much too close as he begins to talk. “It went extremely well, exactly as we expected.” Listen for another few minutes but hear little else. Take a long deep breath and wait for the tears, which surprise you when they don’t come.

14. Change hospital floors and waiting rooms. Pace as you wait to see your child again. Prepare yourself for what she’ll look like, as you’ve been warned to do. Imagine awful, terrible things as you steel yourself for the worst.

15. Struggle with whether to panic or rejoice when they come to bring you back to her. Turn the corner to see your sweet, darling child lying prone on a stark white bed, ringlets surrounding her angel’s face, tubes in her neck, chest, arms and bottom, and down her throat. Notice the angry red incision down the middle of her chest and smile. She did it, dammit. She did it.

16. Allow yourself to relax a bit as you sit and watch her sleep. Say your thanks to God and the angels for guiding her through the worst. Ask that they stay vigilant until the threat of infection has passed. Figure that with them on your side, it’s all downhill from here.

17. Not.

18. Die a little inside when your child wakes up before they’re ready for it and panics because she can’t talk and everything hurts. Watch as she struggles against the tubes and IVs, her eyes begging you to help her. Do your best to calm her down as the nurses move to increase her meds. Mostly fail. Start singing the song you’ve sung to her every day since she was a baby and feel her relax beneath your hands. Notice they haven’t yet begun to push the drugs into her body. Smile to yourself as you realize, once again, what really matters in this world.

19. Repeat step 18 several times, until your heart is broken into pieces. Ask if you can climb into bed with her so you’re right there when she wakes up the next time. Rejoice when they say yes. Squeeze in beside her, nestling her into the crook of your arm, and ache because it feels so goddamn good. Stay there for an hour and a half, until your arm is numb and your heart is full. Leave only because it’s time to remove the tube from her lungs.

20. Wonder, as you leave the room so you won’t have to watch them extubate your child, what kind of mother leaves her kid to face that alone? Remember the words of the nurse who suggested you excuse yourself: “She won’t remember it. You’ll never forget it.” Leave, and wonder still.