My first real job as a nurse was working in a very busy, level III, Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery in a large university hospital.  I felt like a baby myself, with not much life experience, and hanging on by a thread.  It took massive amounts of willpower for me not to break down in tears after every shift and wonder what the hell I was doing there.  These were the days before maternal steroids, and surfactant therapy was a new treatment. The micro preemies often times had terrible outcomes, or survived, languishing in the NICU. It was an every day occurrence to have infants code on us, and chronic 10 month old babies, with severe broncho pulmonary dysplasia, gasping for breath, staring at us with tortured eyes.  Being so young myself, I found it difficult to relate to the parents, and could not empathize with their strong emotions. I was immature.   I often wondered if I was doing more harm than good.

I dragged myself to work one night on what happened to be my birthday.  What a great way to spend my special night, I selfishly thought to myself.  When I got to work I found out that I was assigned “first admission,”  meaning I would admit the first sick baby of the night.  Yippee.  I was called back to Labor and Delivery immediately to catch my first admission.

I grew up that night.  That night I helped to bring a strangers baby into the world, on the same night that I happened to be born.

The Smiths*  had been suffering from infertility for many years.  They were a loving couple who desperately wanted to have a child.  After many years of trying and medical treatments, they conceived.  The mom was AMA, a medical and derogatory word meaning “Advanced Maternal Age.”  Basically she was a woman over the age of 35.  The Smiths found out early in their pregnancy that their baby had a lethal anomaly and was not compatible with life outside the uterus.  They had choices, they had options, they were counseled.

The Smiths knew that they had a very slim chance of ever conceiving a child again.  Why not embrace the child they had growing inside of them, if only for a brief 9 months.

And embrace it they  did.  They told me stories of how they would try and experience all that life had to offer for their baby growing inside of them.  They would go to the Opera, and their baby would waltz and swim inside to arias sung years ago to kings and queens and peasants alike.

The Smiths would walk the streets of this great city and take in all the sounds and smells and tastes of the world.  And, their baby grew and developed and took in all the sounds and smells and tastes of the world.

Then the time came for the Smith’s child to leave the shelter of his mother’s womb.  He came out struggling, and gasping and fighting for life.  His parents held him and sang to him, and calmed his soul.  He lived a very brief few hours in his parents arms.  Yet he experienced a life lived by kings and queens and peasants alike.

I grew up that night I helped bring a child into the world, on the same day I was born.

RR