Read Online A Life Everlasting by Sarah Gray - Free Book Online Page A

naked?” I asked him.
    â€œNo, I don’t think so,” he said, “but I can’t really see.” Ross came to stand next to my head on my side of the privacy sheet and started taking pictures of us with our masks on; he seemed happy. Kelly, the nurse, and the chaplain, Phil Brooks, also showed up.
    â€œLet me know if you feel like you’re going to throw up,” the anesthesiologist said from somewhere behind my head.
    â€œAre you going to start the medication now?”
    â€œI already started.”
    As he fiddled with knobs and equipment to administer the anesthetic, it sounded like he was chopping vegetables on a butcher block.
    Suddenly, I felt Dr. Khoury make a painless incision across my belly from left to right. I hadn’t even seen him come in.
    Then there was a tug: Thomas, born at 10:32 A.M . I couldn’t see him until they put him on a gurney over my left shoulder. He was small, just over four pounds, and covered in blood, but he was squirming and kicking his legs.
    â€œWhy don’t you go see your son,” Kelly said to Ross. Ross walked over to the gurney and picked him up.
    I heard the chaplain say a prayer.
    Then I felt another tug: Callum, born at 10:33, weighing in at five pounds, ten ounces. Kelly placed Callum next to his older brother, Thomas, on the gurney.
    I was a mother. This was my family.
    I heard Ross taking pictures. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I could see that something was wrong with Callum. One nurse was smacking his feet while another held a tiny oxygen mask over his face. We were all waiting to hear him cry, but nothing was coming out.
    He was supposed to be the healthy one.
    Just then, Kelly brought Thomas over to me and whispered, “His heart rate is dropping quickly.” I knew what that meant: he was alive, but not for long.
    She held Thomas near my head and I saw his face for the first time. I was relieved that he was actually born alive and we were able to meet each other before he died.
    Thomas Gray had light brown hair in a circle around his head, like a balding man. From the nose down, he looked like a normal healthy boy. He had a cute, tiny little chin. Like the doctor said, he was missing the top part of his skull, and I could see some exposed red tissue on top of his head. One of his eyes was swelling and the other was closed. He looked scared and confused. His body language seemed to say, “What is going on? What am I doing here?” I thought, This poor little guy. He has no idea what is happening to him .
    This was my firstborn son; this, the first time I ever saw him. And he was dying.
    â€œI love you,” I said to him.
    â€œCan I touch him?” I asked Kelly, and she nodded. I strokedhis tiny cheek with my finger. This would probably be my only memory with him alive, and I wanted to remember it forever.
    â€œCan I kiss him?”
    â€œSure.”
    I kissed my son on the cheek. I felt tears on my face, and I was overwhelmed by nausea.
    Kelly took Thomas away and brought Callum.
    â€œHere’s Baby B. I think he looks like his mommy.”
    â€œHi, little guy,” I said. He did look a little familiar. “Why isn’t he crying?”
    â€œWe don’t know. We’re taking him to the NICU now.”
    â€œShould I stay here, or go to the NICU?” asked Ross, starting to panic.
    â€œIt’s okay, Ross, go,” Kelly said. “Thomas’s breathing is improving.”
    â€œAre you saying Thomas is doing better than Callum?”
    â€œI’ll be honest. Yes, he is.”
    Ross told me later he thought, That’s it. They’re both going to die .
    Ross put Thomas down on the gurney and followed after the team that was running down the hall alongside Callum’s gurney to the neonatal intensive care unit.
    â€œI think I’m going to throw up,” I said to Kelly.
    â€œThey’re pushing on your uterus right now—that’s why you feel like