1. The Sound of the Alarms
For thirty-five days, the world outside the heavy, double doors of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ceased to exist entirely.
My reality shrank down to the size of a clear plastic incubator. The sun stopped rising and setting; time was measured only by the rhythmic, mechanical hiss-click of my son Noah’s ventilator and the terrifying, sudden blare of his heart monitor dipping too low. The air always smelled of harsh antiseptic, and the fluorescent lights hummed with a low, maddening frequency that drilled directly into my skull.
I slept in a green vinyl recliner next to the incubator. My body still ached with the deep, visceral pain of an emergency C-section, but my mind was frayed far beyond physical exhaustion. It was stretched thin by the constant, low-grade terror that my three-pound, premature son might simply forget how to breathe in his sleep.
