Chapter 3 - The Split Existence
The days that followed blurred into a surreal, agonizing geometry of time. My world was divided by fifty feet of sterile hospital corridor.
Half of my soul lived in Pod C of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, anchored to an incubator where a one-pound-three-ounce warrior named Faith lay beneath a high-humidity dome, her chest rising and falling to the mechanical breath of a ventilator.
The other half of my soul remained locked inside my own body, guarding the three heartbeats that continued to swim in the dark.
Because of the extreme risk of precipitating labor, I was placed on strict, unyielding Trendelenburg positioning—head tilted down, pelvis elevated, forbidden from sitting up, rolling over, or even lifting my own head without assistance. A catheter drained my bladder. Sponge baths replaced showers. Every muscle in my back atrophied into knots of burning agony.
Andrew became my lifeline. He split his schedule with military precision. Mornings were spent in the NICU, holding a tiny, gloved finger against Faith’s microscopic hand, whispering stories about the home we had built. Afternoons were spent by my bedside, feeding me crushed ice, massaging my aching calves, and reading aloud from dog-eared paperbacks to keep the three babies in my belly accustomed to the sound of his voice.
“Sophie is kicking your ribs again,” Andrew murmured one afternoon, pressing his palm gently against the upper left quadrant of my abdomen.
A sharp, distinct thump pressed back against his hand.
I smiled weakly, though a tear slipped down my temple. “She has your stubborn streak. She hates being crowded.”
“They all hate being crowded,” Andrew said softly, his eyes sad. “Especially Faith. I wish... God, Becca, I wish we could have given them all a normal term. Forty weeks. A nursery painted yellow. Coming home in matching little car seats.”
“We can’t look backward,” I whispered, staring up at the white acoustic ceiling tiles. “We have to fight for the present. How was Faith today?”
Andrew’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second—a micro-expression he tried desperately to hide.
“She’s stable. Her weight dropped a few grams, which they said is normal. But her nurse, Brenda, said she fought the suction catheter today. That’s good, right? It means she has fight in her.”
“She has your stubborn streak too,” I replied, squeezing his hand.
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But I knew the truth. In the corridors of a level-four NICU, “stable” was just a polite word for hanging by a thread. Every time Andrew left my room to check on her, my heart stopped. Every time a nurse walked in with a solemn expression, my stomach plummeted.
Worse than the physical pain was the constant, gnawing guilt. When I was visiting Faith in my mind, I felt like I was abandoning Oliver, Sophie, and Mia. When I focused on the kicks inside my belly, I felt like I was forgetting the daughter fighting for her life down the hall. I was a mother torn in half—literally scattered across different rooms of the same hospital.
