Furious.
Beautiful.
And struggling.
I saw her for only seconds before they took her to the NICU.
The machines terrified me.
Every beep made my heart stop.
Every nurse seemed to speak a language I was only beginning to understand.
Oxygen saturation.
Respiratory support.
Feeding tolerance.
Apnea.
I spent hours sitting beside her incubator.
One nurse noticed me staring at Chloe through the plastic.
“She’s fighting,” she said.
Then she touched my shoulder.
“You need to fight too.”
So I did.
Eric knew Chloe had been born.
I told him.
His response was:
Hope she’s okay.
Four words.
He didn’t come to the hospital.
He didn’t ask what I needed.
He didn’t ask what the doctors were saying.
Eventually, Chloe became strong enough to come home.
I thought leaving the NICU would mean the frightening part was over.
It wasn’t.
She still needed medication.
Breathing treatments.
Follow-up appointments.
Special monitoring.
My insurance covered some of it.
Not enough.
One afternoon, I stood at the pharmacy counter while the pharmacist told me what I owed.
I checked my bank account.
Then checked it again.
I couldn’t pay the full amount.
I asked whether they could give me part of the prescription.
She tried to help.
But sitting in my car afterward with Chloe asleep in her carrier behind me, I finally broke.
My incision still hurt when I twisted.
I hadn’t slept more than three consecutive hours in weeks.
And I was tired of pretending I could solve everything alone.
I stared at Eric’s number.
Then called.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“What?”
Not hello.
“What?”
I swallowed.
“Chloe needs another breathing treatment.”
Silence.
