Dropping off itty-bitty clothes

On Monday, I went back to the NICU to drop off Seth's preemie clothes--where we got them in the first place. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel, trudging down the hot sidewalk next to the complex that is Columbia Presbyterian. Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital looks magnificent--the front entrance is wide and swooping with a long divided ramp that is loomed over by a huge, brightly colored wall. It's sort of overwhelmingly friendly, that wall. Feels like it's saying, "I love you and I could crush you."

Last time I had a parent's pass. This time I had to check in. "Who's the patient?" they wanted to know at the guard's desk. For a second, I didn't know what to say. Sethie was strapped to my chest (that most ubiquitous of New York-style childcare: wearable babies) and I nearly said, "He is." But I remembered the bag in my hand and held it up helpfully. "Dropping off preemie clothes."

He didn't really care. He had already filled out my visitor's pass. If I had said, "The Dalai Lama", he still would have handed it to me. Why did he ask in the first place? Just to see if I could come up with a name in a reasonable period of time and not that I was just here to ogle random sick children?

Seventh Floor. NICU. I felt all kinds of giddy stepping off the elevator and I guess I stood too long by the receptionist desk, looking at the multiple doors because the receptionist actually--gasp--looked up from talking with her friend to ask me what I needed. She pointed me through the doors to the right and I found our old social worker sitting at her desk, talking on the phone. She put her hand over the mouth of it long enough to coo over how big Sethie has gotten and to thank me for the clothes. I trotted back out again. Back down the elevator. Back past the big wall. Back out to the street.

Seven months ago, I was crying in the car because I was only spending two hours a day with Seth. I was crying not because I wanted to spend more but because I didn't want to and I felt like I should. There were women there who spent all day sitting by the incubators of their children. I couldn't do it. Not just because it would be impossible with Thomas, but because I didn't know what to do there. I held him. I fed him by bottle. I awkwardly tried breast-feeding, often with nurses and feeding specialists giving me tips, poking at me. Then I went home and tried not to think about it until the next day.

I wonder now if that's why he's so needy, why he cries if I set him down for too long. Does he remember my ambivalence? Does he actually remember hanging out in an incubator, being efficiently, but maybe coldly, jostled by professionals at diapering and feeding times, except for that rare hour of the day when Mom showed up? I don't know. Clearly there are some guilt issues on this topic.

Does it matter now? I'm wearing him all the time. Nothing he loves more than being jiggled along, strapped to my chest. He fell asleep as we walked back to the subway.

Baby, baby, stay with me.