Sara
1990–1991
BY PURE CHANCE, or maybe karmic distribution, all three clients at the hair salon are pregnant. We sit underthe dryers, hands folded over our bellies like a row of Buddhas. “My top choices are Freedom, Low, andJack,” says the girl next to me, who is getting her hair dyed pink.
“What if it’s not a boy?” asks the woman sitting on my other side.
“Oh, those are meant to be for either.”
I hide a smile. “I vote for Jack.”
The girl squints, looking out the window at the rotten weather. “Sleet is nice,” she says absently, and thentries it on for size. “Sleet, pick up your toys. Sleet, honey, come on, or we’re gonna be late for the Wilcoconcert.” She digs a piece of paper and a pencil stub out of her maternity overalls and scribbles down thename.
The woman on my left grins at me. “Is this your first?”
“My third.”
“Mine too. I have two boys. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
“I have a boy and a girl,” I tell her. “Five and three.”
“Do you know what you’re having this time?”
I know everything about this baby, from her sex to the very placement of her chromosomes, including theones that make her a perfect match for Kate. I know exactly what I am having: a miracle. “It’s a girl,” Ianswer.
“Ooh, I’m so jealous! My husband and I, we didn’t find out at the ultrasound. I thought if I heard it wasanother boy, I might never finish out the last five months.” She shuts off her hair dryer and pushes it back.
“You have any names picked?”
It strikes me that I don’t. Although I am nine months pregnant, although I have had plenty of time to dream, Ihave not really considered the specifics of this child. I have thought of this daughter only in terms of whatshe will be able to do for the daughter I already have. I haven’t admitted this even to Brian, who lies at nightwith his head on my considerable belly, waiting for the twitches that herald—he thinks—the first femaleplacekicker for the Patriots. Then again, my dreams for her are no less exalted; I plan for her to save hersister’s life.
“We’re waiting,” I tell the woman.
Sometimes I think it is all we ever do.
There was a moment, after Kate’s three months of chemotherapy last year, that I was stupid enough tobelieve we had beaten the odds. Dr. Chance said that she seemed to be in remission, and that we would justkeep an eye on what came next. And for a little while, my life even got back to normal: chauffeuring Jesse tosoccer practice and helping out in Kate’s preschool class and even taking a hot bath to relax.
And yet, there was a part of me that knew the other shoe was bound to drop. This part scoured Kate’s pillowevery morning, even after her hair started to grow back with its frizzy, burned ends, just in case it startedfalling out again. This part went to the geneticist recommended by Dr. Chance. Engineered an embryo giventhe thumbs-up by scientists to be a perfect match for Kate. Took the hormones for IVF and conceived thatembryo, just in case.
It was during a routine bone marrow aspiration that we learned Kate was in molecular relapse. On theoutside, she looked like any other three-year-old girl. On the inside, the cancer had surged through her systemagain, steamrolling the progress that had been made with chemo.
Now, in the backseat with Jesse, Kate’s kicking her feet and playing with a toy phone. Jesse sits next to her,staring out the window. “Mom? Do buses ever fall on people?”
“Like out of trees?”
“No. Like…just over.” He makes a flipping motion with his hand.
“Only if the weather’s really bad, or if the driver’s going too fast.”
He nods, accepting my explanation for his safety in this universe. Then: “Mom? Do you have a favoritenumber?”
“Thirty-one,” I tell him. This is my due date. “How about you?”
“Nine. Because it can be a number, or how old you are, or a six standing on its head.” He pauses only longenough to take a breath. “Mom? Do we have special scissors to cut meat?”
“We do.” I take a right and drive past a cemetery, headstones canted forward and back like a set of yellowedteeth.
“Mom?” Jesse asks, “is that where Kate will go?”
The question, just as innocent as any of the others Jesse would ask, makes my legs go weak. I pull the carover and put on my hazard lights. Then I unbuckle my seat belt and turn around. “No, Jess,” I tell him. “She’sstaying with us.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald?” the producer says. “This is where we’ll put you.”
We sit down on the set at the TV studio. We’ve been invited here because of our baby’s unorthodoxconception. Somehow, in an effort to keep Kate healthy, we’ve unwittingly become the poster children forscientific debate.
Brian reaches for my hand as we are approached by Nadya Carter, the reporter for the newsmagazine. “We’rejust about ready. I’ve already taped an intro about Kate. All I’m going to do is ask you a few questions, andwe’ll be finished before you know it.”
Just before the camera starts rolling, Brian wipes his cheeks on the sleeve of his shirt. The makeup artist,standing behind the lights, moans. “Well, for God’s sake,” he whispers to me. “I’m not going on national TVwearing blush.”
The camera comes to life with far less ceremony than I’ve expected, just a little hum that runs up my armsand legs.
“Mr. Fitzgerald,” Nadya says, “can you explain to us why you chose to visit a geneticist in the first place?”
Brian looks at me. “Our three-year-old daughter has a very aggressive form of leukemia. Her oncologistsuggested we find a bone marrow donor—but our oldest son wasn’t a genetic match. There’s a nationalregistry, but by the time the right donor comes along for Kate, she might not…be around. So we thought itmight be a good idea to see if another sibling of Kate’s matched up.”
“A sibling,” Nadya says, “who doesn’t exist.”
“Not yet,” Brian replies.
“What made you turn to a geneticist?”
“Time constraints,” I say bluntly. “We couldn’t keep having babies year after year until one was a match forKate. The doctor was able to screen several embryos to see which one, if any, would be the ideal donor forKate. We were lucky enough to have one out of four—and it was implanted through IVF.”
Nadya looks down at her notes. “You’ve received hate mail, haven’t you?”
Brian nods. “People seem to think that we’re trying to make a designer baby.”
“Aren’t you?”
“We didn’t ask for a baby with blue eyes, or one that would grow to be six feet tall, or one that would have anIQ of two hundred. Sure, we asked for specific characteristics—but they’re not anything anyone would everconsider to be model human traits. They’re just Kate’s traits. We don’t want a superbaby; we just want tosave our daughter’s life.”
I squeeze Brian’s hand. God, I love him.
“Mrs. Fitzgerald, what will you tell this baby when she grows up?” Nadya asks.
“With any luck,” I say, “I’ll be able to tell her to stop bugging her sister.”
I go into labor on New Year’s Eve. The nurse taking care of me tries to distract me from my contractions bytalking about the signs of the sun. “This one, she’s gonna be a Capricorn,” Emelda says as she rubs myshoulders.
“Is that good?”
“Oh, Capricorns, they get the job done.”
Inhale, exhale. “Good…to…know,” I tell her.
There are two other babies being born. One woman, Emelda says, has her legs crossed. She’s trying to makeit to 1991. The New Year’s Baby is entitled to packs of free diapers and a $100 savings bond from CitizensBank for that distant college education.
When Emelda goes out to the nurse’s desk, leaving us alone, Brian reaches for my hand. “You okay?”
I grimace my way through another contraction. “I’d be better if this was over.”
He smiles at me. To a paramedic/firefighter, a routine hospital delivery is something to shrug at. If my waterhad broken during a train wreck, or if I was laboring in the back of a taxi—“I know what you’re thinking,” he interrupts, although I haven’t said a word out loud, “and you’re wrong.”
He lifts my hand, kisses the knuckles.
Suddenly an anchor unspools inside me. The chain, thick as a fist, twists in my abdomen. “Brian,” I gasp,“get the doctor.”
My OB comes in and holds his hand between my legs. He glances up at the clock. “If you can hold on aminute, this kid’s gonna be born famous,” he says, but I shake my head.
“Get it out,” I tell him. “Now.”
The doctor looks at Brian. “Tax deduction?” he guesses.
I am thinking of saving, but it has nothing to do with the IRS. The baby’s head slips through the seal of myskin. The doctor’s hand holds her, slides that gorgeous cord free of her neck, delivers her shoulder byshoulder.
I struggle to my elbows to watch what is going on below. “The umbilical cord,” I remind him. “Be careful.”
He cuts it, beautiful blood, and hurries it out of the room to a place where it will be cryogenically preserveduntil Kate is ready for it.
Day Zero of Kate’s pre-transplant regimen starts the morning after Anna is born. I come down from thematernity ward and meet Kate in Radiology. We are both wearing yellow isolation gowns, and this makes herlaugh. “Mommy,” she says, “we match.”
She has been given a pediatric cocktail for sedation, and under any other circumstance, this would be funny.
Kate can’t find her own feet. Every time she stands up, she collapses. It strikes me that this is how Kate willlook when she gets drunk on peach schnapps for the first time in high school or college; and then I quicklyremind myself that Kate might never be that old.
When the therapist comes to take her into the RT suite, Kate latches on to my leg. “Honey,” Brian says, “it’sgonna be fine.”
She shakes her head and burrows closer. When I crouch down, she throws herself into my arms. “I won’t takemy eyes off you,” I promise.
The room is large, with jungle murals painted on the walls. The linear accelerators are built into the ceilingand a pit below the treatment table, which is little more than a canvas cot covered with a sheet. The radiationtherapist places thick lead pieces shaped like beans onto Kate’s chest and tells her not to move. She promisesthat when it’s all over, Kate can have a sticker.
I stare at Kate through the protective glass wall. Gamma rays, leukemia, parenthood. It is the things youcannot see coming that are strong enough to kill you.
There is a Murphy’s Law to oncology, one which is not written anywhere but held in widespread belief: ifyou don’t get sick, you won’t get well. Therefore, if your chemo makes you violently ill, if radiation searsyour skin—it’s all good. On the other hand, if you sail through therapy quickly with only negligible nausea orpain, chances are the drugs have somehow been excreted by your body and aren’t doing their job.
By this criterion, Kate should surely be cured by now. Unlike last year’s chemo, this course of treatment hastaken a little girl who didn’t even have a runny nose and has turned her into a physical wreck. Three days ofradiation has caused constant diarrhea, and put her back into a diaper. At first, this embarrassed her; now sheis so sick she doesn’t care. The following five days of chemo have lined her throat with mucus, which keepsher clutching at a suction tube as if it is a life preserver. When she is awake, all she does is cry.
Since Day Six, when Kate’s white blood cell and neutrophil counts began to plummet, she has been inreverse isolation. Any germ in the world might kill her now; for this reason, the world is made to keep itsdistance. Visitors to her room are restricted, and those who are allowed in look like spacemen, gowned andmasked. Kate has to read picture books while wearing rubber gloves. No plants or flowers are permitted,because they carry bacteria that could kill her. Any toy given to her must be scrubbed down with antisepticsolution first. She sleeps with her teddy bear, sealed in a Ziploc bag, which rustles all night and sometimeswakes her up.
Brian and I sit outside the anteroom, waiting. While Kate sleeps, I practice giving injections to an orange.
After the transplant Kate will need growth factor shots, and the chore will fall to me. I prick the syringeunder the thick skin of the fruit, until I feel the soft give of tissue underneath. The drug I will be giving issubcutaneous, injected just under the skin. I need to make sure the angle is right and that I am giving theproper amount of pressure. The speed with which you push the needle down can cause more or less pain. Theorange, of course, doesn’t cry when I make a mistake. But the nurses still tell me that injecting Kate won’tfeel much different.
Brian picks up a second orange and begins to peel it. “Put that down!”
“I’m hungry.” He nods at the fruit in my hands. “And you’ve already got a patient.”
“For all you know that was someone else’s. God knows what it’s doped up with.”
Suddenly Dr. Chance turns the corner and approaches us. Donna, an oncology nurse, walks behind him,brandishing an IV bag filled with crimson liquid. “Drum roll,” she says.
I put down my orange, follow them into the anteroom, and suit up so that I can come within ten feet of mydaughter. Within minutes Donna attaches the bag to a pole, and connects the drip to Kate’s central line. It isso anticlimactic that Kate doesn’t even wake up. I stand on one side, as Brian goes to the other. I hold mybreath. I stare down at Kate’s hips, the iliac crest, where bone marrow is made. Through some miracle, thesestem cells of Anna’s will go into Kate’s bloodstream in her chest, but will find their way to the right spot.
“Well,” Dr. Chance says, and we all watch the cord blood slowly slide through the tubing, a Crazy Straw ofpossibility.
1990–1991
BY PURE CHANCE, or maybe karmic distribution, all three clients at the hair salon are pregnant. We sit underthe dryers, hands folded over our bellies like a row of Buddhas. “My top choices are Freedom, Low, andJack,” says the girl next to me, who is getting her hair dyed pink.
“What if it’s not a boy?” asks the woman sitting on my other side.
“Oh, those are meant to be for either.”
I hide a smile. “I vote for Jack.”
The girl squints, looking out the window at the rotten weather. “Sleet is nice,” she says absently, and thentries it on for size. “Sleet, pick up your toys. Sleet, honey, come on, or we’re gonna be late for the Wilcoconcert.” She digs a piece of paper and a pencil stub out of her maternity overalls and scribbles down thename.
The woman on my left grins at me. “Is this your first?”
“My third.”
“Mine too. I have two boys. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
“I have a boy and a girl,” I tell her. “Five and three.”
“Do you know what you’re having this time?”
I know everything about this baby, from her sex to the very placement of her chromosomes, including theones that make her a perfect match for Kate. I know exactly what I am having: a miracle. “It’s a girl,” Ianswer.
“Ooh, I’m so jealous! My husband and I, we didn’t find out at the ultrasound. I thought if I heard it wasanother boy, I might never finish out the last five months.” She shuts off her hair dryer and pushes it back.
“You have any names picked?”
It strikes me that I don’t. Although I am nine months pregnant, although I have had plenty of time to dream, Ihave not really considered the specifics of this child. I have thought of this daughter only in terms of whatshe will be able to do for the daughter I already have. I haven’t admitted this even to Brian, who lies at nightwith his head on my considerable belly, waiting for the twitches that herald—he thinks—the first femaleplacekicker for the Patriots. Then again, my dreams for her are no less exalted; I plan for her to save hersister’s life.
“We’re waiting,” I tell the woman.
Sometimes I think it is all we ever do.
There was a moment, after Kate’s three months of chemotherapy last year, that I was stupid enough tobelieve we had beaten the odds. Dr. Chance said that she seemed to be in remission, and that we would justkeep an eye on what came next. And for a little while, my life even got back to normal: chauffeuring Jesse tosoccer practice and helping out in Kate’s preschool class and even taking a hot bath to relax.
And yet, there was a part of me that knew the other shoe was bound to drop. This part scoured Kate’s pillowevery morning, even after her hair started to grow back with its frizzy, burned ends, just in case it startedfalling out again. This part went to the geneticist recommended by Dr. Chance. Engineered an embryo giventhe thumbs-up by scientists to be a perfect match for Kate. Took the hormones for IVF and conceived thatembryo, just in case.
It was during a routine bone marrow aspiration that we learned Kate was in molecular relapse. On theoutside, she looked like any other three-year-old girl. On the inside, the cancer had surged through her systemagain, steamrolling the progress that had been made with chemo.
Now, in the backseat with Jesse, Kate’s kicking her feet and playing with a toy phone. Jesse sits next to her,staring out the window. “Mom? Do buses ever fall on people?”
“Like out of trees?”
“No. Like…just over.” He makes a flipping motion with his hand.
“Only if the weather’s really bad, or if the driver’s going too fast.”
He nods, accepting my explanation for his safety in this universe. Then: “Mom? Do you have a favoritenumber?”
“Thirty-one,” I tell him. This is my due date. “How about you?”
“Nine. Because it can be a number, or how old you are, or a six standing on its head.” He pauses only longenough to take a breath. “Mom? Do we have special scissors to cut meat?”
“We do.” I take a right and drive past a cemetery, headstones canted forward and back like a set of yellowedteeth.
“Mom?” Jesse asks, “is that where Kate will go?”
The question, just as innocent as any of the others Jesse would ask, makes my legs go weak. I pull the carover and put on my hazard lights. Then I unbuckle my seat belt and turn around. “No, Jess,” I tell him. “She’sstaying with us.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald?” the producer says. “This is where we’ll put you.”
We sit down on the set at the TV studio. We’ve been invited here because of our baby’s unorthodoxconception. Somehow, in an effort to keep Kate healthy, we’ve unwittingly become the poster children forscientific debate.
Brian reaches for my hand as we are approached by Nadya Carter, the reporter for the newsmagazine. “We’rejust about ready. I’ve already taped an intro about Kate. All I’m going to do is ask you a few questions, andwe’ll be finished before you know it.”
Just before the camera starts rolling, Brian wipes his cheeks on the sleeve of his shirt. The makeup artist,standing behind the lights, moans. “Well, for God’s sake,” he whispers to me. “I’m not going on national TVwearing blush.”
The camera comes to life with far less ceremony than I’ve expected, just a little hum that runs up my armsand legs.
“Mr. Fitzgerald,” Nadya says, “can you explain to us why you chose to visit a geneticist in the first place?”
Brian looks at me. “Our three-year-old daughter has a very aggressive form of leukemia. Her oncologistsuggested we find a bone marrow donor—but our oldest son wasn’t a genetic match. There’s a nationalregistry, but by the time the right donor comes along for Kate, she might not…be around. So we thought itmight be a good idea to see if another sibling of Kate’s matched up.”
“A sibling,” Nadya says, “who doesn’t exist.”
“Not yet,” Brian replies.
“What made you turn to a geneticist?”
“Time constraints,” I say bluntly. “We couldn’t keep having babies year after year until one was a match forKate. The doctor was able to screen several embryos to see which one, if any, would be the ideal donor forKate. We were lucky enough to have one out of four—and it was implanted through IVF.”
Nadya looks down at her notes. “You’ve received hate mail, haven’t you?”
Brian nods. “People seem to think that we’re trying to make a designer baby.”
“Aren’t you?”
“We didn’t ask for a baby with blue eyes, or one that would grow to be six feet tall, or one that would have anIQ of two hundred. Sure, we asked for specific characteristics—but they’re not anything anyone would everconsider to be model human traits. They’re just Kate’s traits. We don’t want a superbaby; we just want tosave our daughter’s life.”
I squeeze Brian’s hand. God, I love him.
“Mrs. Fitzgerald, what will you tell this baby when she grows up?” Nadya asks.
“With any luck,” I say, “I’ll be able to tell her to stop bugging her sister.”
I go into labor on New Year’s Eve. The nurse taking care of me tries to distract me from my contractions bytalking about the signs of the sun. “This one, she’s gonna be a Capricorn,” Emelda says as she rubs myshoulders.
“Is that good?”
“Oh, Capricorns, they get the job done.”
Inhale, exhale. “Good…to…know,” I tell her.
There are two other babies being born. One woman, Emelda says, has her legs crossed. She’s trying to makeit to 1991. The New Year’s Baby is entitled to packs of free diapers and a $100 savings bond from CitizensBank for that distant college education.
When Emelda goes out to the nurse’s desk, leaving us alone, Brian reaches for my hand. “You okay?”
I grimace my way through another contraction. “I’d be better if this was over.”
He smiles at me. To a paramedic/firefighter, a routine hospital delivery is something to shrug at. If my waterhad broken during a train wreck, or if I was laboring in the back of a taxi—“I know what you’re thinking,” he interrupts, although I haven’t said a word out loud, “and you’re wrong.”
He lifts my hand, kisses the knuckles.
Suddenly an anchor unspools inside me. The chain, thick as a fist, twists in my abdomen. “Brian,” I gasp,“get the doctor.”
My OB comes in and holds his hand between my legs. He glances up at the clock. “If you can hold on aminute, this kid’s gonna be born famous,” he says, but I shake my head.
“Get it out,” I tell him. “Now.”
The doctor looks at Brian. “Tax deduction?” he guesses.
I am thinking of saving, but it has nothing to do with the IRS. The baby’s head slips through the seal of myskin. The doctor’s hand holds her, slides that gorgeous cord free of her neck, delivers her shoulder byshoulder.
I struggle to my elbows to watch what is going on below. “The umbilical cord,” I remind him. “Be careful.”
He cuts it, beautiful blood, and hurries it out of the room to a place where it will be cryogenically preserveduntil Kate is ready for it.
Day Zero of Kate’s pre-transplant regimen starts the morning after Anna is born. I come down from thematernity ward and meet Kate in Radiology. We are both wearing yellow isolation gowns, and this makes herlaugh. “Mommy,” she says, “we match.”
She has been given a pediatric cocktail for sedation, and under any other circumstance, this would be funny.
Kate can’t find her own feet. Every time she stands up, she collapses. It strikes me that this is how Kate willlook when she gets drunk on peach schnapps for the first time in high school or college; and then I quicklyremind myself that Kate might never be that old.
When the therapist comes to take her into the RT suite, Kate latches on to my leg. “Honey,” Brian says, “it’sgonna be fine.”
She shakes her head and burrows closer. When I crouch down, she throws herself into my arms. “I won’t takemy eyes off you,” I promise.
The room is large, with jungle murals painted on the walls. The linear accelerators are built into the ceilingand a pit below the treatment table, which is little more than a canvas cot covered with a sheet. The radiationtherapist places thick lead pieces shaped like beans onto Kate’s chest and tells her not to move. She promisesthat when it’s all over, Kate can have a sticker.
I stare at Kate through the protective glass wall. Gamma rays, leukemia, parenthood. It is the things youcannot see coming that are strong enough to kill you.
There is a Murphy’s Law to oncology, one which is not written anywhere but held in widespread belief: ifyou don’t get sick, you won’t get well. Therefore, if your chemo makes you violently ill, if radiation searsyour skin—it’s all good. On the other hand, if you sail through therapy quickly with only negligible nausea orpain, chances are the drugs have somehow been excreted by your body and aren’t doing their job.
By this criterion, Kate should surely be cured by now. Unlike last year’s chemo, this course of treatment hastaken a little girl who didn’t even have a runny nose and has turned her into a physical wreck. Three days ofradiation has caused constant diarrhea, and put her back into a diaper. At first, this embarrassed her; now sheis so sick she doesn’t care. The following five days of chemo have lined her throat with mucus, which keepsher clutching at a suction tube as if it is a life preserver. When she is awake, all she does is cry.
Since Day Six, when Kate’s white blood cell and neutrophil counts began to plummet, she has been inreverse isolation. Any germ in the world might kill her now; for this reason, the world is made to keep itsdistance. Visitors to her room are restricted, and those who are allowed in look like spacemen, gowned andmasked. Kate has to read picture books while wearing rubber gloves. No plants or flowers are permitted,because they carry bacteria that could kill her. Any toy given to her must be scrubbed down with antisepticsolution first. She sleeps with her teddy bear, sealed in a Ziploc bag, which rustles all night and sometimeswakes her up.
Brian and I sit outside the anteroom, waiting. While Kate sleeps, I practice giving injections to an orange.
After the transplant Kate will need growth factor shots, and the chore will fall to me. I prick the syringeunder the thick skin of the fruit, until I feel the soft give of tissue underneath. The drug I will be giving issubcutaneous, injected just under the skin. I need to make sure the angle is right and that I am giving theproper amount of pressure. The speed with which you push the needle down can cause more or less pain. Theorange, of course, doesn’t cry when I make a mistake. But the nurses still tell me that injecting Kate won’tfeel much different.
Brian picks up a second orange and begins to peel it. “Put that down!”
“I’m hungry.” He nods at the fruit in my hands. “And you’ve already got a patient.”
“For all you know that was someone else’s. God knows what it’s doped up with.”
Suddenly Dr. Chance turns the corner and approaches us. Donna, an oncology nurse, walks behind him,brandishing an IV bag filled with crimson liquid. “Drum roll,” she says.
I put down my orange, follow them into the anteroom, and suit up so that I can come within ten feet of mydaughter. Within minutes Donna attaches the bag to a pole, and connects the drip to Kate’s central line. It isso anticlimactic that Kate doesn’t even wake up. I stand on one side, as Brian goes to the other. I hold mybreath. I stare down at Kate’s hips, the iliac crest, where bone marrow is made. Through some miracle, thesestem cells of Anna’s will go into Kate’s bloodstream in her chest, but will find their way to the right spot.
“Well,” Dr. Chance says, and we all watch the cord blood slowly slide through the tubing, a Crazy Straw ofpossibility.