Happy Birthday, Mariano

Let's see . . . USC baseball hat: check; USC shirt: check; USC baseball bat: check; USC baseball: check. Now all we need is the scholarship!

My college roommate (and lawyer extraordanaire) Marita, sent Mariano's gift via the bookstore. He thinks the hat is "just like Matt's" and all he wants to do is play baseball in the hallway now. I probably threw 50 pitches before I made him stop so we could eat dinner. He can actually HIT that little softball too!

I started to sound like my mom this afternoon. "Mariano, do you know what mommy was doing RIGHT NOW four years ago?" "What?" he said. And then I looked at the clock. 2:25. Uh oh. "Actually, I think I was saying goodbye to you as they got ready to take you to Children's Hospital." THAT wasn't the story I meant to tell. I'm supposed to describe the flutter of kicks, the anxious first contraction, the painful but forgettable pushing, all climaxing in a miraculous and joyous cry from a new baby introduced to the cold.

That's not my story. That's not Mariano's birth. Mine is one of waking up on a Saturday morning and not feeling any life from my 35-week belly. Of using our Fisher Price baby monitor to try and find the heartbeat that was so happily pounding the night before. How my legs felt like noodles standing in the bathroom when I believed the baby had died. We left for the hospital immediately--without any of the bags or cameras or phone numbers that had been packed. At 1:07 p.m. an emergency C-section introduced an unconscious baby to the delivery room where needles and oxygen and little tiny restraints were the first things Mariano experienced. His APGAR was 5. That night he had a seizure 15 miles away from my hospital bed where I tried to ignore the babies in adjacent rooms crying and being soothed by mommies at hand.

Four years ago another me, living in a parallel universe, had not gone to the hospital. She waited too long as the baby was delivered lifeless. She did not listen to her heart nor her son.

Today I remind myself that I must always listen to both. That is my birthday gift to Mariano. It's not as cool as a USC baseball bat and ball, but it will do.