The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture
most trouble. But the ones who come out all pissed off and full of noise,
they’re the fighters. They’re the ones who thrive.
Dylan weighed two pounds, fifteen ounces. His head was
about the size of a baseball. But the good news was that he was
breathing well on his own.
Jai was overcome with emotion and relief. In her smile, I saw her
blue lips fading back toward normal. I was so proud of her. Her courage
amazed me. Had I kept her from going into shock? I don’t know. But I
had tried to say and do and feel everything possible to keep her with us. I
had tried not to panic. Maybe it had helped.
Dylan was sent to the neonatal intensive care unit. I came to
recognize that parents with babies there needed very specific reassurances
from doctors and nurses. At Magee, they did a wonderful job of
simultaneously communicating two dissonant things. In so many words,
they told parents that 1) Your child is special and we understand that his
medical needs are unique, and 2) Don’t worry, we’ve had a million
babies like yours come through here.
Dylan never needed a respirator, but day after day, we still felt this
intense fear that he could take a downward turn. It just felt too early to
fully celebrate our new three-person family. When Jai and I drove to the
hospital each day, there was an unspoken thought in both our heads:
“Will our baby be alive when we get there?”
One day, we arrived at the hospital and Dylan’s bassinette was
gone. Jai almost collapsed from emotion. My heart was pounding. I
grabbed the nearest nurse, literally by the lapels, and I couldn’t even pull
together complete sentences. I was gasping out fear in staccato.
“Baby. Last name Pausch. Where?”
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