Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss & Love by Matthew Logelin Read Free Book Online

had never seen her face this closely. I couldn’t believe how different she was from the Liz I’d been looking at for a little more than twelve years. She was even more gorgeous than I remembered, and right then I felt like the luckiest motherfucker in the world. It was the beauty of her face that brought me out of my stupor and into the place I needed to be for her and for our baby.

Chapter 5
madeline met mom.
mom met madeline.
i cried a little.
cleaned up my act.
cut the cord.
and took a nice close-up of baby.
madeline took a little trip to the nicu.
mom took a nap.
i paced.
    A ll of a sudden I heard a baby screaming. Then I had a moment of clarity. Holy shit! That’s not a baby! That’s our baby! A few weeks ago, we had been worried about our daughter’s lungs being fully developed. A nurse told us that if she came out screaming, it was a good indication that she was doing well. I started crying immediately upon hearing that little scream. Liz, on the other hand, panicked. “Is she okay? Is she okay?”
    “Yes, Liz, she’s doing great! Don’t you hear her screaming?” I squeezed my wife’s hand as hard as I could, in an attempt to calm her down, to let her know that all of the pain, all of her hard work, had paid off.
    From behind the blue shield came Dr. Nelson’s voice. “Guys, she looks great. She is absolutely beautiful.”
    I looked at the clock hanging high on the wall. The red, interconnected vertical and horizontal lines formed by a series of LED lights came together to indicate the exact minute our lives changed—11:56 a.m.
    Before I knew it there was a nurse at my side, directing me toward the sink. Standing nearby was another nurse, holding my daughter in a generic blue, pink, and white striped blanket. My first glimpse of her took my breath away. Yes, there was a small amount of goo stuck to her face and in her hair, but wow! She had hair! I could see it around her ears, sticking out from underneath the little knit hat that was already on her head. And her nose! It’s beautiful, and her cheeks are full, and she has the same chin as me! And her eyes! Her eyes are closed, but I bet they look just like Liz’s eyes! Wait! How tall is she? How much does she weigh? No one counted her fingers and toes! Are there ten of each? My mind was racing. The thrill I felt upon seeing my daughter was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. It was like our wedding day, a new Neutral Milk Hotel record, and a trip to Nepal, all wrapped into one tiny screaming bundle of joy.
    I was jolted from my thoughts by one of the nurses, who asked if I would like to cut the umbilical cord. Of course, I thought. Then another thought: Holy shit! That must be the longest umbilical cord of all time. I mean, I had no idea how this usually goes, but I didn’t know the thing could stretch from Liz’s womb all the way to the sink on the other side of the room. I soon realized that my cutting of the cord was a mostly symbolic gesture, because when the nurse lifted the blanket and uncovered our baby, I saw that she was already untethered from Liz—there was just a small, one-and-a-half-inch piece of cord pinched off by a little plastic clip. I grabbed the scissors from the nurse and struggled to get the two blades to slice through the sinuous, rubberlike thing that had kept our child well fed for the last thirty-three weeks.
    Suddenly, I heard Liz’s voice; she sounded far more alert than she had during the delivery. “Can I see my baby?” I turned toward her as she strained to see the child she’d dreamed about all her life. The nurse walked toward her with our daughter, and I asked if I could take a photo. She responded, “Make it fast—we have to get your baby to the NICU.” I grabbed my camera and snapped a couple of photos of Liz getting her first look at our daughter, Madeline Elizabeth Logelin.
    In the commotion, however, I failed to immediately process the words spoken by the nurse. NICU? What the fuck? I thought our