In Memory of Baby Gabriel Patrick

This is the story of an angel who briefly touched my life one year ago, March 17th 2009. Gabriel Patrick. With hardly a push, he entered the world. His little rump and spindly legs plopped into my right hand while my other hand caught his dark-haired head. A preterm breech delivery of a baby boy. I placed him on a starched white sheet (no cozy warm blankets around here) and proceeded to dry him, he made no protest. I snapped on a blue clamp and cut the cord which had been his in-utero lifeline. I carried his featherlight, unmoving body to the hospital's only incubator and began giving careful puffs of air with the ambu-bag. It was just the two of us, the other nurse was attending to his mom in the room we had just left. I could see this little guy's heart fluttering behind his thin chest wall and I willed him to take a breath on his own. He gasped instead. I continued to help him expand his lungs until his irregular gasps evolved into one shuddering breath after another. A modified nasal cannula supplied oxygen. His gray skin tone subsided a bit as he started to squirm and look around. So very small, too small. I knew that he needed more assistance than I could possibly provide. I cupped his head in my palm and apologized. In the United States he would have had a fighting chance for survival, but his birth in a remote Kenyan village sealed his fate. I wanted his brief time on earth to be spent skin-to-skin, warm next to his mother's chest. After swaddling him in a clean yellow rag which could have almost passed for a receiving blanket, I brought him out to meet his mom. She asked if he would live. I explained to her that he was born too early and that is why he was struggling so much to breathe. She did not want to hold him. Back to the incubator. I went down to the X-ray department and invited my American colleague, Lauren, to come see this itty-bitty boy. Together we named him and admired the flawlessness of his miniature hands and feet. I dug out a textbook and tried to determine his gestational age, perhaps 27 weeks? His mom claims she didn't even realize she was pregnant, yesterday she was admitted to St. Camillus with severe malaria and this morning her sudden wave of abdominal cramps resulted in Gabriel's untimely birth. Now, three hours later, we were about to lose electricity (the generator shuts off at 12:30pm daily), thus ending our supply of incubator heat and oxygen. Gabriel's breathing had become erratic again, gasping, responding less and less to external stimuli. Lauren said she could not bear to watch him die so she slipped out of the room. The power cut out. I lifted Gabriel from the incubator, not even two pounds in my hands. His brow creased with every heave and indrawing of his chest. I lightly kissed his forehead and whispered that he could relax now if he wanted, it'd be okay. I offered Gabriel's mother one last opportunity to hold him, but she declined and turned away. In our small room I rested Gabe on the length of my forearm and sang to him. A co-worker passed by and chastised me for removing him from the incubator, she wanted him in a semi-warm environment. I protested that he didn't have supplemental oxygen and was likely taking his final breaths, but regardless of this, Gabriel was closed off in his plastic capsule. I left him in this other nurse's care. When I returned an hour later, Gabe was alone and motionless, no one was aware he had died. I wrapped his body and later that day his father took him home inside a small cardboard box from the pharmacy. My hands had been the first and last to hold Gabriel, I consider it a great honor.

I met Gabriel early on in my St. Camillus volunteer experience. After Gabriel, I decided to start naming each baby who spent time in our Incubator Room because oftentimes the parents do not choose a name until a few days have passed. This "interim name" was given in alphabetical order. Gabriel was joined in Heaven by several others from the Stork List:

Alexis, born with anencephaly.

Elijah, meconium aspiration syndrome.

Forrest, probable sepsis.

Hewey, born with exstrophy of the bladder/cloaxa.

Kimberly, preterm twin.

Lucy, preterm twin.

Miriam, preterm, probable sepsis.

Patrick, born with a myelomeningocele with hydrocephalus.

The babies who we were taken home by their parents include:

Beshel, triplet, 2 lbs 8oz

Claire, preemie with RDS, 3 lbs 7oz

Dori, preemie, 3 lbs 7oz

Ian, preemie, born via c/section 2* cord prolapse, 3lbs 8oz

Julia, preemie, induction 2* premature ROM, 3lbs 5 oz

Nellie, preemie twin, 2lbs 6oz

Olivia, preemie twin, 2lbs 4oz

Quinn, probable sepsis, 3lbs 9oz