The Club

Dr. Johnston continued to stop by Jericho's isolette on his daily rounds, occasionally changing his daily treatment.  Jericho was moved from section to section as he graduated from stage to stage.

It seemed so easy for Eric and Katrina to get caught up in the daily monotony of the NICU.  They hovered over Jericho, read his file every shift and pushed for breastfeeding as hard as they could.  Katrina pumped her milk for Jericho, giving him fresh milk for every gavage feeding (through a tube down the throat) and stored the excess in the NICU freezer.

Every feeding, Katrina would attempt normal breastfeeding so as to encourage normal eating, but he never seemed to get enough.  The nurses were beginning to push bottle feeding, which Dr. Johnston seemed to be disapproving to, as were Jericho's parents.  "Y'know, you really don't need to be here so much," one nurse snarled, "We could get him out of here a lot sooner if you'd just let us bottle feed him.  Breastfeeding is really just a thing of the past."

Horrified, Katrina asked Dr. Johnston to be moved from that particular nurse's station.  Very few parents were visiting their children in the NICU and those who did just didn't seem to have the attachment that Katrina and Eric had to their child.  Nobody lifted their head to read their child's chart or asked about the treatment.  Nobody breastfed naturally.  They had these devices for mothers who insisted upon trying that guaranteed breastfeeding failure: nipple rings.  They were bottle nipples that were placed between the mother's nipple and the baby's mouth.

One early morning, the NICU came alive, but no isolette alarms were sounding an emergency.  The nurses were grabbing needles, breathing devices, drugs and they prepared an isolette that had all of the bells and whistles.  Katrina stirred Eric, "Hon, look.  There's going to be another one.  Bad."

Eric woke up and turned his head to watch.  They had seen this before.  Another baby was being brought into the NICU.  Usually, they didn't have this much preparation, though.  Clearly, it was a very sick and or premature baby being brought in.

Soon, the doors from the maternity ward flew wide open and the buzzing began.  A rather large, dark haired baby was brought into the NICU wearing nothing but blue footies, followed by a Middle Eastern man, presumably the baby's father.  The father was very upset, snapping all of the photographs he could between questions like, "Will he live?"  Nobody could answer.

Katrina picked Jericho up from his isolette and held him closely, nuzzling his cheek and whispering comforting things into his tiny ear.  She watched the nurses "work" on the new baby as the baby's father pensively wrung his hands over and over again.  Every so often, a nurse would look at the father as if he were an annoyance, hoping he'd get the hint and leave their work station.  He didn't.

The nurses had the baby intubated and stable before Dr. Johnston came flowing through the back door of the NICU to examine the newcomer.  "That's how it happened for Jericho at first," Eric whispered to Katrina.  "It's like looking through a mirror into the past."

After a conversation with Dr. Johnston, the father seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and, as Dr. Johnston continued to examine his baby, the father let his eyes break for a moment or two to take in the NICU.  Reaching Jericho's area, he caught eyes with Eric, who politely nodded an understanding gesture to the new father as if to say, "He'll be fine.  Not too long ago, I was where you're standing and that doctor can handle this.  Breathe, man."  The father nodded back and sighed as he turned back to his baby.

When shift change came, Eric, Katrina and the new baby's father all left the NICU.  The new baby's father went on to the maternity ward, presumably making the same trip Eric had made the day Jericho was born.  They waddled on to the cafeteria, ordered their meal and sat down to talk.

"That was harsh," Eric said.  "I knew every word he was thinking.  It was written all over his face."

"Yeah," Katrina pondered, "Do you suppose he's like us?  I mean, he didn't seem to want to leave and he was all over-" she trailed off as a set of NICU nurses sat at a close by table.  Eric nodded.

As the double doors to the NICU swung open, Katrina noticed an odd look from a nurse that usually double teamed the unit Jericho was on.  She looked guilty of something.  She quickened her pace as she walked the NICU maze to get to Jericho and as she got there, she and Eric were horrified.  There was a strange man bottle feeding Jericho.

Eric slipped in front of Katrina and said, "No cuddlers."  Orion Hospital had volunteers who came and held the babies in the NICU every so often, but Jericho didn't need cuddling because his parents were always there and there certainly was not any reason to bottle feed him, as he was strictly a breastfed baby.

The man looked to the nurse to correct Eric, but she just acted confused.  Eric looked at the nurse and said, "We specifically withdrew him from the cuddling program so that he wouldn't be exposed to new germs.  He gets germs from us, his nurses and when a doctor checks him out.  He doesn't need cuddlers if we are here."

Katrina interjected as she bundled Jericho in her arms, taking the bottle and throwing it into the trash, "and no bottle feeding, either."

The nurse rolled her eyes and replied, "Well, it's not his fault.  Nobody told me if you were coming back and he was about due for a feeding so I just thought-"

Katrina squinted her eyes, "We are his parents.  Of course we were coming back."

Just then, Katrina and Eric looked across the walkway to find the new father they'd seen earlier was already back with his baby and watching the scene.

"I'm calling Dr. Johnston," the nurse smarted off snidely.

Once Dr. Johnston appeared in the doorway, Katrina sighed.  She had not placed Jericho down since the incident, half an hour prior.  "I heard you had an incident with a cuddler," he smiled warmly.

Eric explained thoroughly and expressed concern for the germs and noted that they were always present, except during shift change and there was no need for someone to introduce a bottle yet because they were still attempting breastfeeding.  The doctor listened politely, then turned to the nurse, "Do not allow anybody to give this child a bottle."  The nurse's face contorted from smarmy to disgusted as the doctor continued, "And these parents are here every minute of the day.  It is clear when parents take shifts and do all of their child's changing and cares that they do not want strange people picking their child up and breathing on it.  I don't know why you allowed this, but I know you already knew not to do it.  I will be speaking with the Head Nurse about this."

"Thank you," Katrina sighed.  The doctor smiled as he examined Jericho.  "When do you think we'll be able to take him home?" she asked.

"Well," Dr. Johnston spoke in very low tones as he motioned to Katrina to come closer, "I would like to see him go home with you and I am trying to get that done, but you will have to be a little more relaxed for me to make that happen."

Katrina's eyes immediately filled with tears, "Oh, my God," she whispered, "What-" she bit her lip.

Dr. Johnston picked Jericho up and placed him in her arms as he pretended to be reading his file, "You were doing fine.  Just relax.  Nobody else knows, but we have to do this right.  He still needs care so we'll talk later.  There is no need to worry yet unless a reason to worry arises, get it?"  Katrina took the baby and cradled him close to her heart as the doctor continued, "Unless there is reason, we only check the system upon release and we can do things: typos, mistakes can be made, you know?"

Katrina's chest swelled with joy.  He was going to help.  Eric just sat and watched, nodding occasionally.  He was still suspicious, but had no choice but to trust this new development.

The Others

Jericho went back and forth between needing oxygen and not needing oxygen.  Just when Eric and Katrina thought they were on their way out the door, a whole new set of problems would arise.

The NICU staff was getting used to the couple being "different" from the other, more care free parents.  Some times, the nurses would talk with the one who was awake to pass the time on their shift.  The couple kept the fraternizing to a minimum with hospital staff.

After the first week, an older nurse stopped by Jericho's isolette and prepped a shot for him.  "What's that?" asked Katrina.

Reaching out to unwrap Jericho, the nurse began to motion as if she was going to give the shot before she gave the explanation, "Oh, it's just an immunization," she said.

"No," the word flew out of Katrina's mouth before she could catch it.

The nurse didn't stop unwrapping the baby, "It's the law.  Every baby in this hospital gets immunizations," she said matter of factly.

"No, uh-" Katrina panicked.  "Only because we're getting all of his records at the same pediatrician and you know how important shot records are.  Besides," she was grasping at straws, "he was early and we want everything on the right gestational track."

The next morning, the neonatologist, Dr. Johnston, came by Jericho's bed and sized Katrina and Eric up.  "So," he began, "I see here you refused the immunization for young Jericho here."

Katrina regurgitated the same excuses she shared with the nurse and Dr. Johnston smiled and nodded through the entire pitch.  She could tell by his microexpressions that he saw straight through her excuses.  They were clearly hiding something.  He nodded and agreed, "I see no problem in wanting to keep him on the normal track.  He can wait for this shot until you can get him back home to see his regular pediatrician."

"Thank you, Doctor," Eric chimed in.  He was eyeballing the doctor right back, protectively.

"Well, Dad, I'm thinking his progress has been significant enough to remove the oxygen.  I think we can try this just for today and see where we sit with it."  Dr. Johnston smiled big, "Whaddya say?  Ya wanna be the one to do it?"

Eric nodded with a smile, "Yeah.  I'd like that very much.  They didn't let me cut the cord and, well, thanks."

Dr. Johnston slightly squinted at Katrina and pointed at her laptop, "Y'know, I get my news online, too.  I enjoy my political section straight up: no spin," and with a wink, he was on to the next patient.

Katrina smiled as her eyes filled half way with tears of relief at hearing her paper's mantra, "Enjoy your political section straight up: no spin."  She looked at Eric and nodded.  He was a fan.

Writing for a local paper had helped them, after all.  She had been concerned that being exposed would guarantee the loss of Jericho.  A trip to the NICU would have gotten them ran through SACWIS even back in 2006.  Now, a mere birth in a hospital at all guaranteed it.  Maybe, this doctor would help them get out of here without being ran: maybe.

For the first time since they heard that Jericho would be okay, they breathed a sigh of relief.  For now, there was hope.  There were others out there: other truthers; however, they hadn't considered the possibility of people working within the system being truthers.

NICU

Jericho was born silently, with an initial APGAR score of one, but he was resuscitated and did well; however, he did need oxygen.  Eric and Katrina kept their laptop close and their camera closer as they navigated the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Orion Hospital.

The first few hours, Katrina was unable to get up, as her legs were still numb.  The doctors and nurses had come back and forth with good reports about Jericho.  It was just a hard birth and he was just a smidge early, they thought.  Either way, he was going to be fine.  At the five hour marker, she raised the courage to ask the nurse, "Can I try, yet?"

"Well," a girl in colorful scrubs said, "You can try as soon as you feel ready so yeah," and she guided Katrina to a standing position and then to the door.

Eric came bounding down the hall, "Wait!" he spoke loudly, "They're doing shift change for an hour and we can't go in yet," he grabbed a wheelchair and pushed it to Katrina's shaking arms, guiding her wobbly legs around to be seated.  "I just left the NICU, hon.  There are a couple of hours every day where nobody can go in.  If I walk you all the way down there, you'll just have to wait an hour."

Katrina looked up at her husband: her lover; her partner, and her best friend.  She wanted to ask if they knew yet, but she knew better.  She just raised her eyebrows inquisitively and said, "Maybe, you could just push me around a bit?  I'm going nuts in that room."

Eric nodded the nice young nurse in the cheery scrubs off and pushed his wife down the hall.

After a long, heavy silence, Katrina asked, "Anything, yet?"

"Nope.  Nothing yet," was his response.  "They had me sign paperwork to admit him and he's doing great still.  They said it may only be a few days and we'll take him home.  Sometimes, this happens..." he trailed off, "Sometimes."

"Well, I need to talk with Pastor Bobby," Katrina's voice was matter of fact and on point for the complicated road ahead, "I need to know when they run the check and who knows what.  Keep your eyes and ears open for anything unusual.  Remember the safety rules: Don't put your real social security number down on his birth certificate.  Put the last four flip flopped for mine, too.  Put our birthdays off by one day and you've got the other spellings down for our names, right?"

Eric nodded, "Shh!  Just rest.  I'll take care of it.  They haven't asked me anything yet.  You need to just act normal.  It's strange enough that we tried a home birth.  Only Truthers do that nowadays," he came to the front of her wheelchair and kissed her forehead tenderly as he looked her squarely in the eye, "Just blend in and act like nothing's wrong.  No worries, okay?"

His big green eyes felt like home to Katrina.  She sighed and feigned a smile, "Yeah.  Blend."

The NICU was hot.  The nurses barely paid attention to monitors blaring as if there was a code blue every thirty seconds.  This was their life: a constant emergency.  Katrina had gotten so used to the monitors that her milk let down whenever a close monitor went off.  This did make for an excellent milk supply.

Most parents did not spend more than three hours a day in the NICU, but Eric and Katrina spent all but two hours a day there: shift change.  They snuck in their food and drinks, took turns holding Jericho and sleeping while the other watched out and listened to the NICU social worker as she stalked from isolette to isolette, searching for any reason to place children into more of the hospital's government funded programs.  It was, after all, her job to match patients and their families to these programs in an effort to obtain more funding for the hospital.

The nurses made the parents feel comfortable with leaving their newborn infants alone in the NICU and made a show of how attentive they were whenever a parent or family member visited any of the infants.  However, they let the babies cry it out most of the time.  Sure, they got the emergency medical care they needed, but they usually just sat at the counter, reading their novels instead of holding the babies.

There were "cuddlers" who volunteered to come and hold the infants for a few hours a day, but they couldn't stay all day.  After the nurses got a few, "No, we've got nothing better to do than be with him right now," from Eric and Katrina, they dropped the act and went about their days as if they weren't even there.

It simply floored Katrina and Eric that the other parents visited so rarely.  Didn't they wonder about their children?  By Jericho's second day of life outside of the womb, he lived most of his life in his parent's arms.  They just couldn't leave him there alone.

In The Beginning

Katrina clenched her teeth as the wave set over her body again, "Aargh!"  This labor was hard.  "Something's wrong," she thought.  "It doesn't feel right, but-" and the white bedroom went black again as she screamed in pain.

"Something's not right," said the midwife.  She whispered heavily to Eric, "She's got to go.  There's simply too much blood and she's just got to go."

Eric looked at Katrina.  Her curly brown hair had gotten so full and beautiful for the pregnancy, but she lay in a twisted, sweaty mess on their white bed sheets, trying to push their son out to no avail for at least thirty hours and she was getting tired.  Her green eyes were bloodshot in contrast to her very white skin.  She had lost a lot of blood.

Katrina turned her head toward her husband between contractions and gritted her teeth, "No!  You know what- ARGH!"  They were coming far too frequent and erratically, now.

Katrina could hear her husband whispering, or was it pleading, in her ear, "They won't know," and his hand squeezed to pull her out of it once more, "Just don't say anything.  Act normal and maybe they won't know.  Katrina?  Katrina!"

"Katrina?"  The doctor's gravely voice brought her to with a start.  "I am Dr. Hadrik.  You've lost a lot of blood.  We're giving you fluids to bring your blood pressure up, but I'm afraid you won't be able to give birth vaginally.  We need you to sign these papers to perform a cesarean section and save your baby's life."

She looked around to find herself in a hospital, not in her safe home.  Slightly panicked, she searched for her husband, whom she found nodding to her from behind the doctor, as if to say, "It's okay.  Just sign the paper."

After the paper was signed, they had about ten minutes to catch up.  Apparently, the baby was in and out of distress and they weren't sure if it was from a long, hard labor or something else.  Either way, they were about to meet him, face to scrunched up little face.

"I am Jason and I will be your anesthesiologist for the evening," a young man in baby blue scrubs cheerfully said.  "I'm betting you want to be awake for this."

Katrina and Eric smiled at one another as they felt the luminous joy of parenthood peaking.  Still, there was the fact that they were most certainly on the list.  What would happen if they couldn't take their son home?  They'd planned the whole pregnancy, followed every best practice method for keeping out of the hospital and off the list from the moment they'd found out; however, no amount of preparation could erase their activism.  Activists were always red listed.

The State Automated Child Welfare Index (SACWIS) had started out as a way to prevent child abusers from fleeing with at risk children, but it had very quickly grown into a witch hunt for anyone who opposed certain politicians.  It started with the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), Clinton's Adoption and Safe Family Act, and grew into a license to parent your own children. http://www.infowars.com/a-license-to-parent-your-own-children/

Since all of the states linked up and began snagging just about every child with parents who had any sort of a hit in SACWIS, activists, prior foster children and anyone who ever protested in any respect began having home births.  Obama Care had eventually passed and, deep in it's miles of paperwork was buried a few technicalities that if you had a baby on the public healthcare's dime, then you agreed to have your home checked by Child Protective Services (CPS) and to be ran through SACWIS before you were allowed to take your newborn home.  If you were a hit, anything from immediate and complete severance of your parental rights to parenting classes would be assigned.  Nobody wanted to take the chance.

Juvenile Dependency Court judges all sat on the boards of directors to some Child Protective Services contracted charity in their area.  All the charities had to do to ensure a steady stream of kids would go to their privatized fost/adopt agency was give the judges a nice "award" for their efforts "in the best interest of the children" that could have been anything from a luxury vehicle to money.

Obama also saw to it that all Americans were forced into his public medical care program so that nobody was left out of the screening process.  Oh, sure, there were loopholes, like home birth, but those were getting tighter and tighter every day.  As it stood, more than fifty percent of children were in the foster care system or adopted in the United States.

This hospital birth was putting a damper on things.  Katrina was a journalist and Eric was a prior foster dependent.  Both guaranteed a hit in SACWIS.