I looked at Oleg.

“How will I get there? I am on the 14^>th floor and our baby is on the 12^>th. Is it far?”

“It is pretty far,” Oleg answered. “You will need to take a wheelchair.”

“No way. Wheelchairs are for disabled people. But now I have to use one?”

I wanted to see my baby so much, I complied with the rules and went to the NICU in a wheelchair. Kathy pushed it for me, while Oleg and his cousin walked behind us. We arrived at the NICU.

“Only three healthy visitors can see your baby at a time,” the clerk explained. “No children are allowed, only siblings.”

We signed in and washed our hands all the way up to the elbows. Then we went to the last room at the end of the hall, where the smallest babies were. Because there were four of us, Eddie waited in the hall and then came in after Kathy left. Four doctors were by our son’s bed. The doctors greeted us and told the updates on the baby.

“The last two days we have been worried and didn’t think that your baby would live. But he lives, so we are planning to meet with the surgeon and come up with a care plan for your son.”

After the doctors left, I looked around the room. There were four other raised beds with tiny babies, covered with a glass lid and small blankets. I realized our family was not the only family with problems. There was a baby who was even smaller than our baby. Two nurses were taking care of babies in that room. Some parents sat in the rocking chairs by their baby’s bed. Our son’s bed had a sign on it: “Anischenko Baby” with tiny footprints on it and the baby’s weight and length: 3lb 1 ounce and 14 inches.

With Oleg’s help, I got out of the wheelchair and came closer to the incubator.

“Our baby is so tiny!” surprised, I told Oleg. “David, Kristina and Michael were all 8 pounds at birth. I never imagined that our fourth baby would be only 3 pounds.”

Two rounded windows were on each side of the incubator. The nurse and Kathy were staying next to us.

“Olga, you can open the round windows and put your hands through to your baby,” the nurse explained. “But do not make any strokes. He may not like it. Your baby still needs to be in your womb for more than two months, not being touched.”

I opened the round windows, put my hands on our baby’s head and legs, and looked at his face. He was so beautiful with blond curly hair and looked so much like Oleg. The nurse told us more about his tubes and wires.

“An oxygen tube, taped to baby’s mouth, is going down into his lungs to help him breathe. The sensors on his chest check his oxygen, pulse, heartbeat and body temperature. The umbilical intravenous line is inserted though his belly button, so we can draw blood for labs. The PICC line (a prolonged IV) is inserted in his hand, so we can send in nutrition and medications.”

There was a tiny diaper on my baby and, luckily, his legs had nothing attached to them. Everything seemed beyond our control. Seeing our baby with the tubes scared me.

“It is real. What do we do now?” I asked my husband.

Oleg hugged me tight. I wanted to hold our newborn son and have some quiet time with him, but it wasn’t possible. I felt a strange wave of emotion like he was mine, but at the same time not mine. I tried so hard to control my feelings and to not cry. “This is serious. We and our baby are in deep trouble,” I thought.

“Your baby has jaundice, a medical condition with yellowing of the skin and whites of his eyes, arising from excess of the pigment bilirubin,” the nurse said. “We need to turn on the special light that will help his jaundice go away. I need to cover your son’s eyes with black glasses, close his incubator and keep him under the lights.”