Hibernation.....

Time has passed enough for me to write and think about this in a more settled way.

About 7 weeks ago, just two days after the boys were released from the hospital and sent home, Heather and I had to put Finn back into the hospital. It was bad. Real bad.

When we first brought both boys home initally all was well. Yeah, there was the expected "freak-out" of suddenely being completely in charge of these two babies on our own and without the constant attention of nurses, but we actually felt more relieved to be away from all of that. Hospitals are fairly intense places to begin with, and it was more comfortable to be at home surrounded by familiarity.

On the following Tuesday we were scheduled to meet with our doctor for a regular check-up. The boys up to this time seemed fine, so we loaded them into the car and off we went.

Arriving at the doctor's office we went in, and it was all smiles and "Getting any sleep?" kind of good-natured banter. We had met with him everyday in the hospital previously so this was meant to be just a routine visit.

As he began examining Finn he suddenely became very quiet, and very serious. The mood changed on a dime.

"This boy is very cold" he said somberely.

He quickly took off Finn's clothes and felt his chest. He asked me to feel it as well. It was like ice. A thermometer reading was taken and it couldn't register a reading.....at all. Finn was breathing and moving a bit, but he didn't look good at this point. Heather and I exchanged anxious glances.

"I want to put him back into the hospital" the doctor said, and then added the parting shot of "Maybe we should call an ambulance".

There are moments in life when you are hearing words, and your brain takes them in, but the import of them is almost too much to process correctly. We listened, but did not believe.

It was decided that us taking him directly would be faster than waiting for an ambulance, so we loaded both boys back into the car and drove to the nearest hospital. It was a drive unlike any other I have ever done. I was behind the wheel, I was driving, but I was a million miles away. In a place I did not know existed. A place I never wish to return to.

They rushed Finn into Pediatric care. Nurses flew around us doing things I can't remember, but when they finally got his temperature I felt like the world had stopped.

He was 89 degrees. 89 degrees. The normal body temperature of a human is 98.

Clothes were stripped off, multiple blankets were wrapped around him, an IV was put in, and they placed him under heat lamps. They were able to stabilize him, but the aura of doctorly concern was thick around us.

For four days I lived with Finn in this hospital. I slept on a cot. I read him King Arthur. I cried a lot.

Heather would visit in the day as she still had to look after Lachlan. We moved through these days as if a blanket of worry was suffocating us. Every test under the sun was conducted on Finn. No conclusive answers were given. He didn't move much and rarely opened his eyes. Although his temperature was back to 98, he just didn't seem well. My heart was breaking with every beep on the LCD that he was connected to.

One day I went home to pick up Heather. I walked through the parking lot to the car and had to sincerely muster the strength to put one foot in front of the other.

Towards the end of the third day Finn began to rouse. He looked better. He was eating. He was pooping. When he finally opened his eyes and looked around for the first time for more than a few seconds I just cried and said to him "Where have you been boy, where have you been?"

In the end the official diagnosis was simply: "We don't know why this happened. It's just something that can occur with babies and especially twins." It seemed flimsy. We wanted to have something to point to. To say that it happened because of a definable problem, a problem which we will now fix. I guess life just can't be compartmentalized all the time, even when we want it to the most.

They took him off the heaters, and after he was able to regulate his core temperature by himself for a full 24 hours, we were given the OK to take him home. It was the sweetest, purest day. Even more than the first time we brought him home.

This little boy had knocked on death's door. It never opened and instead our parental love poured in. I discovered a burning love that took a near-tragedy to ignite. Strange.

I can certainly say that we watched Finn like hawks after that. Taking his temperature every few hours with the slightest deviation in a reading making us pause.

All is well now. We'll never really know why this all happened. All we know is that our son is safe, and for a few weeks afterwords we probably had the warmest house in the state. I don't think the thermostat ever went below 70 degrees.