A Mother's First Test

After seven months of carrying them, "knowing their movements," she said, "their moods," she felt helpless. She ran a fever after the delivery and couldn't see her children again until the next day. Friends who visited were spending more time with the babies than she was. "It was awful," she said.

It wasn't until two days after giving birth that she was able to finally hold them.

"It was calming and wonderful," she said. "It was the most peaceful feeling."

One day last week, her husband held Betsy, and Beirne cradled Martin, feeding him from a bottle. She was transfixed, speaking more a maternal hum than actual words -- a mix of "hmmmms" and "ooooohs."

For the moment, she was oblivious to the tubes running from his nose and mouth to a monitor that measured his heart and respiratory rate and his blood-oxygen level. There was nothing but this little boy with ears no bigger than nickels, and a nose the size of a blueberry. This little boy, whose head didn't fill his mother's palm, who grabbed at the air and slept with his mouth open.

Then suddenly, the monitor squawked. Beirne's head snapped up, her eyes wide. A nurse rushed over. Feeding can cause their heart rates to drop, she explained. Nothing to worry about.

Then visiting time was over. Another nurse broke the moment: "I hate to be the mean one, but we're closed."

As she placed her son in the bassinet and turned to leave, Beirne began to tear up.

* * *

Later that evening, Beirne and her husband walked into their Kensington home. There were the bassinets in the guest room. A teddy bear waited in one, lizard puppets in the other. Upstairs there was Raggedy Anne and Andy, and clothes, blue for him, pink for her.

"Thank heaven for little boys," one shirt read.

The car seats were still tucked away because Kevin Beirne couldn't bear to "drive around with an empty car seat," he said.

Almost everything reminds them of what is not there. And so they wait.

Maggie Beirne makes lists. Dressers need to be cleared out. They need more diapers, the crib needs to be assembled.

She writes it all down.

And she daydreams: It's a summer evening. She and her husband are walking down the street, pushing Martin and Betsy in a stroller. They amble past houses with jungle gyms in the yards and basketball hoops in the driveways. They stop and chat with neighbors.

She is a proud mother, walking with her family to the park.

That's the fantasy. Which will no doubt happen. Her children should be able to come home in two or three weeks. But there will also be more worries, and fears. The angst of sending them to school for the first time. The waiting for them as teenagers to come home from a party. The broken bones and arguments.

Motherhood, as Beirne already knows, isn't just about the good times, but the strength to endure the bad as well.