Dear Elizabeth,

When you were less than 24 hours old, your father wheeled me up to see you in the intensive care nursery. I was still reeling from the physical and emotional shock of your birth 16 weeks ahead of schedule. Your father rolled my wheelchair past three other intensive care rooms until we reached the one reserved for the most critically ill babies. Inside, you lay in your isolette, splayed on your back, your shrunken body tethered by tubes, wires and leads, your eyes fused shut, your face barely visible under the ventilator.

Although my memory of seeing you earlier in the day was hazy, I knew that you looked different now, much worse. You were a dull brown color and your skin looked waxy. Your chest was concave, sunken, and you were not moving. You looked like an inflatable toy from which the air was slowly leaking. All around us, monitors sounded and alarms flashed, red and yellow, signaling your descent.

The nurse suggested that we might want to baptize you. My mother, grandmother, and sister were with us, and we turned instinctively to my grandmother. I remember the nurse asking her if she knew what to say. Grandma said she did, and we gathered around your incubator.

Touching your head three times with water, she spoke these words:

“Father, Your Word says, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Lord, these loving parents, Michelle and Tim, dedicate this little child to You with praise and gratitude.

Elizabeth Grace, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. May God’s angels guard and protect you always.”

The nurse took five Polaroid pictures of you and gave one to each of us as a memory of you. I needed to go back to my room. I said a slow, deliberate good-bye to you, fixing my eyes for a long moment on your face, and my mother wheeled me out of the unit and down the hall. Your father stayed behind, by your side, determined to keep his vigil to the end.

But the end did not come. Not that night, nor the next nor the one after that. And now you have been with us for one whole week, and we are hoping against hope that it won’t.

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