I End Up Crying Every Time
매번 엉엉 울어버리는 걸
“As I said earlier, she is in a lot of pain. She could die soon. There are only a few minutes left, or possibly hours.”
Nex to the crying mom, dad was turning pale as if he just heard his own death sentence. Despair swept across their faces. Mom began to cry, making strange noises that seemed to barely come out of her throat. I didn’t realize a person could make such a sound. She wanted to cry, but she didn't want her baby to hear her cry. I felt this urge to take off my bade and just hold her tight and cry with her.
“We do have to make a decision. If the heart rate starts to go down, we are obligated to press her chest and give some meds. Do you want us go ahead and do that?”
He asked me with a facial expression that made me think that he loathes me at this point.
“She’s going to die right now?”
"No. It’s not happening right at this moment. But soon, the heart rate will drop, and if we, as her providers, do nothing, her heart will eventually stop. Pressing her chest and administering medications may help her heart beat again. We could do that a few times, but she'll not make it eventually. We did everything we could, but she won't survive. Would you like to hold her in your arms and let her go in peace?”
“If you press her chest and give meds, can she live?”
“Her heart may start beating again, or it may not come back at all.”
“Are you saying there’s a chance?”
“Yes, there is a chance, but no matter what we do, she will pass away today or tomorrow.”
He was in agony as if I had stabbed him with a sharp knife. His face turned even paler like a person with no blood going through his face, just like the paper I was holding tightly. Perhaps the hope that he was barely holding on to for a miracle was shattered into pieces like glass. Then it must have felt like I had shoved those sharp pieces into his heart. They were about to face their precious baby’s death. It must have been impossible to face the truth, but now I was asking them to let her go even sooner.
“What would you do if she were your baby?”
He asked me in desperation. Maybe it was because of his blue eyes, his face seemed to have gone from white to blue. I couldn't tell if it was because of his wife, who was still crying and making strange noises next to him, or because of the awful news I had just delivered. It was clear that I asked them a question, and they returned the question back to me. They are seeking my personal opinion beyond my professional one.
“If she were my baby… If I were you, I would want to just hold her and let her go without any pain. I do believe that greater love is sometimes letting your loved ones go even though it hurts you.”
I looked at them for a long time with a burning face, not as a physician but as a mother who was holding back tears. Their answer was short.
“We’d like to hold her now.”
I am a neonatologist, a doctor that is responsible for taking care of newborns from the moment they come out to the world until the moment they go home or the moment they take their last breath on earth. I am a ‘black cloud’ doctor, a doctor that has endless misfortune happening during the shift with countless admissions and crashing patients, not to mention many deaths. The dark cloud of bad luck that had persisted since my residency hovered over my head has been pouring down learning opportunities but also has given me endless tears and pain. In some ways, these learning opportunities may have made me a better, more experienced doctor.
Back in residency, a white-haired pediatrician once asked me.
“Isn’t your sadness doubled because you have your kids? When babies get sick and die?”
I thought to myself. I was already empathetic enough to have cried after each death even when I didn’t have my children. But as my children grew older and I encountered deaths of many babies, I learned that he was right. When an unexpected death finds me, the pain in my heart intensifies exponentially because I am a mother. As I often saw a mother crying while holding her dead child, I realized that the sadness I felt before my children were born was not even half of what I feel now. I even began to doubt whether I was qualified to be a doctor because I cried every time my patient died. I believed that I had to get used to deaths, and I thought I should not feel all this pain and sadness that lasted for weeks and months. However, my mentor, Dr. B hugged me and comforted me one morning when I was crying after another baby died overnight.
“If you don’t feel sad after every death, you should find another job.”
Those words were more than comforting; it brought me some hope that maybe I could become a decent doctor one day.
Delivering the awful news to parents and helping them understand what’s going on with their babies is part of my job. My duty is to help babies live but also to help them die comfortably when the moment comes. But the more important task is to help the baby's family get through this impossibly difficult, dark time.
My mentor, Dr. C always said,
“Helping the family go through the most difficult time of their life is truly meaningful. It’s way more valuable than helping people who are just having normal days.”
We never forget the person who helped us during the hardest times. No one would imagine that their newborn baby would face death immediately after birth. It is almost impossible to make parents understand this absurd reality. If I were in that situation, I would not understand or know what to do. I have that impossible conversation on a daily basis. My job is to help them understand what’s happening to their babies especially when death is near. However, it is also my responsibility and duty of a neonatologist to get families out of the dark cave and guide them towards light.
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