Worn out, but stable.

Your son is in the NICU — incubator six.” She saw my face and softened.

“Would you like to see him first?

He’s just through here.”

She led me through the double doors into a hushed, warm, low-lit room full of the small steady sounds of machines keeping the very new alive — the beeps, the soft hiss of oxygen, the occasional quiet alarm.

She stopped beside a clear plastic incubator, and I looked down through the top of it, and my legs nearly went out from under me.