It was hardly music to our ears. Our first child, Aidan, was at the center of these electronic impulses, the sounds of his new and delicate life filtered through high-tech medical gadgetry.

He was 10 days old and had stopped breathing. Maureen found him tipping into unconsciousness, blue lips and dusky face. Acting on her instincts as both mother and nurse, she quickly scooped him up and slapped him on the back. The second rap revived him and she wasted no time in getting to the doctor. Once he was there, Aidan turned blue again, which was all that was needed to admit him to the hospital. I arrived at about this time: the nervous new father called out of work with word that his infant son is sick. None of us -- Maureen, myself, doctors, nurses -- knew what was going on except that Aidan would periodically stop breathing. "Apnea" is the medical term to describe this condition, a rather useless word that literally means "not breathing." It denotes a symptom, not a cause, and could not answer the crucial question: Why was this happening?

Apneic infants, often born prematurely with underdeveloped lungs, typically have intermittent respiratory lapses, maybe a few times a week, perhaps only once or twice in the course of months. The interruptions of Aidan's breathing were unusual in that they settled into a steady pattern, setting off the shrieking siren of an electronic monitor. The respiratory therapist would then jostle him and slip the oxygen mask over his nose to revive his stilled chest, and each time he would gradually come around, the deathly bluish tinge on his lips giving way to a livelier pink. It was soon apparent that the problem was more than our Massachusetts small-town hospital could handle. We would have to go to Springfield.

During our birthing class, chatting with five sets of other parents-to-be, Maureen had once raised the unmentionable question: What if something goes wrong? What if something is seriously wrong, what happens then? Our instructor, taken aback by this intrusion of unpleasant thoughts, said that babies with major medical problems are sent down to Springfield, to the big hospital there. Springfield was thus etched into my mind as a limbo of sorts, the place where unfortunates go, the tough cases, perhaps the incurables. And now we were going there, following Aidan into the unknown.

Springfield actually came to us. As the severity of the moment became clear, the pediatrician called an ambulance from the big medical center, and when the emergency technicians entered the room, laden with all sorts of equipment, the atmosphere transformed. A reassuring calm seemed to settle upon everyone present. These were pediatric intensivists. They had seen such things before, been in worse spots. Our dire situation was for them just another fairly routine call.

The local pediatrician put his arm around me, steering me away from the action, saying, "You don't want to see this." But I stayed and watched as they intubated Aidan, putting the curled plastic end of a ventilator hose down his throat to keep him breathing on the long ride. My eyes were fixed on Aidan's small body, surrounded by six or seven adults. The talk was serious, instructions for how to make sure the tube found its way into the lungs and did no damage. It was a tricky procedure that Aidan was resisting with all of his tiny might. I felt my first flush of fatherly pride as he spit out the tube four times: He would not go gently to Springfield! The fifth attempt, however, did the trick; the machine would now ensure that his blood and brain and organs were bathed in vital oxygen.

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