However, my pain seemed to be above my uterus, spreading up and under my left lung. It came like a sharp knife. Literally took my breath away.
We got into the Jeep and headed directly to the hospital.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said. “Nicky’s just giving a heads-up, letting us know he’s physically fit.”
“Good,” Matt said, but he kept driving.
I had been getting weekly monitoring because this was considered a high-risk pregnancy. But everything had been fine, even a joy up until now. If I were in trouble, I would have known it. Wouldn’t I? I was always on the lookout for the least little problem. The fact that I’m a doctor made me even more prepared.
I was wrong. I was in trouble. The kind of trouble you’re not quite sure you want to know about before it happens.
This is the story of how we both almost died.
Nicholas,
We had the best doctor on Martha’s Vineyard, and one of the best in all of New England. Dr. Constance Cotter arrived at the hospital about ten minutes after I got there with Matt.
I felt fine by then, but Connie monitored me herself for the next two hours. I could see her urgency; I could read it in the tightness of her jaw. She was worrying about my heart. Was it strong enough? She was worrying about you, Nicky.
“This is potentially dangerous,” Connie said, sparing me no illusions. “Suzanne, your pressure is so high that part of me wants to start labor right now. I know it’s not time, but you’ve got me worried. What I am going to do is keep you here tonight. And as many nights as I feel are warranted. No, you have no say in this.”
I looked at Connie like, You must be kidding. I was a doctor. I lived right down the road from the hospital. I would come in immediately if necessary.
“Don’t even think about it. You’re staying. Check in, and I’ll be up to see you before I go. This isn’t negotiable, Suzanne.”
It was strange to be checking in to the hospital where I worked. An hour or so later, Matt and I sat in my room waiting for Connie to return. I was telling him what I knew so far, in particular about a condition called preeclampsia.
“What exactly is preeclampsia, Suzanne?” he asked. He wanted every detail explained in clear layman’s terms. He was asking all the right questions. So I told him, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“You wanted to know,” I said.
Connie finally came in. She took my blood pressure again. “Suzanne,” she said, “it’s higher than it was. If it doesn’t go down in the next few hours, I’m inducing labor.”
I had never seen Matt look, or act, so nervous. “I’m going to stay here with you tonight, Suzanne,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” I told him. “Sit in an uncomfortable chair and watch me sleep? That’s crazy.”
But Connie looked at me and, in the clinical tone that she uses only for patients, said, “I think that’s a very good idea. Matt should stay with you, Suzanne.”
Then Connie checked my pressure once more before leaving for the night.
I studied her face, looking for any kind of sign of trouble. What kind of look was that?
Connie stared at me oddly, and I couldn’t quite figure it out.
Then she said, “Suzanne, I’m not getting a strong reading from the baby’s heart. The baby has to come out now.”
Dear Nicholas,
All my life I had wanted a baby. I wanted to experience natural childbirth, just as my mother and grandmother had. Connie knew how important a natural delivery was to me. Matt and I had attended Lamaze classes together. She’d heard me go on and on about it in her office, and even over lunch.
I could see the sadness and pain in her face when she leaned over to me. She grasped my hand tightly in both of hers.
“Suzanne,” she whispered, “I wanted to bring this baby into the world the way you hoped it would happen. But you know I’m not going to put either you or this baby at risk. We have to do a C-section.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I nodded. “I know, Connie. I trust you.”
Everything began to move too fast after that.
Connie inserted an IV in my arm and administered magnesium sulfate. I immediately felt sicker than ever. A blinding headache overcame me.
Matt was right there as they prepped me for the C-section. He was told by a new attending doctor that this was an emergency. He couldn’t stay with me.
Thank God, Connie came back in just then and overrode the decision.
Connie then told me what was happening.
My liver was swollen. The blood platelet count was alarming, and my blood pressure was 190/130.
Worse, Nicky, your heartbeat was weakening.
“You’re going to be okay, Suzanne,” I kept hearing Connie say. Her voice was like an echo from a distant canyon. The room lights above my head appeared to be spinning out of control.
“What about Nicky?” I whispered through parched lips.
I waited for her to say, “And Nicky will be fine, too.”
But Connie didn’t say it, and tears came to my eyes again.
I was rolled into the operating room, where they were not only ready to deliver a baby but also to transfuse me with eight units of blood. My platelet count had dropped. I knew what was going on here. If I started bleeding internally, I would die.
As I was being given the epidural anesthesia, I saw Dr. Leon, my cardiologist, standing right by the anesthetist. Why was Leon here? Oh God, no. Please don’t do this. Oh please, please, please. I beg you. An oxygen mask was placed over my face. I tried to resist.
Connie raised her voice. “No, Suzanne. Take the oxygen.”
I felt as if I were on fire. I wasn’t able to logically attribute it to the magnesium sulfate. I didn’t know that my kidneys were shutting down, my platelets were dangerously low, my blood pressure had risen even more, to an alarming 200/115. I didn’t know that steroid injections were being administered to optimize the baby’s lung function and its prospect of survival.
The next few minutes were a blur. I saw a re-tractor come out. There were concerned looks from Connie, and then evasive eye contact.
I heard staccato orders and cold, unfeeling machine beeps and Matt chanting only positive things. I heard a loud sucking noise as amniotic fluid and blood were cleaned out of me.
There was numbness, some dizziness, and the oddest feeling of not being there, of not being anywhere, actually.
What brought me out of my surreal feeling of having entered another world was a cry. A distinct and mighty cry. You had announced your arrival like a strong warrior.
I began to cry, and so did Matt and Connie. You were such a little thing, just over six pounds. But so strong. And alert. Especially considering the stress you had been through.
You looked right at Daddy and me. I’ll never forget it. The first time ever I saw your face.
I got to hold you in my arms before you were whisked away to the NICU. I got to look into the beautiful eyes that you struggled to keep open, and I got to whisper for the first time, “I love you.”
Nicholas the Warrior!
KATIE
FEAR AND confusion swept over Katie again that night. While she read a few more diary pages, she forced herself to eat pasta primavera and drink tea. It didn’t help.
Everything was moving way too fast in her head, and especially inside her sore, bloated body.
A baby boy had been born. Nicholas the Warrior. Another child was growing inside her.
Katie had to think and be logical about this. What were all the possibilities? What could really be happening now?
Matt had been cheating on Suzanne all of these months?
Matt had been cheating, and Katie wasn’t the first?
Matt had left Suzanne and Nicholas for some reason that was yet to be revealed in the diary? They were divorced?
Suzanne had left Matt for somebody else?
Suzanne had died—her heart had finally given out?
Suzanne wa
s alive, but very ill?
Where was Suzanne right now? Maybe she should try to call her on Martha’s Vineyard. Maybe they should talk. Katie wasn’t sure if that was a good idea or if it would be one of her worst blunders ever.
She tried to work it through. What did she have to lose? A little pride, but not much else. But what about Suzanne? What if she had no idea about Matt? Was that even faintly possible? Of course it was. Wasn’t that pretty much what had happened to Katie? Anything seemed possible to her right now. Anything was possible. So what had really happened?
This was so overwhelming—unbearable. The man she had loved, and trusted, and thought she completely understood, had left her. Wasn’t that just typical these days? Wasn’t it sad?
She remembered a particular moment with Matt that kept her going. He had woken up beside her one night and was crying. She had held Matt in her arms for a long time. She stroked his cheek. Finally, Matt had whispered, “I’m trying hard to get everything behind me. I will. I promise, Katie.”
God, this was crazy!
Katie pounded her thigh with a closed fist. Her pulse was racing too fast. Her breasts really hurt.
She pushed herself out of her sofa, hurried into the bathroom, and threw up the pasta she’d just eaten.
Four
ALITTLE WHILE later, Katie went into the kitchen and fixed herself more tea. She and Guinevere sat staring at the four walls. She had hung the kitchen cabinets herself. The guys at Chinatown Lumber knew her all too well. She had her own toolbox and prided herself on never having to call the super to fix anything. So fix what’s wrong with your heart, Katie thought. Fix that!
Finally, she reached for the phone.
Merlin opened one sleepy eye as she nervously punched some numbers and heard a pickup on the other end of the line.
“Hi, Mom. It’s me,” she said in a voice that came out much smaller than she intended.
“I know, Katie. What’s the matter, sweetheart? Couldn’t you just come home for a couple of days? I think it would do us all a world of good.”
This was so hard, so bad.
“Could you get Daddy to pick up, too?” she asked. “Get Daddy, please.”
“I’m here, Katie,” her father said. “I’m on in the den.
I picked up when the phone rang. How are you?”
She sighed loudly. “Well . . . I’m pregnant,” Katie finally said.
Then all three of them were crying over the phone—because that’s the way they were. But Katie’s mother and father were already comforting her, saying, “It’s all right, Katie, we love you, we’re with you, we understand.”
Because that’s the way they were, too.
THE DIARY
Nicholas,
Just for the record. You started sleeping through the night early on. Not every night, but most, starting when you were about two weeks old, to the envy of all the other moms!
When you go through your little growth spurts, you wake up hungry. And what a little eater you are! You will eat anything — whether you’re breast-fed, or bottle-fed formula, or water, you chow down and aren’t picky.
On your first visit to the pediatrician after the initial hospital checkups, the doctor couldn’t believe how you were already focusing on the toys she had laid out. She exclaimed, “He’s extraordinary—sensational, Suzanne.” And she said you’re “so smart and so strong” because when she turned you on your tummy, you lifted your head.
That’s a great feat for a two-week-old. Nicholas the Warrior!
You were baptized at the Church of Mary Magdalene. It was a beautiful day. You wore my christening gown—a handmade heirloom of my aunt Romelle’s family in Newburgh, New York. It was also worn by my cousins and various other relatives over the past fifty years, and it was in perfect condition. You looked sweet and were such a charmer.
Monsignor Dwyer was completely taken with you. During the baptism, you kept reaching for the service book and touching his hand. You were looking right at him, attentive as could be.
Toward the end of the service, after you hadn’t missed a trick, Monsignor Dwyer said to you, “I don’t know what you’re going to be when you grow up, Nicholas. On second thought—you are grown up.”
It’s my first day back at work today. Not surprisingly, I miss you already. No, let me make that a little stronger: I’m bereft without you.
I wrote something as I sat thinking about you— even between patients.
Nickels and dimes
I love you in rhythms
I love you in rhymes
I love you in laughter
Here and ever after
Then I love you a million
Gazillion more times!
I think I could come up with dozens of Nicky nursery rhymes if I tried. They just come to me when you do something silly, or smile, or even when you sleep. What can I say? You inspire poetry.
Matt loves them, too. And coming from him, it’s a real compliment. Make no mistake about it, your daddy is definitely the writer in this family. But I still love writing these little love poems to you.
Yikes, here comes one now!
You’re my little Nicky Knack
I love you so, you love me back.
I love your toes, your knees, your nose,
And everywhere a big kiss goes.
I kiss you tons, and know what then?
I have to kiss you once again.
Okay, little man, I have to go now. My next patient is here already. If she knew what I was doing behind closed doors in my office, the poor woman would flee to the free clinic in Edgartown.
I thought I’d ease into work with a half day, just to get used to the routine again. But ever since I arrived this morning, all I wanted to do was look at your pictures and write silly poems.
Anyone peeking in at me would think I was in love.
I am.
Nicky, it’s me again—
I heard you crying tonight and got up to see what was the matter. You looked up at me with such sad little eyes. Your eyes are so blue, and always so expressive.
I looked to see if you needed changing—but it wasn’t that. Then I checked to see if you were hungry—but it wasn’t that, either.
So I lifted you up and sat with you in the rocker next to your crib.
Back and forth we went, back and forth, in a rhythm about double the rush of the ocean surf.
Your eyes started slowly closing, and your tears dissolved into sweet dreams. I placed you back in your crib and watched your heart-shaped bottom rising in the air. Then I turned you over on your back and watched your little tummy rise and fall.
I think all you wanted was a little company. Could you really just have wanted to be rocked and held and talked to?
I’m here, sweetie. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be right here.
“What are you doing, Suzie?” Matt whispered. I hadn’t heard him come into the nursery. Daddy can be as quiet as a cat.
“Nick couldn’t sleep.”
Matt looked into the crib and saw your tiny hand clenched to your mouth like a teething ring.
“God, he’s beautiful,” Matt whispered. “I mean it—he is gorgeous.”
I looked down at you. There wasn’t an inch of you that didn’t make my heart leap.
Matt put his arms around my waist. “Want to dance, Mrs. Harrison?” He hadn’t called me that since our wedding day. My heart fluttered like a sparrow’s in a birdbath.
“I think they’re playing our song.”
And to the high, plucky notes that came squeaking out of your music box, Matt and I danced round and round in your nursery that night. Past the stuffed animals, past Mother Goose and your homemade rocking horse, past the stars and the moon that float from your homemade mobile. We danced slowly and lovingly in the low light of your tiny cocoon.
When the music finally wound down to its final note, Matt kissed me and said, “Thank you, Suzanne. Thank you for this night, this dance, and most of all f
or this little boy. My whole world is right here, in this room. If I never had another thing, I would have everything.”
And then strangely—magically —as if your music box were just taking a rest, it played one more sweet refrain.
Nick,
Melanie Bone came over to baby-sit while I went to work. Full day, full load. Melanie’s kids were in Maine with her mother for a week, so she gave Grandma Jean a breather. It feels strange to leave you for this long, and I can’t stop thinking about what you’re doing now.
And now.
And now.
The last time I felt this tired, I was working my butt off at Mass. General in Boston. Maybe it’s because I’m juggling so many things again these days. Having a job and a baby is even harder than I thought. My respect for all mothers has never been higher, and it was high to begin with. Working mothers, mothers who stay at home, single mothers—they are all so amazing.
Something happened at the hospital today that made me think of your delivery.
A forty-one-year-old woman who was on vacation from New York was brought in. She was in her seventh month, and not doing well. Then all hell broke loose in the emergency room. She began to hemorrhage. It was so terrible. The poor woman ended up losing her baby, and I had to try to console her.
You probably wonder why I’m writing about this. Even I thought twice before sharing this sad story with you.
But it has made me realize more than ever how vulnerable we are, how life can be like walking on a high wire. Falling seems a tiny misstep away. Just seeing that poor woman today, and remembering how lucky we were, made me catch my breath.
Oh, Nicky, sometimes I wish I could hide you like a precious heirloom. But what is life if you don’t live it? I think I know that as well as anyone.
There’s a saying I remember from my grandmother: One today is worth two tomorrows.
Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas Page 8