Risking It All

by Nina Darnton

  Now she just had to get there in time to help Eve during the delivery. She had trained for this, taking breathing lessons with Eve during her last three visits. “I already know how to breathe,” Eve had said dismissively, when Marcia had suggested they register for the class. “I know,” she’d answered. “And I know you’ve been through all this before with Danny. But it might still make it easier for you and it would be very special for me,” she’d pleaded, and Eve, good-natured as she was, agreed.

  Marcia’s phone rang again, and she quickly answered. “Eve?”

  “Yeah. I’m at the hospital in this fancy private room, like you arranged. Don’t worry. I’m fine. Labor hasn’t started. I think your kids want to wait for their mommy. The doctor said he’d try not to induce till you’re here. When are you coming?”

  “The plane leaves at eight this morning. We’ll be there around ten your time, I hope. How’s Danny? Is he home alone?”

  “I got my neighbor to look in on him and I left him a note so he knows where I am when he wakes up. He knows how to get himself off to school in the morning on his own.”

  “Is he even a little bit excited?”

  Eve paused. “I wouldn’t say he’s excited. But he’s glad it’s almost over.”

  “Do you think he should come to the hospital?”

  “No. Definitely not. I’ll be back with him tomorrow. You ready for this, Marcia?”

  “You know I am. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “Nah. Thank you. From me and from Danny too. Only, he doesn’t know it yet.”

  When Marcia walked back into their bedroom, Jeff was still soundly sleeping and she didn’t wake him. He’d be getting up in the middle of the night soon enough, she thought. Let him have this last peaceful night. She had hired a baby nurse to help them and she made a note to tell her she would have to start sooner than planned. She climbed back into bed next to Jeff and watched him sleep. He inhaled, and a deep snore escaped him. His lips puffed out and vibrated as he exhaled, and he turned over to settle more comfortably. She couldn’t sleep, but she could rest, she thought, closing her eyes. Suddenly they sprung open. She sat up abruptly and set her phone alarm—just in case …

  It woke both of them at five-thirty. They got to the airport in plenty of time and the plane trip, though tense, was uneventful.

  When they arrived at the hospital, Jeff bought a coffee and that morning’s New York Times and Wall Street Journal at the shop in the lobby while Marcia rushed ahead to the maternity floor. “Stay in the waiting room,” she suggested. “I’ll give you updates when I can.” She hurried to the nurses’ station on the fourth floor, identified herself and was ushered into the labor room to join Eve. As she entered, she saw that Eve’s face was contorted in pain and she was gripping the sides of the bed. She was clearly in the midst of a powerful contraction and Marcia rushed to her side. “I’m here, Eve. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when it started.” Eve reached for Marcia’s hand, gritted her teeth and groaned. “Don’t tense up, Eve,” Marcia reminded her. “Remember the panting. Try to do it. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four,” she repeated, emphasizing the first beat, as they had been taught. Eve tried to follow. She gave one last breath as the contraction subsided. Marcia wiped the perspiration from her brow.

  “I’m glad you’re here. Where’s the picture?” Eve whispered.

  They had been told to bring something for Eve to stare at during the contractions to help focus her concentration on the breathing technique, and Danny had made her a picture they had practiced with. It was composed of different-colored concentric circles, the bull’s-eye a bright orange. Marcia thought they would need to use these techniques for only a short time because Eve would have an epidural as soon as the labor was established, but for some reason she didn’t completely understand, Eve was adamant about rejecting the epidural. She’d heard of someone, she said, who’d gotten paralyzed after a spinal and no matter how many times Marcia and the doctors told her that wasn’t a real possibility, she still refused. That meant she insisted on having the babies without any anesthetic, just as she had had Danny.

  Grateful she had remembered it (she had stuffed it in her bag right before leaving), Marcia retrieved the crumpled picture, smoothed it out and taped it to the wall in Eve’s direct sight line. In less than three minutes, Eve’s body tensed again. “Breathe,” Marcia coaxed.

  “I want to push.”

  “No. Don’t. Try not to do anything until the doctor comes.”

  “I can’t hold it. I have to push. It’s coming.”

  Marcia ran down the hallway where she found the nurse and told her the babies were about to appear. The nurse looked skeptical, but she followed Marcia into the room and examined Eve. Suddenly, she moved faster. She paged the doctor who arrived just in time. After a quick examination, he said, “Okay, Eve, it’s time. Push. Give it everything you’ve got.”

  Eve pushed. Her face flushed, and every muscle in her body seemed to tense. She grunted, she moaned, and suddenly, there it was, a baby. The doctor cut the umbilical cord and handed the baby over to a nurse. “It’s the girl,” he said. Eve gasped, a short intake of breath and a hoarse sound, and the doctor turned his attention back to her. There was still another baby to come. Marcia was staring at the nurse ministering to the baby girl. “Why isn’t she crying?” Marcia asked. “I didn’t hear her cry.” A bell rang, bringing two more doctors. One took the baby from the nurses while the other bent over Eve. They were talking softly, in whispers. Marcia couldn’t hear what they were saying. “What’s going on?” she begged. Her voice sounded very loud. One of the doctors looked up for a second and turned to the nurse. “Get her out of here,” he ordered.

  Jeff looked up expectantly as Marcia entered the waiting room. He rose and started to smile as she approached, until he saw her face. “What happened?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered, reaching for his hand. “Something is wrong with the baby. They made me leave.”

  “How do you know something is wrong?”

  “I just know, Jeff,” she snapped but then recovered herself and took a deep breath. “Our little girl was born first. She didn’t cry. The nurses worked on her for what seemed like a long time but there was still no sound. Then some other doctors came in and I think they were trying to revive her.”

  “What about our son?”

  Marcia tried to hold back her tears but the panic in her voice was uncontrolled. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

  Jeff put his arm around her and felt her body go limp against his. “Let’s not get too upset yet, sweetheart,” he said, but his voice betrayed his own uncertainty. “Twin births are always difficult. She’s probably fine now.”

  He sat down and she sat heavily next to him, together, but lost in their own thoughts. After a few minutes he got up and approached the nurse at the reception desk, asking if there was any news about Eve Russo who was in the delivery room. The nurse shook her head sympathetically, and Jeff returned to his seat.

  He feared the worst and dared not say so. The truth was he had never thought this surrogacy idea was a good one. Of course he had wanted children, but he understood that you can’t always get what you want. But Marcia had become obsessed. If his idea was that maybe some things were not meant to be, Marcia’s was that anything was possible by the sheer force of her will. When Marcia wanted something this much, she was relentless, Jeff reflected. So they had moved forward, step by step. Her enthusiasm was so infectious, he had almost forgotten that the whole thing was a bad idea, fraught with dangers. He had worried again when he learned Eve was pregnant with twins. But Marcia convinced him it would work out. After all, she’d said, this wasn’t Eve’s first delivery. She’d had an easy time with Danny, no reason to think this would be different. Thousands of people were doing this, Eve had insisted. What could go wrong? And now, maybe something had.

  Marcia’s thoughts were all about what she had just witnessed, trying
to put together what happened in a way that didn’t result in a bad outcome. She had seen the look on the nurse’s face and the doctor’s urgent response. She had sensed the tension in the room. Those images haunted her. Why didn’t they come to tell them what was happening? She bit her nails, a habit she’d been trying to overcome since adolescence.

  It was almost an hour before a pale, serious Dr. Jensen walked into the waiting room and beckoned to Jeff and Marcia. Marcia had gotten to know and like Eve’s doctor during the eight months of appointments and she saw that his normally friendly expression was grim. He led them to a small office and invited them to sit on the couch. But they remained standing, huddled together, their hands intertwined. When he started to speak, Marcia heard the strain in his voice even before she processed the words, and she knew.

  “I’m very sorry to tell you this,” he said, “but your daughter didn’t make it. We tried everything we could for a long time, but we were unable to revive her.” Marcia drew in her breath sharply. Jeff squeezed her hand ever tighter. “Didn’t make it?” Marcia’s first reaction was anger. “Didn’t make it?” Like it was something the baby did wrong. She concentrated on fighting back the suffocating wave of pain. Her baby was gone. Even before she entered their lives, she was ripped away. A series of images flooded her mind: the pink bunnies, the wall stickers, the blanket edged with lace she had spent way too much for. What would she do with them? Oh, how stupid, why think of that? She turned away. When Jeff put his arm around her, she could feel the tightening of the sinews in his arm, hear his breathing, knew his own disappointment and pain, and it was too much for her. She let herself go and started to cry in deep heaving sobs. Dr. Jensen paused. He offered her a glass of water. He asked if she wanted a sedative. He seemed so distraught that even Marcia felt a moment of pity for him. He seemed to be about to add something, but Jeff spoke first. His voice was shaky.

  “And our son?”

  Dr. Jensen permitted himself a small, relieved smile. “You have a healthy little boy. He will have to temporarily stay in an incubator, but you will be able to take him home in a week or so. But there’s something—”

  “Thank God for that,” Jeff interrupted him.

  Marcia nodded slowly. “When can we see him?” she asked.

  “We are settling him in now,” the doctor answered. “You can view him soon, but you won’t be able to hold him for a few hours.”

  She was deeply relieved about her son, but she couldn’t stop the wave of grief and she struggled to come up from under it. She clung to Jeff, who alone could share her pain. She thought of her mother—not because she could turn to her in her grief; her mother had been dead since she was eighteen—but because she wished there was another woman who loved her whom she could talk to. Her father, long remarried, was far away. She thought about Eve, whom she knew would be devastated. After all, these were Eve’s babies too. Marcia had read everything she could get her hands on about childbirth and she knew about the fierce emotions pregnancy creates. Yes, it was Marcia’s egg and Jeff’s sperm, but it was Eve who carried the twins. It was her body that changed, her breasts that swelled and ached, her sleep that was disrupted by her nausea, her discomfort. It was Eve who felt the first signs of quickening when the baby stirred and Eve who placed her hand on her belly and knew there was life under it, life that grew and thrived because of her. And it was Eve whose body produced the hormones and chemicals that must have filled her with protective impulses as surely as they swelled her breasts with milk. This terrible, profound loss belonged to both of them. She needed Eve right now even more than she needed Jeff.

  Dr. Jensen cleared his throat and swallowed. “There’s something else,” he said.

  “Poor Eve,” Marcia said, ignoring him. “She must be so upset. Is she awake? Does she know what happened? I have to go to her.”

  The doctor raised his voice. “There is something else,” he repeated firmly. Marcia could see a slight quiver in his throat as he swallowed. He put his hand on Marcia’s arm and looked searchingly at Jeff, who now stood next to Marcia, his arm around her shoulder. Dr. Jensen reverted to the relative comfort of formality. “Eve had a pulmonary embolism during the delivery. There was nothing to prepare us for this, no reason to expect it. We did everything we could, but we were not successful. I’m so sorry.”

  Jeff got it right away. He seemed to reel backward, releasing Marcia for a second and taking a step to balance himself. But Marcia seemed confused.

  “What do you mean? How is she? How long does she have to stay here? When can I see her?”

  The doctor looked down. Surely this was the hardest part of his job. He looked helplessly at them both and took a deep breath. Marcia looked stunned. Jeff took her in his arms and pulled her close before leading her toward the couch, where she refused to sit. “A blockage in her lungs, Marcia,” he said gently, holding her steady. “She’s dead.”

  10

  Jeff paled and looked at Marcia, holding her even tighter for support.

  Marcia continued to stand and stare at the doctor. At first, she uttered only one word. “What?” she asked in a confused whisper. Surely she had misheard. Jeff had gotten it wrong. This couldn’t be happening. Then she turned angrily to Jeff. “Why do you say that, Jeff? What’s wrong with you?” Her voice percolated with fury. “The doctor said she had an embolism. He didn’t say she died. Why do you say such a terrible thing?” She turned to the doctor, shaken, disoriented. “Right, Doctor? She’s going to be okay, right?”

  The doctor sighed and took her arm, urging her again to sit down and easing her onto the couch. He held her arm a moment longer, sliding his hand to her wrist, starting to check her pulse, but she pushed him away angrily. “You don’t need to examine me, for Christ’s sake,” she barked. “You need to answer my question.”

  The doctor nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry. Listen, Marcia, you just heard emotionally devastating news and you’re in shock. You’re pale, your heart is beating very fast and you’re overwhelmed. This is normal. I understand. But you need to try to calm down and take deep breaths slowly in and out.” He took a few to show her how but she just stared at him as though she still didn’t understand. “I’m so sorry, but your husband was right. Eve passed away on the delivery table.”

  She didn’t move except to change the direction of her stare to the wall, hearing but not hearing, removed. She spoke softly, as if to herself, “This is all my fault.” She looked at Jeff. “Can you ever forgive me? Can anyone ever forgive me?”

  Jeff hugged her, smoothed her hair, rubbed her back. “It isn’t your fault. You had no way of knowing any of this would happen.” He turned to the doctor. “Please, tell her.”

  “Of course it’s not your fault, Marcia. As I said, the trauma of this double loss has thrown your body into a state of mild shock and one of the symptoms of that is feelings of guilt, disorientation, disbelief. But you had nothing to do with this.” He paused. “Would you like me to give you something to help you?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I want to feel what I feel. My baby and my friend deserve at least that much.”

  Her heart rate was slowing down, she could feel it, just as she felt the reality of what had happened sink into her consciousness. She looked up and saw Jeff’s anxious, grieved look and the doctor hovering, waiting to see if he was needed. She took a few deep breaths, as he had suggested, then squeezed Jeff’s hand and looked at the doctor. “I’m okay,” she said, struggling to emerge from a fog of confused emotions. “Thank you. I’m sorry for the way I behaved.”

  “No. Not at all. Completely normal,” Dr. Jensen said quickly. “I’m going to leave you two alone for a while now. You can stay here as long as you need to.”

  Soon after he left a nurse knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for a response. She asked gently if they would like to see their baby, but they both were too dazed to answer. Clearly uncomfortable, the nurse told them where the preemie ward was and expressed her condolences before
turning to go. At the door, she turned back. “I can only imagine what you’re feeling. But you have a healthy baby boy to take care of. Go to see him, try to take some comfort from him.” They nodded mechanically. She told them they could remain in the office until they were ready. They stared after her, neither of them moving or knowing what to do next. Finally, Jeff helped Marcia to her feet and together, they made their way to the preemie ward to view their baby.

  They stood outside the glass window staring at the tiny forms in their enclosed glass bassinets, most hooked up to wires and machines. It didn’t seem real, but they scanned the room looking for the crib with their name. They didn’t find it but they saw one that said RUSSO, Eve’s name. Marcia winced. Even though they had arranged all the surrogacy papers in advance, the legal transition wouldn’t be official for a few more days. Marcia pressed her face against the glass, straining to see the baby. He was so small. So fragile. Marcia felt a pressure in her chest, like a hand squeezing her heart. He has lots of black hair, like Jeff’s, she thought. She had black hair too, she thought with a stab of pain. But already her image of her baby girl was fading—they had whisked her away so quickly, she had barely seen her. Now she and Jeff continued to stare at their son. They watched his chest move with each breath, with life. Tears flowed down Marcia’s cheeks. Jeff felt weak; he reached out for Marcia, this time to steady himself. A passing nurse noticed them and asked if they’d like to sit down somewhere, but Marcia shook her head. “No,” she said. “We’ll go now and come back later.” She wiped her tears away, squeezed Jeff’s hand and turned to leave. Jeff accompanied her into the elevator, holding his arm tightly around her shoulders. They took a taxi straight to their hotel. When they got there, they climbed out slowly, moving as though they were walking through water, and in that dazed state they finally arrived in their room, where they sat heavily on the bed, looking at each other, utterly lost.