The Nurse's Baby Secret

by Janice Lynn

Was she still pregnant with their baby? Had the wreck robbed her of their child?

  The emergency room doctor and nurse exchanged looks, then the nurse who’d been talking to him stepped away from Savannah, glanced closer at Charlie’s name badge. “I’m sorry, Dr. Keele, but I’m going to have to ask you to step out. We’ve got to get her into surgery STAT. One of the doctors or myself will come find you as quickly as possible and let you know what’s going on.”

  With that, another nurse escorted him out of the cubicle and to a waiting area, where he waited. And waited.

  * * *

  Charlie had no idea how much time had passed. He’d had the presence of mind to call one of the residents and have her see his scheduled afternoon patients but, other than that, he wasn’t sure he’d had a rational thought for hours.

  What his thoughts had been was irrational. He’d wanted to pull rank, to barge into wherever Savannah was and demand to know exactly what was going on. To do that might slow down her care, might waste vital time being spent on him rather than her.

  So he sat.

  He thought of breaking hospital policy and logging into Savannah’s medical chart and finding out what was happening. He could be fired for doing so. Yet the thought was tempting.

  Surgery? What kind of surgery? What about the baby? Did Savannah have internal injuries? God, he wished he knew something—that he knew she was going to be okay.

  If he didn’t hear something soon, maybe he’d use his badge to at least get someone on the emergency room staff to tell him something because the waiting was killing him.

  Savannah’s mother wasn’t faring much better. Other than asking if he knew anything when she’d first arrived, she’d not said much to him. Savannah’s cousin had driven her mother and her aunt the two-hour trip and the three of them sat praying while he paced back and forth across the room. No doubt she hated him. No doubt she should. He’d gotten her daughter pregnant and walked away. Despite his knowing that was best for Savannah and their baby, to an outsider that made him look like the bad guy. That was okay. He knew in the long run his not being in Savannah’s life would be more beneficial to her and their child than living the hell that had been his and his mother’s life.

  Just when he thought he couldn’t stand anymore, the nurse entered the room and motioned to follow her. He motioned to Savannah’s family and they went with him. Without really telling him anything, the nurse put them in a consult room.

  Within a couple of minutes of being shown the room, a vascular surgeon he vaguely recognized entered the room.

  A vascular surgeon.

  Why had Savannah needed a vascular surgeon? He’d been expecting an orthopedic or an internist or a hospitalist or an obstetrician, but not a vascular surgeon. Maybe, with as much blood as Savannah had apparently lost, he should have.

  “How is my daughter?” Savannah’s mother asked. The surgeon didn’t directly respond, just made brief eye contact with the older women and Savannah’s cousin, then turned to Charlie.

  He rose to his feet and shook the man’s hand.

  “Hello, Dr. Keele. I’m Dr. Trenton. I hear you’ve recently joined our heart failure team. My nurse says you’re acquainted with Miss Carter and were her emergency contact.”

  Savannah’s mother didn’t look happy at having her question ignored, that he’d been who the police officer had called, and, honestly, Charlie didn’t blame her.

  He didn’t recall telling the nurse much of anything about himself, other than he was Savannah’s baby’s father, but maybe he had said more. Or maybe she’d done some research. She’d seen his name tag. A simple Internet search would have told her that much and more. As far as being acquainted with Savannah, he wasn’t sure how to label himself so he just nodded and asked Savannah’s mother’s question. “How is she?”

  “Lucky to be alive and in recovery. Barring something unforeseen, I believe she’s out of the woods now that her bleed has been repaired. She was pretty banged up. Mostly deep bruising, as far as we can tell, except her peroneal artery was lacerated in her left leg. We’re not exactly sure what cut her, just that she had a significant puncture laceration. Fortunately, one of the accident witnesses was a firefighter and he got her free from the car, made a pressure bandage for her leg, and kept her legs elevated. He saved her life, but she still lost quite a bit of blood.”

  “But she is going to be okay?” Had Charlie asked or her mother? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Savannah was going to be all right.

  Dr. Trenton nodded. “I have every reason to believe she is going to be fine. The surgical repair of the artery was a success. She’s off the ventilator the helicopter team put in to maintain an airway in case of internal injuries and she’s breathing just fine on her own. As far as we can tell, there aren’t any broken bones. I don’t expect any surgical complications. We’ll monitor her for a few days, just to be sure and to make sure there aren’t any unforeseen internal injuries.”

  Charlie let that register, then asked what no one had mentioned, not even Savannah’s family. “The baby?”

  The man met his gaze and gave him a somber look. “She hasn’t miscarried yet, but her body did sustain major trauma. Certainly, the baby is at risk.”

  “She’s going to lose our baby?”

  The surgeon sighed. “I wish I could tell you a definite no but, with the trauma to her body, a miscarriage is a real possibility. She had a few contractions earlier but they seem to have stopped now that her blood volume levels are normalized. A high risk obstetrician has been assigned to the case and will be overseeing her care once she’s transferred out of recovery. No doubt she’ll be able to give you much more information than what I know. What I can tell you is that Miss Carter’s ultrasound has showed the placenta is intact and, best we can tell, there aren’t any leaks. The baby’s heartbeat has remained strong and steady, but again, Miss Carter lost a lot of blood and had to have several pints infused. The neonatal unit is aware and on standby if she or the baby gets in distress. A team of doctors will be monitoring them both closely.”

  Even with the hospital’s excellent neonatology unit, their baby wouldn’t survive at such an early stage of pregnancy. Savannah was only four months pregnant. Definitely, the hospital was equipped to handle early deliveries and had many successful cases of survival, but four months was too early. Way too early.

  Charlie’s eyes prickled with moisture and he sank to one of the vinyl-covered chairs in the small waiting area.

  “Thank God Savannah’s going to be all right,” her mother said, not commenting on the baby. “When can we see her?”

  The surgeon nodded at her mother, then said, “It’ll be another fifteen or twenty minutes before she’ll be released from recovery, then she’ll be transferred to the high risk obstetric unit.” He met Charlie’s gaze. “Normally, you wouldn’t be able to see her until she was transferred onto the floor but, as a courtesy, Dr. Keele can see her before she’s transferred.”

  Savannah’s mother grumbled, but didn’t say anything beyond.

  Charlie closed his eyes. He would like to see Savannah.

  Question was, would Savannah want him there?

  If she didn’t, could he really blame her?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SAVANNAH HURT.

  All over.

  And inside.

  She hurt there, too.

  “Take a deep breath,” someone told her. The voice was kind, gentle, comforting almost, and sounded so far away.

  “Savannah, you need to take a deep breath.”

  The voice wasn’t as soft this time. There was more urgency to the tone. A beeping was sounding in the background that didn’t quite fit in Savannah’s fuzzy mind.

  A deep breath. She could do that. She pulled air into her lungs then stopped at the excruciatin
g pain.

  Maybe she couldn’t do that.

  Why did it hurt to breathe?

  “I know it hurts,” the voice empathized. “But you need to take some deep breaths and get your oxygen saturation higher. Dr. Trenton isn’t going to release you to be transferred to your room until you’re stable. Breathe.”

  Transferred to her room.

  Despite how heavy her eyelids felt, Savannah pried her lids apart. Fluorescent lights shone in her eyes and she quickly closed her lids to block out the brightness.

  She was in a hospital. That much registered.

  “Blue,” the voice that had told her to breathe said. “With that red hair, I wondered if they would be. Your eyes, that is.”

  Savannah exerted great effort and ordered her eyes to open again. Slowly, they obeyed and she struggled to focus on her surroundings.

  “I was hoping you’d open them on your own before I had to do your next neuro check.”

  A bright room with artificial lighting. So bright it made holding her eyes open even more of a challenge. Or maybe it was the fact that they felt so puffy, almost swollen shut, that made it so difficult to keep her lids pried apart. Even the slightest movement sent new shockwaves of pain through her body.

  “Take another big breath to keep your oxygen saturation up,” the nurse repeated. “Your baby needs you taking big breaths.”

  Her baby. Oh, no. Had she? No, the woman had told her to breathe deeply to get her O2 sats up for her baby. If she’d miscarried, her breathing wouldn’t affect her baby.

  Her baby was alive.

  Still, she wanted reassurance, especially as she didn’t feel any movement. Not that she always did, just that currently she felt nothing.

  Nothing except pain. Great pain.

  “My baby? Did I...?”

  “Your baby is still holding his or her own. See.” The woman gestured toward a monitor.

  Savannah squinted toward the direction the woman gestured. There were a lot of monitors and medical equipment hooked to her, two of which displayed steady heartbeats, one much more rapid than the other. One hundred and forty-eight beats per minute. Her baby had a good, steady fetal heartbeat.

  She was in a hospital. Her baby was alive. She was alive. Why was she in a hospital? Why did she hurt so much?

  “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember?” the nurse asked.

  She closed her eyes and strained to recall. Horror joined her pain. “I was in a wreck. My car was hit and then I hit the car in front of me and was trapped between them.”

  “From what I was told, that sounds right,” the nurse agreed. “There was a fender bender that put traffic at a sudden stop on the interstate. Apparently, you were able to get stopped, but the driver behind you wasn’t paying attention and never braked. One of the witnesses said the driver was texting while driving.” The nurse gave a disgusted look. “You were slammed into by that car and that smashed you into the car in front of you. Then, another car hit the car that hit you and crushed you in between the two vehicles even more. I’m not a hundred percent that’s accurate, but it’s what I was told. Regardless, you are lucky to still be with us.”

  Savannah relived the impact followed by another impact. She remembered thinking the hits, the being jerked forward, was never going to end, that she was going to die in her car.

  “Was anyone else hurt?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer. When in nursing school, she’d done a few rotations where she’d worked the emergency department, worked motor vehicle accidents. She knew how serious they could be.

  The nurse winced and Savannah knew someone had been injured. By the nurse’s expression, seriously injured.

  “The driver who hit you, the one texting while driving, died instantly.”

  Savannah’s heart squeezed. That impact that had jarred her very being, someone had died in that instant.

  She could have died.

  Her baby could have died.

  Her gaze went to the fetal heart monitor, taking in the rapid little heartbeats.

  She might hurt all over, but at least her baby was alive.

  “Sad.” Her throat felt so dry, almost swelled shut.

  The nurse seemed to read her mind and offered a sip. “Just a little one to begin with, though, until we see how you do.”

  Savannah was grateful for something wet. The nurse held the cup to where she could take a sip through the straw. She’d barely gotten a few drops in her mouth when the nurse pulled back the cup. “Sorry. Just a little for now. I’ll give you more in a few minutes if you do okay with that.”

  She wanted more, but her nurse’s brain understood the reasons why. Not that she felt her brain was working correctly. She didn’t. A fog clouded her mind, making thinking a conscious effort rather than something that came naturally.

  Just how hurt was she?

  Her left leg felt crazy heavy, much more so than her arms and right leg, which also seemed to be made of lead. Pain racked her body and yet pinpointing where she hurt, or even where she hurt most, seemed impossible. Quite simply, every inch of her hurt. She was sure it did.

  When she hurt so completely, when the wreck had been as bad as she was realizing it was, how could her baby have survived?

  “I can see my baby’s heart beating, but you’re sure he or she is okay? That nothing happened during the wreck?”

  “You’ve had several tests. Your ultrasound didn’t show any abnormalities. It seems your body absorbed most of the impact of the wreck and protected your baby.”

  Hopefully. She wanted to protect her baby, to always keep her baby safe from harm. She’d slept through an ultrasound where she could have seen her beautiful baby? That was sad.

  “Did they take pictures?”

  The nurse’s brows rose. “Pardon?”

  “During my ultrasound, did they take pictures of my baby?”

  Smiling gently, the nurse shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of, but I’ve no doubt you’ll be having another ultrasound prior to leaving the hospital. Probably a few more. You can ask the sonographer to print you a photo at that time.”

  Savannah went to nod, but her head didn’t cooperate.

  Panic must have shown in her eyes because the nurse touched her arm.

  “You’re in a neck stabilization brace. You got whipped around hard. The hospitalist overseeing your care wants you left in the brace for now to keep your neck stable. Nothing’s broken,” she assured her. “The doctor is just being cautious.”

  What had the wreck done to her body? All she’d asked about was the baby.

  “What is wrong with me?”

  “Mostly severe bruising, multiple lacerations, a few of which required stitching, and then you had a puncture wound on your leg that tore the peroneal artery. That’s why your left leg may feel really heavy. One of the vascular surgeons repaired the bleed.”

  An arterial bleed.

  “I checked your wound before you woke up. He did a great job. Once it’s healed, you’ll only have a tiny scar.”

  At this point the size of a scar seemed such a trivial matter.

  Just so long as her baby was going to be okay, everything else was trivial. The fog that clouded her mind moved in thicker, darker.

  Exhausted, she closed her eyes. When she next opened them, the nurse was standing over her, telling her to breathe deeply again.

  The last time she’d breathed deeply, she’d hurt. Vaguely she recalled talking to the nurse. She couldn’t recall if they’d just had the conversation or if it had been hours ago.

  She already hurt. She sure didn’t want to do anything that made that pain worse.

  But she had her baby to think about.

  She took a few deep breaths and reminded herself that the intense pain was worth it if
it helped the baby.

  “Good job,” the nurse praised.

  * * *

  Charlie wasn’t supposed to be on this side of medicine. He just wasn’t. He’d been there, done that with his grandfather. His mother had died instantly in her car wreck and his father had been ill for a while but, stubbornly, had died in his sleep at home rather than at a hospital where he could have received medical care. Only with his grandfather had Charlie sat at the hospital. He’d felt so helpless then.

  He felt so helpless now.

  Even more so as the nurse led him through to the recovery room where Savannah lay on the hospital bed. The scene that met him had his knees threatening to buckle.

  Her face had multiple bruises and lacerations. Her left upper and lower eyelids were a purplish blue and significantly swollen. Her lower lip was swollen and busted in the middle. Her neck was in a stabilization brace. Her left leg was propped up on a pillow and covered with the white blanket that was tucked around her.

  “This is Dr. Keele. He works in cardiology,” the nurse introduced him to the recovery room nurse who was hovering over Savannah.

  The recovery nurse gave Charlie’s escort an odd look, one that clearly asked why he was there.

  “I’m a friend of your patient,” he explained, realizing the woman wondered why the nurse was bringing a cardiologist to see her post-op vascular patient.

  At his voice, Savannah’s eyes opened, her left only partially parting beneath her swollen lids. Her eye was bloodshot where capillaries had burst and bled, trapping the blood.

  She didn’t speak, just touched her tongue to her lips as if to moisten them. The recovery room nurse, in tune with her patient, dabbed Savannah’s lips with a moist swab.

  “There. That should help.”

  Savannah moved slightly, as if trying to nod, then let out a soft moan.

  “Don’t try moving right now other than to take some big, deep breaths,” the nurse instructed. “I’m going to step over here for a few minutes to give you a bit of privacy.” Her gaze met Charlie’s. “Make sure she keeps breathing deep.”

  Charlie wasn’t sure he wanted to be left alone with Savannah. Then again, having the nurse observe their conversation couldn’t be a good thing either. Who knew what Savannah was going to say to him? She’d probably tell him to go to hell.