Eye Contact

by Stacey Grice

  “How big is she?”

  “My scan estimates five pounds, six ounces.”

  While I knew that was appropriate for my gestational age, I wasn’t pleased. She needed to be at least six pounds for UNOS to take her organs. We had to stop my labor.

  “I’ll go on bed rest. I have to get her further.”

  “Andie,” she said sternly, growing impatient with me, “you may not even need to. Let’s do this: we’ll get you over to L and D and monitor you for a little while. We’ll IV hydrate you and see if these contractions slow down on their own. If they don’t in an hour or two, we’ll go to the next step.”

  “An hour or two?” I yelped. “I think we need to be more aggressive than that.”

  “I know how important this is to you, but it’s not helping either one of you to stress out. Let me handle this one step at a time, please.”

  “Okay, yeah. Sorry.”

  Theresa went above and beyond and was nice enough to wheel me over to the labor and delivery unit from Kiko’s office. I was swarmed with nurses clad in solid Barney purple scrubs, all greeting me with excitement and joy. They got me right into the room and helped me get changed and into bed. Monitors were being placed by one nurse while another worked on starting my IV line. It was like a well-oiled machine of graceful efficiency. I appreciated the attention and tried as hard as I could to go with the flow and relax.

  My phone eventually dinged with a text notification from Rowan.

  Ro: Where are you?

  Me: Shit. I forgot to tell anyone.

  Me: I’m up in L&D getting monitored.

  Ro: Is everything ok?

  Me: Yeah. I’m just contracting.

  Me: They want to monitor me and IV hydrate.

  It wasn’t even three minutes before I heard Rowan’s voice in the hallway asking which room I was in. She burst through the door with no tact, concern and panic draping her features.

  “Jesus, Andie, you freaked me out. What’s going on?”

  “I’m fine. She’s fine. I’m contracting though and already one centimeter.”

  “So what does that mean? Are you in labor?”

  “Hopefully not. They’re going to give me fluids and recheck me in a couple of hours. If I change, I guess they’ll do something more aggressive to try to stop my labor.”

  “Well, I called Vaughn. He’s on his way.”

  “Ro, you didn’t need to call him,” I chastised. “What’s he going to do?”

  “Oh shut up. He’s your boyfriend and he loves you. Why shouldn’t he be here?”

  “He’s just going to sit here and watch me lay around? That’s stupid.”

  “Well, I can’t stay here. Somebody’s gotta man the pit, and you need support.”

  While Rowan was being pushy and was overstepping, I appreciated her insistence. I was scared and really didn’t want to be alone.

  “Keep me posted. If I don’t get a text at least every thirty minutes with an update, I’ll be up here and on you like white on rice.”

  “Ten-four, drill sergeant,” I joked with a mock salute and a smile.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know. I believe you.”

  She left briskly, warning the staff at the nurses’ station about the “noncompliant control freak” in room four on her way out and demanding that they keep a close eye on me because I was a “VIP”.

  A few minutes later, Vaughn walked in with a smoothie and a calming smile. I finally exhaled and relaxed.

  Chapter 57

  Vaughn

  “I was annoyed that she called you but now that I see you, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “Of course. I want to be here.”

  “Whatcha got in that cup?” she teased, looking so vulnerable and beautiful.

  “Your favorite,” I replied with a grin. I had swung by and ordered the smoothie she always ordered—kale, spinach, banana, pineapple, and coconut water. It was bright green and sounded disgusting to me, but she loved it. “Are you allowed to eat it?”

  “I’m a grown woman, mister! I’m allowed to do whatever I want.”

  “I just meant…well, I didn’t know if they were going to have to do surgery today or something.”

  “I’m just kidding with you. You’re sweet to make sure,” she acquiesced. “I can have liquids right now, I assure you, so hand it over.”

  As she guzzled the smoothie, she told me what was going on. I had instantly calmed down when I walked into the room and heard her heartbeat sounding on the monitor, but it was concerning to me that Andie was contracting so much.

  “What if they can’t stop your contractions?”

  “They will,” she declared confidently. “They have to. She’s too small right now for most of her organs to be donated.”

  “How big does she have to be?”

  “At least six pounds. She’s only five-six right now, and that’s just an estimation. She could be slightly more, but also could be slightly less. I’ve got to fatten this kid up.”

  I internally cringed. It was difficult to listen to Andie talk about our baby like that, like a hog we needed to ‘fatten up’ to maximize our return at the slaughter. Talk about a hard pill to swallow, but I knew it was her coping mechanism. She was dealing with the situation the only way she knew how and had made a decision long ago to stick this out and give our child a greater purpose. She’d morphed a horrible and tragic circumstance into an opportunity, which I admired, but it was difficult to talk about and view my baby—our baby—like that. Still, I didn’t dream of voicing my internal conflict; Andie was the one having to endure a pregnancy. She was the one carrying an extra thirty pounds around while working on her feet all day. She was the one who had to feel her kicking and moving inside her and know each time she felt it that it was her daughter inside without a brain. I couldn’t fathom that pain. It was a miracle she’d been able to compartmentalize and persevere through the heartache she must have felt with every kick and thump. I would never be strong enough to handle it. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from breaking down when someone approached at a store to ask how far along I was and whether it was a girl or a boy. The innocent inquiry had to be like a dagger to her soul each time, and yet she smiled through every single time. She appeased each little old lady with the answers they wanted to hear, because no one wants to hear that your baby has no head but you’re carrying it to term because you couldn’t bring yourself to terminate and are planning to farm out her organs to other little deserving boys and girls so they might be able to survive since your child couldn’t.

  “…working on today? Vaughn? Hellooo?”

  “What? Sorry. I was…in a trance. What did you ask?”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. What’s up?”

  “I asked what you were working on today. Were you busy? I feel bad that you’re just sitting here.”

  “It was nothing that can’t wait. I want to be here with you.”

  When the nurse came in at one point, I asked her to explain the monitors to me and what the squiggles on the paper strip meant. She pointed to our daughter’s heartbeat line and said it was reassuring and reactive, which all sounded good to me. Then she pointed to the contractions, which looked like little hills. She showed me how they were three to four minutes apart, which was way too frequent.

  Once she left, I couldn’t take my eyes off of that strip.

  About an hour passed and they came in at one point because a pump was beeping. Another bag of IV fluids was hung and Andie seemed to be relaxing. I noticed the hills were beginning to space out a little bit, but I didn’t mention it to Andie. She was so anxious already.

  We attempted to watch some HGTV show together when I got antsy. Something told me it wasn’t the time or place, but my thoughts were reeling and I couldn’t not ask.

  “Babe?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need to ask you something.”

  “Ask me.” She sat up in bed and turned her attention toward m
y chair.

  “I don’t want to upset you,” I prefaced. “I just…there’s something I don’t understand.”

  “You’re not going to upset me. We’re in this together,” she insisted.

  “Okay. So, I was wondering about this whole organ donation thing.”

  “Wondering what?”

  “In a…I hate to even use this word, and I’m probably not saying this in a politically correct way, but—”

  “Vaughn,” she interrupted. “It’s me, just you and me talking here. It’s okay.”

  “In a normal person, when they’re on life support…when their body is alive from machines but their brain is dead, they can be declared brain dead. Then you can take the organs, right?”

  “Yes, exactly. Once brain death has been established, the family or next of kin consents and we harvest then while there’s still blood supply keeping the organs alive.”

  “So what about our baby?”

  She sat, waiting for me to say more. When I didn’t, she asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s say she’s able to make it to term and is born alive,” I said with a shaky voice. “How will they determine brain death and know when to take the organs? She doesn’t have a brain. How can you say something is dead when it was never there? How can you take—”

  “Vaughn, stop.” I had stood up at some point and was pacing the room. “Vaughn, come here.”

  I walked over and sat down on the side of her bed, her hands coming up to rub circles on my back. I felt the tears begin to well and choked back a sob in my throat.

  “I want to know we’re doing the right thing. I want to understand,” I pleaded.

  “Me too,” she whispered.

  When my breaths calmed, she started to explain it to me, checking herself when she obviously wanted to use more academic words so I could understand.

  “There used to be a lot of controversy about this. People—medical professionals and ethics committees—argued that infants with anencephaly didn’t meet the criteria for determining brain death because they usually have adequate brainstem function that tells their heart to beat and their lungs to breathe. They argued that at the time that their brainstem stops functioning, the organs have already been damaged from lack of blood supply, making them unusable.”

  “That’s what I read,” I confessed.

  Her face was surprised but also impressed. “I didn’t realize you were researching this. You could’ve asked me.”

  “I know, I just wanted to know more so I could understand it all.”

  “I like that. I want you to be informed and be okay with everything. This is just as much your decision as it is mine.”

  “So what has changed? If the official ethics people have deemed it unethical, how does this work?”

  “Well, things have changed in recent years,” she clarified, her face lighting up in excitement. “The Journal of the American Medical Association has concluded that anencephalic babies never gain consciousness and will never have the capability to.” She reached out to hold my hand in hers. “They’ll never have thoughts or feelings. They’ll never feel pain, or any sensations, really. They don’t possess the ability to have desires or emotions, therefore it’s ethically acceptable for the parents to decide and for their organs to be harvested.”

  I was unable to stop the tears while picturing our little baby in there, just her body, not even capable of feeling how much we loved her. People say all the time that they don’t want to be a vegetable. They don’t want to live like that, just lying there with no mind. Our baby didn’t ever have a chance. She’d never get to make a choice.

  “So, if she’s born alive, what will happen?” I asked, fully invested in preparing myself for the whole process.

  “We’ll get to briefly see her, hopefully hold her, and then they’ll take her to the NICU where she’ll be intubated.”

  “Put on a breathing machine?”

  “Sorry, yes. She’ll be put on life support until her organs can be harvested.”

  “How long will that take?

  “It could happen pretty fast or even a day or two later. The organ procurement people already know about my case and are prepared for the call. I’ve already had testing and lab work so they can try to match organs to eligible recipients based on blood type, age, and size.”

  Sitting there, looking at her…it was as if I was in the presence of a superhero. I couldn’t believe she could be so strong and brave.

  “What?” she questioned, curious about my expression.

  “I’m in awe of you. I don’t know how you can do it—how you can be so strong.”

  “Vaughn, thirty to fifty percent of kids under the age of two will die before the organ they need becomes available—half! Half of them could die just waiting. Our baby will die anyway. That is a fact. It could be minutes after she’s born or a few days, but it will happen. Why not help as many people as we can?”

  I had nothing to say. There were no words that fit this situation perfectly. I just turned and hugged her. I put one hand over her belly and brought my other hand over to join it. Immediately feeling our sweet child kick, I cried even more. Wanting to be as close as I physically could to our baby, I lowered my head between my hands to rest on Andie’s belly and cried and hugged and loved. While I knew she couldn’t truly feel it, I felt it enough for the both of us.

  Chapter 58

  Andie

  “Are you sure you have everything?”

  “I think so. I mean, probably not, but if we forgot something, it’s not like my house is that far from the hospital. You can run back here and get it.”

  “I’m not going to want to leave you,” he said sweetly. “I don’t want to miss a single moment.”

  Seeing his face start to change and feeling my own eyes start to water, I bellowed, “Lock it up, Vaughn. I can’t get all emotional yet.” He could see that I wasn’t joking.

  “Okay, okay. We still have twenty minutes until we have to be there.”

  “I know, but I want to leave now. Parking’s a bitch.”

  “Even at six AM?” he teased. “Even in the employee parking lot? We are going to park in your normal lot, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  Even though he’d made his point, I still grabbed my bags and headed outside to the car, giving him no choice but to follow me.

  I couldn’t believe I had done it. I’d made it. I maybe could’ve made it even without my self-imposed bed rest, but we’d never know. After they were able to eventually stop my contractions a few weeks earlier, Dr. Francisco told me I was fine to go back to work and resume my normal activities, but I sought a second opinion—my own. I was scared and couldn’t risk it. So, I began my maternity leave a little early, and now we were at thirty-eight weeks and one day, heading in for my scheduled C-section. It was much better this way, no surprises, no rushed craziness, just me rolling in with my freshly pedicured toes and shaved legs, unhurried and as relaxed as one could be in this situation. I was fairly sure Vaughn was more nervous than I was.

  It wasn’t the surgery that had me on edge. I lived, breathed, and ate surgery and was more than comfortable going under Kiko’s knife.

  It was the after that had my heart clenching.

  All this buildup, all the stressing and planning, all the researching, reading, doubting, and then reassuring myself, day after day of questioning myself every time my lower back ached and my feet throbbed, every congratulatory glance by an innocent bystander that came up empty—it was all coming to a head, and I had to sit in my decision, knowing it was the right thing.

  Once we walked in and got registered, I walked to the pre-op area to get changed. A precious young nurse I had never met before greeted me. She had obviously read my chart ahead of time, which I was grateful for. There were no bubbly cheerleader-like greetings or asking if I was excited. She simply smiled kindly and told me what was next. Vaughn had to stay in the waiting room while she started my IV line a
nd got some information entered into the computer, but then he came to sit by me shortly after.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  It was more for him than for me. He looked petrified, like he needed to be reminded and reassured.

  “I love you too.”

  Our tender moment was interrupted by an onslaught of people marching into pre-op area, looking all official in their white coats with clipboards in hand. It probably looked intimidating for Vaughn. The anesthesiologist, the head of the organ procurement team, and Dr. Francisco all huddled around my bed.

  “You ready for this?” Kiko asked, testing my resolve.

  “We’re ready.” I felt such a calm and peace about it all. It was surprising to me, even.

  “Do you want me to put the monitor on before we go back?”

  I knew what she meant—did I want to hear her heart tones again before she was born?

  “It’s okay. I listened just before we left the house. I took a little recording actually.”

  Her face twisted into a puzzled look. “What do you mean you listened at your house?”

  “I may or may not have purchased my own Doppler.”

  Her laughter filled the room. “You’re a mess.”

  “I’m not arguing with you there.”

  Vaughn interjected with a clearing of his throat. “So, what happens now?”

  Everyone got serious again, and Kiko spoke up first. “Dr. Baxendale here will take Andie to the operating room while I change and scrub in. He will be the one performing the spinal. Once that is in place, we will lay her down and get everything set up.”

  “When do I get to come in?” Vaughn inquired, anxiety blanketing his tone.

  “Once we test to make sure she’s comfortable and not feeling anything, the nurse will come get you. We won’t start without you, I promise.”

  “What if the spinal doesn’t work?” he asked, sounding panicky.

  Dr. Baxendale spoke up. “It will work. If it isn’t optimal, we’ll fix it before you ever even come into the room. Don’t worry.”

  “We all know the circumstances surrounding this delivery and how important it is,” Kiko emphasized. “We wouldn’t dream of not including you in any part of it, Mr. Bennett.”