“Hi,” I say, after he’s had enough time to process the image in front of him.
He plods to the side of my bed, his face is bleak. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t say anything. Just be here for me.” He takes my hand.
Nancy comes in behind him. “Hello.” She checks my IVs and records my latest blood pressure reading. 168/110. “Still high, my dear. How’s the headache?”
“It’s dull, but it’s there.”
“I’ll see if I can get you some Tylenol. Dr. Adler is making his evening rounds, and he’ll be in soon.”
My father follows her out, I assume to get more information on my condition.
While he’s gone, I return texts to Audrey, Tara and Mike. Between the three of them, my phone may as well be an alarm clock it’s going off so much. Mike and Tara want to come to the hospital, but I tell them to wait until I know what is happening. Audrey says she’ll try to stop by between feedings and a multitude of visitors.
Dr. Adler strolls in as I finish. He stands next to my bed, looking through a chart with my latest numbers. When my father returns and sees him, he appears more stunned than he did upon seeing me. “Ray?”
Dr. Adler looks up. “Hello, Jason.”
There’s – something – between the two of them that I cannot put my finger on.
“You’re Laurel’s doctor?” my father asks, not offering his usual handshake.
“She’s one of my favorite patients.” He smiles at me. “She’s a tough young woman.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say. “How long will we need to do this for? My entire left side has fallen asleep.”
“I’m ordering a fetal ultrasound first thing tomorrow with a specialist. He may also want to take a sampling of amniotic fluid. If the baby’s lungs appear mature enough, we might induce you. If, however, there is any sign of lung immaturity, the usual recommendation is a course of steroids to help stimulate their growth. If that’s the case, it may be a week or two, provided you are stable. Can you hang in there?”
“I guess.”
Then he says to my father, “It is very important that Laurel remain in a quiet and calm environment with minimal visitors. We can’t have her blood pressure rising any further.”
“Yes. The nurse just explained that to me.”
When Dr. Adler is gone, my father turns to me, wide-eyed. “Ray Adler is your doctor?”
“Yes. Why?”
“He was your mother’s boyfriend before she went out with me.”
“He was?”
“It wasn’t a good break-up, either.”
“He told me he knew her, but he never said more than that.”
“He was upset for a long time.”
“Well, he can’t be holding too much resentment. He hasn’t charged me for an office visit all year.”
Chapter Forty-four
Early in the morning I am brought on a stretcher to the office of a specialist on the second floor of the hospital. This proves to be quite an ordeal as I am required to remain attached to both IVs, the catheter and the blood pressure machine through the halls of the hospital and on an elevator, while still lying on my left side. It takes four people to get me there and moved onto his table.
The exam takes over an hour, and this doctor – Dr. Ferrod – a man in his sixties with a thick Middle-Eastern accent remains stone-faced the entire time. Through the power of a high-tech, high-resolution ultrasound, he is able to measure every inch of my daughter’s body, recording his findings into a computer. This ultimately culminates with a large needle being inserted into my abdomen. When he is through, he nods his head and leaves the room without giving me any indication either way of what he’s concluded, if he has concluded anything at all. I’m left alone for a half an hour wondering if everyone forgot about me until finally the orderlies retrieve me.
My father is half-dozing on a reclining chair when I’m wheeled in and returned to my bed. He jolts awake and is at my side once I’m sufficiently rewired. “How did it go?”
“I have no idea. I guess we’ll have to wait for Dr. Adler.”
“You got a few calls. I hope you don’t mind I answered your phone.”
“Who?”
“A Professor Stoker and a boy named Mike.”
“What did they say?”
“The professor was wondering how you are doing, and this Mike person wants you to call him.”
I can sense what is churning in his head. “Mike’s not the father, Dad. He’s just a friend.”
He opens his mouth, but snaps it shut just as fast and sits back on the recliner, checking emails on his phone. He’s being very stoic and quite tolerant given everything he’s been thrown into.
After a while, curiosity has the best of me. “How come you haven’t asked me any questions?”
“Questions?”
“You’ve got to have questions. Like who the father is? How could I keep this to myself? How am I planning to manage? I can think of a million.”
“Oh, I’ve got questions. Clearly you and I have some serious communication issues.”
I lift my head off the pillow. “You think?”
The monitor takes my pressure. 172/115.
My father sees the number. “Right now, I care more about your safety and your baby’s safety. We can talk about all this after everyone is out of the woods.”
“Fair enough.” I shift my weight on the bed as best I can. This left side only thing is miserable. “I’m having a girl.”
He can’t contain a smile. “You are?”
“Yup.”
“Do you have a name picked out?”
“I do, but I’m not telling anyone until after she is born.”
“Fair enough.”
The day creeps along gruelingly slow. Dr. Adler has office hours in the morning, so he won’t be coming to the hospital until after 2pm. My father went to the store in the lobby and purchased every magazine he thought I might be interested in and a few newspapers for himself.
After I read through each and every one of them, watch a couple talk shows, and send a few more texts back and forth with the crew, I am beyond stir crazy. “What time is it?”
He looks up from his paper. “1:30.”
“Yeah, that’s what my phone says. I was hoping it was wrong. I don’t know if I can do this for days, possibly weeks.”
“You will if you have to. We’ll find out soon.”
I know my father doesn’t want to have a conversation that could potentially lead to any semblance of an argument, but I can’t just lie here not telling him what is on my mind.
“I want to take the farm off the market.”
He throws me a speculative look. “Why?”
“Because I want to live there and finish school.”
“You want to live in Dresden? That’s an eighteen-mile drive to campus.”
“Mom did it for four years.”
“That was different.”
“Why?”
“Because her parents couldn’t afford to let her live on campus. She had no choice.”
“She still did it. Besides, it’s not like driving on the Long Island Expressway. It’s all open roads; it takes like twenty-five minutes tops. And I love that place…plus, technically it belongs to me.”
He tosses the newspaper on the floor. The lines on his face tense up, but his voice stays even. “Technically, that’s true.” He exhales loudly. “It needs so much work, though.”
“So, can’t I use the money from the land lease to make improvements?”
“A lot of that money simply offsets the taxes and insurance. The rest I’ve been putting in an account for you. I suppose you could.” He shakes his head. “You really want to live there? I thought perhaps you’d come back to the city until you’re up on your feet.”
“I want to try and finish school. I can take fewer classes next year if I need to. It would be easier up here anyway…in a house…as opposed to in a studio apartment.”
He nods, and I can tell he’s considering it. “What about Jake’s idea to sell off the land? Were you thinking of doing that, too?”
He’s surprisingly interested in my opinion. “I don’t think we should divide it up. I agree with you on that. It’s more valuable in one piece. Plus, it would break Gram’s and Grandpa’s hearts if they were alive. In a few years, when I’m done with school, we can try to sell it. Maybe the economy will be better.” I hesitate with my next thought, but say it anyway. “I do think we should send Jake some of the money from the land lease, though. It’s only fair. He worked there with Grandpa for years.”
My father sits in silence, but after a few minutes he sighs. “You obviously have given this a lot of thought.”
“I’ve got nothing but time on my hands at the moment.”
“It’s yours to do what you want with. I won’t interfere.”
The blood pressure monitor goes off. 150/100. Coming down. I close my eyes and give in to the temptation of a nap.
Chapter Forty-five
I rouse out of the fog of sleep to the whispering voices of Dr. Adler and my father in the doorway and try to fight the disorientation of waking to focus. But they are speaking too low for me to make out what they’re saying. I cough and shift my weight so they know I am stirring.
Dr. Adler is the first to come to my bed while my father looks on with a dark expression weighting down his face. “The results of the fetal evaluation were mixed. Your baby could probably benefit from a week or two more in utero. However, I’m not encouraged by your lab results. You are demonstrating all the symptoms of HELLP syndrome.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a further complication of preeclampsia, and when it happens, the recommended treatment is prompt delivery of the baby, whether premature or not.”
“But what will that mean for the baby if she’s not ready to come out yet? I don’t want anything to happen to her!” I didn’t come this far to put my baby in harm’s way.
“It’s more dangerous to leave her in utero.”
“Why?”
“Your liver could fail. If something happens to you, it will directly affect her. You aren’t well, Laurel. I’ve spoken with Dr. Ferrod, and he, too, feels delivery is the best course of action.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Right now?” The blood pressure monitor goes off again. 180/115.
“The ultrasound shows that the baby’s position isn’t ideal for a normal delivery. She’s partially breeched, which might have changed with a few more weeks. But given the urgency of the situation, Dr. Ferrod recommends we not waste precious time trying to induce you. So it looks like it’s going to be a C-section.”
“A C-section?” I glance over at my father. My heart is pounding now. “Dad, what do you think I should do?”
“You should follow the doctors’ advice.”
“But…what if something happens to the baby? I’m scared.”
“I know.” He grabs my arm. “You’re in good hands, though.”
I barely have time to process this information when two nurses appear with a stretcher and I am unleashed from the baby monitor. “On the count of three,” a short, round woman tells the other one, and I am hoisted onto it. Nancy appears in the doorway and hands my father a plastic bag full of scrubs. “I assume you want to be with your daughter. Put these on over your clothes.”
He does as told, clumsily, struggling to get the purple scrubs over his shoes while the nurses scurry to secure my IVs, catheter and everything else I’m attached to onto the stretcher. We head en masse to the operating room, and as we get closer, my legs begin shaking, then my whole body. I can’t control the panic.
My father must notice because he grabs my hand and squeezes. “Deep breaths, Laurel. Everything is going to be okay. Calm down.”
Once in the operating room, the nurses move me onto a cold table that’s in the center of the room. There are gadgets everywhere, and people doing different things at various stations. Off to the right, I see what looks like an incubator with two people standing next to it like sentries. An older man with graying hair and gentle eyes comes to my side. “We’re going to give you a spinal block so you don’t feel any pain. I need you to sit up and remain still while I administer it, all right?”
The nurses are around me again, and it takes both of them to help me up, with one of them pulling me to her chest in a hug. The anesthesiologist instructs my father to turn his back. “I’ve had way too many people faint on me when they see this.” My father does as told and faces the door while the doctor gets to work.
I feel a sharp pinch and then hear something that sounds like a crack, and then I am laid back flat on the table. I quickly lose feeling in my feet, then my legs, then my hips like a domino effect but the swirling in my head quadruples. He nods to Dr. Adler.
Soon a curtain is raised, separating my head and chest from my bottom half, and a nurse pulls a seat up for my father. “Sit here, behind the curtain. You can hold her hand.”
He does so dutifully, and when I look at his face, so close to mine now, his complexion is as white as a ghost. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispers to me, squeezing my hand. But the fear in his eyes gives him away.
It takes less than ten minutes for my daughter to be born, and at 3:58pm, she arrives into the world with the faintest squeak of a cry. Dr. Adler holds her up. “Laurel, here is your baby.”
We both gasp. She’s so tiny. I barely have enough time to take her in because she is immediately washed, weighed in at five pounds, two ounces, tagged with a bracelet to match the ones that were secured to our wrists, and moved to the incubator. The two people who were standing next to it now take no time wheeling her out of the room.
“She’s going to the NICU,” a nurse explains.
Watching her get pulled away, knowing I can’t be with her while I lie helplessly on this table is too much for me. “Dad, you have to go with her. We can’t leave her alone.”
“But what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. Go with her. Please. Promise me you’ll stay with her. Promise!”
His head turns from the incubator, to me, back to the incubator.
“Go,” I yell. “You have to!”
He releases my hand, now covered in sweat from how tightly we’ve both been squeezing, and rushes out of the room.
Chapter Forty-six
After two hours in Recovery, I’m brought back to my room. Nancy is there to hook me up to the blood pressure machine, reorganize the IVs, and reconnect the catheter to my bed. “Your father hasn’t left your daughter’s side. She’s not alone.”
“I want to see her.”
“I know. But you’ve got to stay on the magnesium for at least another day, and the doctor is going to want to run some labs. You’re not out of the woods just yet. Be patient.”
As much as I want to be a superhero and pull the IVs out of my arms and march down the hall to see my baby, I am extremely weak. My eyelids are too heavy for me to hold open. I am out before she’s left the room.
Sleep is deep, but filled with vivid imagery, and though I try to will myself awake many times throughout the night, I’m too exhausted to pull out of the slumber until the morning sun is shining through the blinds.
As my eyes adjust to the bright light, I notice Audrey and Bill are standing by the window. Bill is holding a car seat with a baby sound asleep in it and Audrey is scribbling something on a piece of paper.
“Hi,” I say and Audrey rushes to my bedside.
“I was just writing you a note. They discharged us this morning. We wanted to see you before we left but I didn’t want to wake you. How are you?”
My lips quiver. “She came a month early. She’s in the NICU. I’ve barely been able to see her. I haven’t held her…”
Audrey reaches over and grabs my arm and squeezes. “Everything is going to be okay. This is great hospital for premature babies. It’s why we decided to
deliver Chloe here. You know, just in case.”
Just in case? I glance up at Audrey. Her pale complexion is glowing and with the dress she has on, you can barely tell she just had a baby.
Bill puts the car seat on the floor and joins Audrey at my side. “Audrey’s right. Rochester has one of the best NICU’s in the state.”
He’s clean-shaven, bright-eyed and dressed in a button down shirt tucked into blue jeans. They both look great. And, although I know they’re trying to make me feel better, with their perfect relationship, perfect delivery, perfect healthy baby, perfect fucking everything, they’re making me feel worse. I squeeze my eyes shut. “I appreciate you stopping by, but you need to go.”
Audrey releases my arm.
“I’m not supposed to have visitors. With the preeclampsia.” My voice is cold.
“Oh. We didn’t know,” she says, her voice ringing with alarm. “Sorry.”
Bill picks up the car seat, and gestures for her to join him as he moves towards the door.
“Call me for anything.” Audrey offers, her voice hoarse. I’ve hurt her feelings but I don’t care right now. I know I should ask them to let me see Chloe before they walk out the door, but I can’t. I don’t say anything.
Once they are gone, I try to sit up, but my torso is aching and stiff with pain. I wince and feel around for the button to call the nurse. A square-shouldered woman with a flat face comes in. “I want to see my baby.” The anger is boiling inside me now.
She shakes her head. “You need to wait for Dr. Adler.”
“Where is he?” How much longer?
“He has office hours. He’ll be in this afternoon.”
“What?” I force myself to sit up even though the pain is excruciating. “I’m not waiting that long to see my baby. I want to go now!”
The nurse rushes to my side and pushes me back, gently but firmly. “You cannot get up. You’ve just had major surgery!”
“I want to see my daughter!” I push her hands off me. Too hard. Her eyes bulge open with shock or perhaps it’s fear. She relents. “I’ll call his office.”
Positively Mine Page 17