Bed Rest

by Sarah Bilston

  After that, she secured two round discs to my stomach with elastic belts; one (pink belt) measured the baby’s heartbeat, the other (blue belt) checked to see if I was having contractions. Then she gave me a plastic cupful of orange juice to give the baby a sugar rush, and told me to settle down and wait. I examined the “Dos and Don’ts” page again on the ceiling above the couch: Do team tailored pants with broderie anglaise shirts for a look that’s both professional and feminine. Don’t wear beaded sweater-tops if you’re a busty gal.

  The sound of the baby’s heartbeat filled the room. A backdrop of swooshes punctuated by regular lilting thuds; lub-dup, lup-dup, lup-dup. A number flickered green on the monitor: 139, 142, 143, 145. The normally po-faced Cherise flashed a sudden, unexpected smile. That’s a good reading, she conceded; the baby’s heartrate sounds strong. Now we’ll record what happens when he kicks in response to the sugar. Dr. Weinberg wants to see a varied heartrate, it’s the sign of a healthy baby. I’ll be back in ten minutes to check up on you, she finished, and disappeared into the corridor. The large door banged shut behind her.

  Tom and I, hands clasped tightly in the warm semidarkness, watched the screen and the heart’s gentle rise and fall. 135, 132, 138, 142. Tom tapped his foot in time to the rhythm (“This is quite fun, Q, don’t know what you were so worried about”). After just a few minutes, I felt the baby begin to kick lustily, saw the tiny bulges in my stomach forced by a flailing hand or foot, and a demisecond later the beats soared to 150, 155, 160, 165. “Great, looks like we’re done here, why don’t you go and tell Cherise,” I told Tom, intensely relieved. He nodded and went off into the corridor to find her.

  Except that, seconds after he left the room, something started to happen. Swooosh, swoooosh, lub—dup; lub——dup…lub———dup; the gaps between the thuds are growing, the swooshes sound like a river of slowing treacle. And the number on the screen is dropping fast—120, 118, 104, 97, 92—

  —and now I’m panicking, the number’s dropping like a stone, and I’m calling for Tom while frantically massaging my belly, and the tiny hard body curled beneath my tightly stretched skin. I don’t know what I thought the massaging would do, but I wanted to make contact with my little one, to tell him I’m here, and hang on, please! Hang on!

  Tom heard the sound of the slowing heartbeat out in the corridor and rushed in with a white-green face, the technician a pace or two behind him. She took one look at the monitor, then barked at me: “turn onto your side, NOW! We have to move this baby off his cord.” I couldn’t think what she was talking about, but I hastily turned over, and as I did so the monitor went silent, and it was the loudest, most ominous silence I’ve ever heard. I heard myself wailing “what does that mean? Is he dead?” Cherise slipped the discs all over my stomach as I flopped about like a freshly caught fish, trying somehow to restart his heart (as I imagined) while she slithered the discs across the surface of my belly—until, “Hold still!” she said finally, urgently; “he isn’t dead, the disc has just slipped off his heart and we’ve lost the signal, you’ve got to stay still while I try to find it”—and then suddenly we heard it again, loud and strong and clear this time, 130, 135, 137, 135. The green numbers blinked reassuringly at us.

  Tom collapsed into a plastic chair and buried his head in his hands; I was shaking violently. Cherise took a deep breath. “Stay on your side for now, okay?” she ordered: “Everything’s probably fine, but I’m going to get Weinberg just in case. I’ll be back in a minute or two.”

  After a minute’s bewildered wait Dr. Weinberg came in, smiled briefly at us, then examined the long stretch of red-lined graph paper spewing out of the monitor. A crazy line measured the peaks and troughs of the baby’s heart rate; I could see that one long dip, ending in blankness. I stared at her, willing her to tell me that this is normal, that they see this all the time—

  Except of course, that’s not what she told us. She sat on the side of the examining couch and took my hand; I held on tight, like I was drowning. “Listen to me, mein bubeleh,” she said, gently. “I think the baby is getting into difficulty, I think he’s constricting his umbilical cord when he moves. Amniotic fluid is a sort of cushion between the baby and its cord, and you don’t have enough, versteh? The drop in heart rate tells me he’s not getting enough oxygen. I’ve got to send you into the hospital.”

  So here we are. I’m lying in a narrow bed hooked up to an IV, typing on my electronic organizer (which I found half an hour ago in the depths of my handbag, thank God, somewhere between a mashed-up tube of Tums and a scattering of lidless pens. Tom’s promised to bring my computer in tomorrow). In the corner of the room a monitor blinks. 130, 132, 145, 140.

  21

  Saturday 2 A.M.

  I’ve had twenty minutes’ sleep so far tonight.

  Just as I began to lose consciousness a few minutes ago, a nurse named Andrea came in to check my vitals. Blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and are you in any pain? Describe your pain on a scale of one to ten… I swear, when I get out of this place, I will stop complaining about bed rest. I will never complain about the lack of sleep again. I will never complain about lying on my left side again. I didn’t know how good I had it until today. Hospitals really suck.

  I am terrified of the monitor. I can’t stop staring at it. Every time the green number starts to drop in the darkness I turn rigid with fear.

  3 A.M.

  The baby’s heart rate just plummeted. I noticed the slowdown (lub———dup; lub———dup) and pushed my call button in a panic; Andrea appeared and told me, in soothing tones, not to worry, she was keeping an eye on my monitor from her nursing station. “It’s not a great reading, but it’s not terrible either,” she said, a hint of Irish in her voice; she swears she’ll come in and help me move into a new position, one that moves the baby off his umbilical cord, if the heart rate drops dangerously. But Andrea seems seriously overstretched to me. What happens when she’s helping the woman with triplets in room 027? I have turned up the volume on the monitor, despite Andrea’s entreaties, so that I can check on him without having to twist around in my bed to face the screen. I’m his mother, I must keep him safe.

  22

  Saturday 4 A.M.

  In the darkness I listen to his heartbeat. Lub-dup. Lub-dup. Lub-dup.

  In the darkness he listens to my heartbeat. Lub-dup. Lub-dup. Lup-dup.

  23

  10 A.M.

  Less than twenty-four hours ago I was at home. Thirty-six hours ago Jeanie was here. Unbelievable. I seem to have been in this hospital for about a century. My life has shrunk to this one small room, to a narrow metal bed and a bleeping monitor, to a heavy, stretched white belly.

  They brought me my breakfast at around eight, and I must be losing my mind because I fell upon the rubbery omelet and the cardboard carton of ultra-high-pasteurized milk with absolute glee. I polished off the entire contents of the tray in about five minutes. I am a very hungry pregnant woman, this is my only excuse.

  Just as I was licking the last morsel of cold home-fried potato off my fork, a young resident with a round shaved head came in and examined the monitor printout. He shrugged. This isn’t bad at all, he told me; only one period of deceleration, and the baby’s heart picked up again fairly quickly. This is actually very reassuring. We may be able to discharge you in the next few days, he said casually as he vanished out the door to attend to the woman with triplets in 027.

  I was left staring after him with my mouth open. All night I’ve been imagining horrors—death, neurological damage, permanent disabilities—and now someone tells me the baby may be fine after all! Relieved, I called Tom to pass on the good news; he told me he’s organizing things so he can take an hour off this afternoon to spend with me. He was very pleased with himself for thinking of it (“it’s not easy to arrange, Q, but I’ve explained to Phil, the senior partner I’m working with on this bid, that it’s very important”). I can’t help reflecting that it’s the least he can do. Partner Shmartner, I
want someone holding my hand.

  11:30 A.M.

  Ten minutes ago someone calling himself “the attending” bustled in. Before I knew what was happening, my knees were gaping at the ceiling and a strange man was fiddling about down there with something that looked (and felt) like a pointy silver fork. After five extremely uncomfortable, not to say awkward, minutes, the strange man snapped off his vaguely sexual latex gloves and told me flatly that he was “not yet reassured” about the baby’s condition. Unlike the cheery resident, he agrees with Dr. Weinberg that the baby may be squishing his cord in periods of activity, and he wants to go on with continuous monitoring. Before leaving he produced an ominous leaflet about steroid treatment from the right-hand pocket of his officious white coat.

  “If we think the baby isn’t thriving inside we’re going to induce labor, despite the fact that your child’s lungs are unlikely to be mature,” he told me, neutrally. “Steroids will fast-track lung development and give him a better chance of survival, but he will need to be admitted to the intensive care unit for the first few weeks.” (This with all the emotion of one indicating the need for some moderately serious toenail treatment.)

  He left me in a state of confusion. I’m bewildered by the different views of my condition; everyone seems to have their own opinion about how my baby is doing. Frankly, I’m increasingly convinced that no one knows what the hell is going on in there. Why do I have this problem? (“There are lots of possible reasons,” the attending told me judiciously. “But, truthfully, we have no idea.”) Will my son be healthy? (“We don’t know the answer to that one either,” he admitted.) What’s wrong with my uterus? Will it happen again? (“Ask another,” he said as he backed sheepishly out the door.)

  He did tell me that my son will be a little under three pounds if he has to be delivered this week. That’s less than my laptop.

  I have to stay calm.

  Tom still isn’t here, goddamn it, so in desperation I called my mother. This, of course, was a mistake.

  “Jeanie told me about that walk you took,” she said, viciously. “Q, I despair of you, really I do. One day you will stop putting yourself first! One day you will learn about the kinds of sacrifices parents make for their children…”

  Enough is enough, I thought as her voice droned on in my ear. So what sacrifices have you made for me? I cut in, bitterly. When did you put me first, precisely? When I was six, and you told me I couldn’t have a birthday party because you were too busy preparing for a meeting with the bank’s examiners? Or when I was ten, and you canceled my ballet classes because you were tired of driving across town to the studio? Or perhaps when I was fifteen, when you forgot to come and see me perform in the final heat of the national poetry-reading competition and blamed your secretary for failing to remind you?

  I made all sorts of sacrifices for you, she said, in astonished fury, and I only had one diary and my secretary was in charge of it. Of course it was her fault I missed the competition, you don’t think I wanted to, do you? I can’t believe you’re still bringing that up! And what was I supposed to do about the ballet classes, three kids all wanting different things, if it wasn’t ballet it was the trombone or the bloody triangle, I couldn’t get to them all, and your wretched father never learned to drive…

  Christ, I yelled down the phone, don’t give me that, you found the time to turn in sixteen-hour days at the office, you could have driven me fifteen minutes to ballet lessons! Dad may not have been able to drive, but at least he was home to give us a bath at night! The day you told me I couldn’t have a birthday party he threw me one all by himself, dressed up as a clown and served me green jelly and ice cream with cupcakes. I’ve never forgotten that, it’s one of my happiest childhood memories. I don’t think you star in any of those, let me tell you—

  And then I stopped, because things were getting out of hand. I couldn’t quite believe what I’d just said, and I don’t think she could either. There was a long silence.

  “June Whitfield’s daughter says that your hospital has an excellent obstetrics unit and a fantastic neonatal intensive-care facility,” she said, suddenly and unexpectedly. “World famous, apparently,” she went on, with a tiny catch in the back of her throat. “It’s quite a relief, really, knowing you’re getting such good care, Q!”

  I can’t quite express how surprising I found this statement. Apart from the fact that I thought she was about to disinherit me, I never expected to hear my mother describe a New York institution as anything other than (a) corrupt or (b) incompetent. I paused.

  Five minutes later, I discovered us in the middle of a perfectly amicable conversation about my baby, my treatment, and June Whitfield’s daughter’s hysterectomy. For some reason, my mother backed down this time, God alone knows why. Could it be that, just this one time, she decided not to fight with me because of my circumstances? Could it be that she was putting me and my needs first?

  Midnight

  Tom has just left. In the end he wasn’t able to take an hour off this afternoon (at the last minute he was told to redraft a clause on the property bid, so he told me), but he did arrive at my bedside at ten-thirty with my laptop and three large brown shopping bags piled high with junk food—pizza, fries, cola, cookies, cake. “Sorry, Q,” he called as he ran into the room, half out of breath; “but this lot’s bound to make you feel better! I ran round the market on the corner and got a trolley full of real crap. Not a vitamin in sight.” I appreciate the thought, although now, after three and a half thousand calories of fat and carbohydrates, I feel sick. And I need to pee, but I can’t face the hassle of unhooking myself from the monitor and dragging myself and my IV across the chilly floor to the bathroom. Plus I get nervous that something will happen while I’m off the monitor, that my baby’s heart will slow down, and I won’t know.

  24

  Sunday 4 A.M.

  I’ve just had a nightmare. I dreamed I was in the hospital, in serious danger of delivering my baby two and a half months early. I woke up, and for a few groggy moments I thought, it’s okay Q, it was just a nightmare, you’re safe at home! Then I heard the sounds of muted activity in the corridor, saw the bright white light shining under the metal doorjamb, felt the IV needle sharp in my wrist and the plastic discs bound tight to my abdomen, and I realized with a dawning sensation of misery that it was all true.

  7 A.M.

  I feel disgusting. I haven’t showered in two days. My hair feels thick and greasy, my face is sticky, and I’m longing to wear something that doesn’t have a slit down the back. Plus I haven’t been able to take my bra off since Friday because I can’t get it over the IV stand. I tried last night, managed to get it off my shoulders, over the IV tube and the water bag, all the way to the top of the support stand and then right down to the bottom, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get it over the stand’s four metal feet. The elastic stubbornly refused to stretch. So there I was, crouched and groveling on the tiled bathroom floor, bra-less, with my hospital shirt round my ankles, hoping desperately that the nurse (Eddie) would not choose that moment to check on my blood pressure.

  The good news, though, is that the baby hasn’t had any real problems; his heart rate dropped a little bit at about 5 A.M., but mostly he’s stayed up in (what Eddie likes to call) “the comfort zone.”

  8 A.M.

  Today’s “attending” has just visited, and told me I can take a shower this morning.

  She checked the monitor printouts and seemed quite pleased with the results. She told me that Dr. Weinberg was worried the baby’s heart rate was dropping regularly, to lower and lower speeds, and so far the hospital’s tests seem to prove that, in fact, it isn’t. This suggests he’s not damaging his umbilical cord too seriously when he moves—occasional lapses are tolerable, it seems—so on the whole they’ve decided they are (that word again) “reassured.”

  I’m very relieved, although the attending said it’s still possible they’ll keep me in the hospital for the remainder of the pregnancy.
Then, if the baby gets into trouble, they’ll be able to act quickly. Apparently there’s going to be a meeting to discuss this possibility at 10 A.M. this morning. I’m torn between feeling rather important (a whole meeting about me! Lots of doctors in white coats talking about me!) and annoyed at this irritating race of people with God complexes having a meeting about me without me there. And Tom too, of course.

  About ten minutes after the attending doctor left, Dr. Weinberg called on the telephone. Will I carry this baby to term? I asked her. (The hospital medics may have found reassurance, but I’m still searching for it myself.) To term?—oy oy oy, I doubt it, she said, with a heavy exhalation that crackled the line. I’ll be pleased if you make thirty-five weeks. The way things are going now your fluid will run out, and then your little one will do better outside you, in an incubator if necessary. But he may be able to breathe unassisted, and you’ll certainly be able to breast-feed him, by thirty-five weeks. So let’s shoot for that, okay?

  So this is my new goal. Five more weeks—thirty-five days, eight hundred and forty hours. It’s not so much. Even if I have to stay in here, attached to a monitor, it’s not so much.

  All at once, the baby feels real to me in a way he never has before, not even when I watched him, tiny legs paddling, on Cherise’s ultrasound screen. My ears are filled with the sound of his existence, his alive-ness. We lie here companionably together, listening to each other’s heartbeat. Love set you going like a fat gold watch, I told him. That’s Sylvia Plath. I’ll tell you all about her, one day.