by A. M. Wilson
The snap of the doctor’s gloves causes me to open my eyes, and she pats my knee.
“You’ve done well, Kiersten. I’ll be right back.”
Maybe if I had paid more attention, I would have seen the strain on her face. I could have asked some questions. I would have done more than roll to my side and close my eyes.
I didn’t know anything was wrong until it was too late.
The thought didn’t have a chance to cross my mind that as I fall asleep, I might not wake up.
28
Nathan
“Oh my god! He’s so beautiful.” Cami looks up from the pictures on my phone with tears in her eyes and tucks herself beneath Law’s arm. I went to tell them the good news after spending about twenty minutes with my son.
God, I have a son. Every time it crosses my mind, I have to rub the ache in my chest. I never knew I could love someone so wholly and instantly until I laid eyes on him, no matter that he was covered in blood and goo. After snapping pictures from every angle from the window of the NICU, I just stood there and watched him, wrapped in the knowledge that he exists.
“How’s Kiersten?” she asks.
I tuck my phone into my back pocket. “I should get back to her. She was worried, and they were cleaning her up, so I came to get some pictures. You should have seen her. She was incredible.”
“I’ll call and update her parents. They wanted to be here, but with the late hour and her grandparents, thought it’d be best to wait until morning to make the drive. Send me a picture to text her mom.” Cami’s excitement shines through her glassy eyes.
“Mr. Reede! You need to come now.” The urgency in the nurse’s voice hits me like an arrow in my heart. I exchange a glance with my friends, noting the blatant concern, and without another word, I take off in a jog. I catch up easily to the nurse, and we take a fast pack to Kiersten’s room.
“What happened?”
“She’s having some blood loss. The doctor thinks she’ll need surgery.”
I pick up my pace. The nurse doesn’t stand a chance against my long strides. I round the corner to Kiersten’s room so fast my boots squeak on the linoleum. Her prone form is visible from the doorway and squeezes the breath from my lungs in a rush. Her pallor concerns me but what makes me panic are her closed eyes.
Ignoring the footsteps behind me, I rush to her bed and shake her roughly. “Kiersten.”
“Hmm?” Her voice is sleepy, and her eyes remain shut. Dr. Fischer works with an intense demeanor between her legs. A new doctor assists.
“What’s happening?”
“She’s hemorrhaging. We need to take her into surgery immediately.”
I feel like someone’s eviscerated me, and my guts hang out in the open for all to see. “How grave is this?”
Dr. Fischer leaps from her chair, the bloodied gloves and gown socks me in the gut. The somber look in her eye tells me all I need to know. Cami must see it too because she gasps somewhere behind me. “It’s serious. In twenty years, I’ve seen this level of blood loss maybe five times.”
Before I can process that answer, the room swarms with people. An older man with a clipboard shakes Kiersten, and I shoulder my way over. I’m open my mouth to tell him to get his fucking hands off her when she cracks open her gorgeous blue eyes, blinking slowly at him. He holds out the clipboard and helps her grip the pen.
“I need you to sign these consent forms.”
Rage and fear course through me. This is all happening too fast. “Hey!” I snarl, causing the man to jump, and Kiersten to drop the pen. “She’s barely conscious. Let me read those.”
“I’m sorry, who are you?”
“I’m her husband,” I bark and yank the papers from his hand. I scan them over, and the terminology from my medical training kicks in.
A dilation and curettage procedure for possible retained placental parts.
Possible placental accreta…
Risk of hysterectomy…
Risk of death…
My baby is in the NICU with trouble breathing.
The woman I love is about to be rushed to emergency surgery with a risk of death.
The papers are taken from me, and I couldn’t tell you who signed them. The wheels unlock from the bed with an ominous bang, and within seconds, she’s wheeled past me and from the room. I lean down for a final press of my lips against her warm forehead as she clears by me, wondering if it’s the last time I’m going to feel her full of life.
I know all too well what it feels like to kiss the forehead of someone who’s recently died. To touch their cooling skin, never to be warmed again.
A hand lands heavily on my shoulder, squeezing tight, but I can’t bring myself to stop watching the spot Kiersten vacated. My last image of her nearly unconscious face replays through my head.
“What do you need?” Law asks with a mild shake in his own voice.
“I don’t know.” Mine cracks like an icicle breaking from a roof. I turn to him, witnessing his own eyes rimmed-red as a lone tear drips from mine. “I don’t fucking know what to do.”
“Hey.” He spins me to face him and grips both my shoulders tight. “You keep it together, you hear? She’s going to pull through this.”
“I’ve seen first-fucking-hand how easily that can change. In an instant!” I snap my fingers as the remaining thread holding me together unravels. “And our son is in the NICU struggling to breathe. What if I lose them both?”
Cami lets out a sob from behind Law, but he holds my attention with his steady gaze and calm presence.
“It’s not going to happen. I feel that one hundred percent they’re both gonna pull through.”
“You don’t know that!” I’m much less willing to be calm when my family is under attack by things I’m powerless to stop.
“I’ve lost a son.” His gravelly tone drops deeper. I’ve known him a year now, and even though Cami and I share a lot, this is news to me.
“Worst pain of my life, losing a child. Scar tissue grows, but the spot is never the same, you know?”
The fight begins to drain from me, and I nod.
“But I’m still here. And you’re still here. You know tragic loss as well as any of us. You also know you can’t think every situation is the same. The worst isn’t always going to happen.”
“Told her I loved her today.” Each word squeezes my chest as though it’s caught up in a malicious fist.
“Yeah? How’d that go?”
“About as well as you’d expect with Kiersten. She decided going into labor was the best way to avoid that situation.”
The edge of his mouth lifts in a weak smile. “We aren’t doing any good standing in this room. Let’s tell the nurse where you’ll be and go visit your son. That’ll give a little power back to you. You can watch over him until Kiersten’s out of surgery, and we’ll update her parents again.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Law pulls me in for a back-slapping hug and steps back just as quickly. I’m not much of a hugger, but I appreciate the support from someone who not so long ago wanted to beat my face in.
Cami slams into her man at full speed and stuffs her face into his chest as she sobs. He holds her close, one hand spanning the back of her head, and a pang of jealousy strikes me. Not for Cami. I’m well over that little blip of a crush. No, I’m jealous he can no-holds-barred embrace the woman he loves, and she lets him.
I’d give anything for that.
By the time I return to the NICU, the doctor waves me inside. It feels like I’m trudging through concrete to get to my son, each step not fast enough.
Besides a few wires on his chest to monitor his vitals, he looks normal and absolutely perfect. His head is covered by a shield that I’m told provides extra oxygen, but he doesn’t have a nasal cannula or anything more invasive. His little violet-blue eyes blink sleepily open, and he turns his head toward me.
“Hey there, baby.” I reach out and run my index finger along his tiny toes. They’re w
rinkled and soft and curl at my touch. A tuft of dark brown hair pokes out from beneath a blue knit cap on his tiny head. I don’t think I’ve ever been around a newborn this small, and thankfully, I haven’t encountered many of them at work either.
Is it possible for a heart to beat straight out of a chest? Mine aches in an incredible way. So many emotions from the day have given me whiplash to the point I wouldn’t be surprised if I experience full-blown cardiac arrest.
But right now, that heart, even knowing the woman I adore is in surgery, is so full of love for the little person before me. I know without hesitation that I’d do anything to protect him.
“You’re tough, little man. Tough like your momma.”
Thinking of Kiersten, I take out my phone and snap a few pictures of him now that he’s all cleaned off. It’s nearly midnight. I don’t know when her surgery will be over, but it’s safe to assume she won’t be able to see him until tomorrow. They better pump her full of painkillers because she’s going to be a hellion if she can’t meet her baby tonight.
I sit in a rocking chair beside his tiny bed and simply stare at the little life I had a part in creating. For what feels like hours, I catalog every single twitch and stretch and yawn. I memorize the features that make him a baby, but to every woman I know will look like pieces of Kiersten and me. I just don’t see anything other than a smooshed old man's face, but this is why women are the more nurturing sex.
The exhaustion from the day hits me like a semitruck and fighting sleep becomes nearly impossible. I need caffeine. I hate myself for deciding between my son or staying awake, but I need to be ready for Kiersten when she gets out of surgery. The NICU nurses will be by my son’s side for anything he needs in the time being.
The question now is will there be a coffee station somewhere, or do I need to enlist my friends in the middle of the night to make a run?
Halfway down the hall from the NICU, a few people in scrubs step off the elevator with a gurney. My heart rate speeds up, hoping like hell it’s her, and I step to the side to give them room to pass. I lock my gaze on the gurney like a creep, unable to unroot my feet until I know if it’s her or not.
Whoosh.
A thousand pounds of pressure leaves my lungs in an instant, and for the first time in hours, I breathe deep.
It’s her.
Asleep, or resting her eyes, but very much alive.
Pushing off the wall at my back, I follow them back to her room.
Dr. Fischer tells me everything went well, and they stopped the bleeding without removing her uterus. She dims the lights on her way out, and the moment everyone leaves, I slip my long body onto the bed with her.
The action brings back old memories of sneaking beside Janessa while she slept in the hospital, but this is different. I used those moments to prepare myself for our final goodbye. Maybe I should be doing the same with Kiersten. If she decides she’ll never love me back, I’ll have to put distance between us to protect myself. As much as I possibly can while still raising a child together.
That thought can wait for another day, though. She doesn’t need to love me right now. I can hold her until she wakes, and we can return to being just friends or whatever our relationship needs to be for her. If I have anything to do with it, it won’t take long for her to realize she loves me too. She just won’t fucking admit it.
I wake with a start sometime later to a nurse poking around the bed. My mouth is drier than my mother’s humor, and my head feels stuffed with cotton.
“You know you’re not supposed to be lying there.” Her tone is stern, but her eyes sparkle in the early morning light.
“I’m getting up,” I grouse through a yawn.
“No. Stay.”
I shoot my gaze down to Kiersten’s face at the sound of her raspy voice and see her shiny blue eyes blinking sleepily up at me. My heart thunders behind my ribs at her sweet smile directed at me.
“Morning, sleepyhead. How’re you feeling?”
“Like I shot a watermelon out of my hoo-ha,” she deadpans, and the nurse beside her forgets to suppress her snort.
“He does have my big head,” I toss back. Relief crashes through my veins at her instant joke.
“Can I see him?” She turns to the nurse who taps away on the computer. “Right now? Can you bring me to him?”
“I have to set you up with a blood transfusion first. You lost quite a lot of blood last night. After that, we can get you up to the nursery. They transferred him out of the NICU early this morning.”
Kiersten looks back at me with wide eyes, on the verge of losing it. What form that will take, whether shouting, crying, or a combination, isn’t going to be good.
“Hey. Hey,” I soothe and reach out to stroke a lock of her hair. “Let me show you some pictures.”
I dig out my phone and show her the ones I took after he was cleaned up last night.
“Wow.” She glances at me and bites her lip. “He really does have your big head.”
“Thanks.” I fill my voice with sarcasm. “Any thoughts on a name?”
She bites her lip. “I was hoping you’d like the name Cedric. It’s my grandfather’s name.”
My contemplation takes only a moment. “He looks like a Cedric.”
“Reede.” She glances at me shyly, though the expression could just be from the blood loss.
The thought of which last name never even crossed my mind, and I couldn’t explain why. Being unmarried, I assumed the baby would take her name because she’s had the job of carrying him for nine months.
“Are you sure? Cedric Shaw sounds good too.” My heart beats a little too wildly while I wait for her response.
Her answering smile is all I need, but her verbal confirmation seals it. “I’m sure. Cedric Tyler Reede, named after his great-grand Papa and his daddy.”
This woman absolutely fucking kills me. I don’t know what more it’ll take to make her mine, and after months of trying, it seems all I can do is pray she comes to the same conclusion that I did.
That the two of us were meant to be.
29
Kiersten
The biggest takeaway from the past two weeks is that moms are crazy freaks of nature. It’s a survival mechanism for this perpetual state of sleeplessness. We spend nine months being a human incubator, only to pop that kid out by means of a tiny hole or a giant gaping wound. We instantly transform into a feeding, changing, cleaning machine all while running on a handful of broken hours of sleep and caffeine. But not too much caffeine because that’ll keep the baby up if breastfeeding.
A whole other beast I’ve tackled is knowing what foods I put into my stomach will piss off Cedric once they reach his. So far, that list consists of orange juice and tomatoes. I can live without those, but if spicy tacos end up on that list, I may have to give up breastfeeding.
Nathan returned to work last week, and today is his last day in the rotation before his break. I’m in the middle of packing the diaper bag and filling a cooler with frozen milk for Cedric, while the baby rests in a carrier strapped to my chest.
He doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve devised a plan to work out our custody. It starts it today. Rip the Band-Aid off and all that jazz, except that Band-Aid consists of an entire twenty-four hours without my newborn.
I know he avoids the conversation because of the intense way Cedric entered the world, and I went a little nuts not being able to even meet my son until the next day. I also know he’s giving me space because he wants more between us. I think he hopes I’ll suddenly come to that conclusion.
What he doesn’t know is the hours I’ve spent agonizing over said decision. Leaving Cedric with him tonight will give me some quiet time to think about what it is I want. Not just what I need.
I’ve seen over the past two weeks how much easier my life would be if Nathan were in it full-time, but that seems like a shitty reason to start a relationship with someone. It’s why I never considered dating someone else the entirety of my pregnancy. Be
sides the fact that Nathan and I create enough chemistry to power a rocket. How would I go about wooing a potential suitor while knocked up with someone else’s kid and make it seem like I’m not just trolling for a new baby daddy?
Also, it needs repeating: the sex with Nathan.
Phe.Nom.Enal.
An extra set of hands around the house and all hours of the night would be a godsend. It’s also the wrong reason to start a serious relationship with someone. I know without a doubt that if Nathan and I got together now, there’d be no baby steps. We’d shoot straight past dating and right into living together, parenthood, and probably marriage.
I sigh.
“We love your daddy, yes we do,” I coo to my sleeping newborn and pull him from the carrier to transfer him to his car seat. “Which is why I can’t see you until tomorrow.” Tucking his warm, fuzzy baby head beneath my chin, I take a giant whiff of the lotion I used after his bath and squeeze my eyes shut. I memorize the smell of him. I’m doing the right thing. That doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
He releases a little baby squeal when I set him in his seat and strap him in. I plop a knitted, forest green hat from Grandma Regina on his head and smooth the matching blanket around him, tucking it in at the sides.
“Ready or not,” I say aloud to myself and will away the tears. The pep talk doesn’t soothe the ache in my chest.
I wait on Nathan’s doorstep for him to open up, diaper bag slung over a shoulder, and the infant seat clasped tightly in the other hand. The door swings open to reveal Nathan wearing only a pair of low-slung gray sweatpants.
Lord Almighty, why do they have to be gray? I lick my lips, well aware I’ve locked onto the delicious V-zone leading down into his pants.
Once again, the discrepancies are notable. I’m wearing the same messy bun as two days ago, and the dark circles under my eyes make me look like a zombie.
Six weeks, the doctor said. Only four more to go.
