I haven’t looked up into the eyes of my brothers, afraid of what I’ll see. I don’t want to see their fear that Dani and the baby are gone. I don’t want to see their hope that they’re okay and still with me. And I don’t want to see their pity. I can’t deal with any of it, so I just stare at the ground in front of me.
When I hear the door to the waiting room open, I glance up and see a man in scrubs walk in. Jumping to my feet, I hurry toward him.
“Please tell me Dani and my baby are okay,” I plead in a broken voice. I have no idea if he’s here about Dani, but seeing as to how no one else is here waiting for news, it has to be.
“Are you her husband?” the doctor asks.
“Yes,” I say, hoping he doesn’t question me.
The doctor looks behind me to where I assume all my brothers are standing, waiting like me for news.
“Dani suffered from a placental abruption. This is when the placenta separates from the uterus before the baby is born. It can be minor, but in Dani’s case, the placenta was completely separated from her uterus, which caused severe blood loss. We had to perform an emergency C-section since this could cause serious complications.”
The doctor doesn’t say anything else and I find myself getting pissed the longer he doesn’t tell me that Dani and the baby are okay.
“Is the baby okay?” I say as calmly as I can, but Mack can hear the edge in my voice, so he places his hand on my shoulder, silently telling me to calm down.
“Well, one of the babies is just fine; breathing on his own and only seems to be a little underweight,” the doctor says.
Shocked, I have no idea what to say. Did he just say babies? As in, there’s more than one? Thankfully, Mack takes over asking the questions.
“You mean to tell us Dani gave birth to more than one baby?” I hear the surprise in his voice, but I also hear excitement. When he found out Dani was pregnant, he was over the moon happy. Now, knowing there’s more than one baby, he’s got to be fucking thrilled. But I can’t be happy about it. Not yet. I need to know that they all are okay.
“Yes. Twins, actually,” the doctor says this evenly, like it’s every day he drops a bomb like this on people, like it’s normal for them to think they’re only having one baby, then wind up having two.
“How is that possible? We only heard one heartbeat, saw only one baby on the ultrasound,” I say, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I’m now a father of two.
“It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes, the second baby can hide behind the other. That’s the case here, but it’s also because your daughter is a lot smaller than her brother. That may be why they didn’t know Dani was carrying twins,” the doctor explains, but I think I only heard the word daughter. I have a son and a daughter.
“You said she was smaller than her brother. But she’s fine, right?” I think that’s Louie, but I can’t be sure. I’m still reeling from the news of twins, of having a son and daughter.
“She’s smaller by two pounds. Now, that may not sound like much, but for a baby, it’s the difference between a hundred pounds and two hundred pounds. But it’s not the weight that’s concerning us right now. She’s not able to breathe on her own, so we have her hooked up to a machine that does that for her. She also isn’t able to eat the way normal babies can, so we have a tube that will feed her so she’ll gain the weight she needs to get stronger. She’ll have to stay in the NICU for a couple of weeks, but if she puts on the weight and the steroids we gave her to help develop her lungs work as they should, she’ll be fine to go home and shouldn’t have any long term complications. As far as your son, he’ll stay in the NICU with his sister tonight, and given that he continues eating and keeping his body temperature up, he’ll be able to stay with you until he’s released in a few days.”
A huge weight is lifted now that I know the babies are going to be fine. I still can’t believe we have two. I can’t wait to tell Dani.
Smiling, I ask, “Have you told Dani we have a son and a daughter? When can I go see her?” She’s going to freak when she finds out if they haven’t told her already. But I know she’s going to be so happy.
The doctor’s face falls marginally, but it’s enough that I can tell that what he’s about to say isn’t good.
“You can see her soon, but she’s in a coma. She lost a lot of blood before she got here and even more during the delivery. We’ve given her two blood transfusions, but during that time, she started having seizures due to her extremely high blood pressure. We were able to stop them, but we couldn’t do anything until we got the babies out. I’m not sure yet what the damage is, but it could’ve caused minor brain damage. I’ve scheduled her for an MRI tomorrow to look for any swelling or abrasions, but for now, the only thing we can do is wait until she wakes up.”
And my whole world just dropped. I feel like I’ve just taken a ride on the most deadly of roller coasters. Sure, they’re not meant to be deadly, but they take you up so high and make you feel like you are on top of the world. Then they bring you down faster than your organs can keep up with or so fast that the car will slide off the tracks or you fall out, falling to your death. That’s the way I feel right now. I was so high, then when I thought there was no way I’d come down, the car loses traction and falls at a rapid pace toward the ground, and you’re dead.
But I’m very much still alive, it just feels like I’m dead. My whole world feels like it’s being ripped away from me.
Zeke, please…please don’t let Dani die. Please don’t take her away from me. I will do anything, just please let her be okay. We have a son and a daughter now. They need her. I need her. Please, Zeke, help her come back to us.
Chapter 12
Two Days Old
Zane
The past two days have been Heaven and Hell. Our son was able to go into the regular nursery last night and has been doing great. Our daughter still can’t breathe or eat on her own, but the doctors and nurses say she’s doing very well. They think that by the end of the week she’ll be able to come off the machines. But Dani still hasn’t woken up yet.
They took her in for an MRI yesterday and it showed minimal swelling and there’s some fluid built-up, but no abrasions. They say if the swelling doesn’t go down, they’ll have to go in and put in a shunt to drain the fluid in hopes that that will help with the swelling.
I’ve prayed more times than I think I have in my whole life. I’ve even taken to asking God to make Dani better. Since Zeke died, I’ve found it really hard to believe there was a God and have taken to just talking to Zeke. But willing to do whatever it takes for Dani to come back to me and get well again, I’ve been going to the chapel inside the hospital and praying. I’ve apologized for the years of not believing in Him and being angry that He took my brother away too soon. I’ve confessed all my sins and promised to never turn my back on Him so long as He brings my Baby Girl back to me and our children. I know that you should never give Him an ultimatum, but I don’t know what else to do. I’m grasping at straws here, willing to do just about anything to have her open her eyes and be okay.
The nurse interrupts my thoughts. “How’s she doing today?” I find it funny that a nurse is asking me how Dani is doing, but I recognize her as one of the nurses in the nursery, so she probably doesn’t know about Dani’s condition.
“No change,” I say quietly. Even though I know she’s in a coma and not just sleeping, I still try to keep my voice down. I don’t want to disturb her, thinking maybe if she gets some much needed rest, she’ll come back to me faster.
“She’ll wake up soon. In the meantime, your son is awake. Thought I might stop by and see if you wanted to sit with him.” The mention of my son puts a smile on my face, even though I still wish Dani was awake to see him too.
“Yeah, I was planning on heading up there shortly. I want to stop by and see how my little girl is doing first though.” With any luck, they’ll be able to take all the machines and wires off of her soon so I can actually hold her
. They’ve said that I can now, but I’m too worried that I’ll mess something up, so I’ve settled for just reaching my hand in and rubbing her back or holding her little hand. It makes me happy and sad at the same time every time I take her hand—her fingers barely reach all the way around my pinky finger.
The nurse smiles at me. “She’s doing so well I hear. She’s a fighter, just like her mama.” At that, I can only nod, afraid if I say anything my emotions will get the best of me.
After the nurse leaves, I stand up and run my finger down the side of Dani’s face. “You need to wake up, Baby Girl. Our son and daughter can’t wait to meet their mama.” I lean down and kiss her softly on the lips, wishing with all my might that I feel even the slightest twitch of her lips, but there’s nothing. Pulling away, I kiss her forehead. “I love you. I’ll be back soon.”
On my way out the door, I’m surprised to see Mack. My brothers and Jaxon have all stopped by a few times to check in on Dani and sit with her sometimes while I go see the babies, and Mack has gone with me a few times to visit my son, but they won’t allow him in the NICU.
“Hey. I was just getting ready to head upstairs,” I say, not sure if he’s here just for a visit or club business.
“Tell them Papa loves them. I’ll sit with our girl ’til you get back.” He’s already taken to calling himself Papa, but it suits him.
I clasp him on the back on my way by, grateful that he’s here. I hate leaving Dani alone, afraid she’ll wake up and no one will be there, but sometimes there’s nothing I can do.
I take the elevator up to the sixth floor where the NICU is. After the nurses buzz me in, I walk right over to where I know my daughter will be. “Hello, beautiful, how’s Daddy’s girl today?” I whisper to her before leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on her cheek. She’s asleep, so I don’t want to touch her too much and wake her up. She needs all the rest she can get so she can build up her strength.
One of the nurses comes over and checks her vitals. “She’s doing very well. If she keeps this up, I would say in a few days she’ll be in the nursery with her brother.” I nod and smile, having no words to express how happy that makes me. If only her mother would wake up now, then life would be perfect.
“Have you given her a name yet?” the nurse asks once she writes whatever information she just got onto the clipboard.
“No. I’m waiting for her mama to wake up so we can decide together.” It seems I get asked this question by every person who works here, like it’s unusual for a baby not to be named right away or like I’m insane for waiting for Dani to wake up. But how could they even think I’d name the babies without her? When she was pregnant, we never discussed names. We knew that as soon as we saw our baby, now babies, we’d know what to name them. So I don’t even have the smallest clue what Dani would like or not.
“I understand completely.”
Not really caring what she understands or not, I don’t reply back.
After spending a few more minutes with my daughter, I decide to head down to sit with my son. Maybe I’ll get to feed him again today. Yesterday the nurse was just getting ready to feed him when I walked in. Let’s just say it was a challenge, but something that made me feel so much closer to him. I can now see why mothers love breastfeeding and how they say it helps them bond. But I’d give up my bonding time during feeding in a heartbeat for Dani to wake up and take the reins on that job.
When I get to the nursery where my son is, the nurse is just finishing up changing his diaper. Good, that’s one thing I’m not ready for.
“Oh, hello there. Here to see our little guy, I take it.” I’ve never seen this nurse before, but I’m sure the others have told her about the biker dad.
“Sure am,” I say as I reach out for him just as she holds him out for me to take.
Once he’s in my arms, I feel a peace settle over me. Even though his sister is still fighting to be able to breathe and eat on her own and his mother is still sleeping, holding him lets me know that things will be all right. His sister will get stronger and his mother will wake up.
“Hey, buddy. Did you miss your daddy?” I say, cradling him against my chest. He makes a small noise that is almost like a coo and I laugh. “I missed you too,” I answer back.
I sit and rock him for a while, but he starts getting restless, so I flag one of the nurses down. “Does he need to eat?” I’m not good at telling what he needs and since I only know that he was just changed, he could be fussing because he’s hungry, tired, or just cranky, for all I know.
“No, he was fed right before we changed him.”
Not knowing what else to do, I get up and start walking with him, hoping that will settle him down, which seems to work some.
“Can I take him down to his mother’s room? I’d like to get back, but don’t want to leave him just yet,” I say after five minutes of walking around the nursery. I do want to get back to Dani, but also, I want him to meet his mother, even though she’s sleeping and he may not know who she is.
“Of course. If you put him in the crib, I’ll roll him down to you in a few minutes. He can even stay the night down there with you if you’d like,” the nurse replies with a smile.
I’m not sure if I’m ready to take care of him all on my own yet over night, but I just smile and lay him down in his crib. “Daddy will see you soon, bud. Then you get to meet your mama.”
Chapter 13
Four Days Old
Dani
I’m dreaming I’m holding my baby, but he’s crying and I have no idea what to do for him. I feel so helpless. What mother doesn’t know how to make her baby stop crying?
Then out of nowhere I hear Zane hum. I don’t know how I know it’s him because I don’t think I’ve ever heard him hum a day in his life, but I just know it’s him. And it seems to be working. The baby settles down and stops crying. It makes me want to smile because I just knew Zane would be an amazing father, but sad because I couldn’t get him to stop crying and it makes me feel like a failure.
“Shhh…it’s okay, little guy, Daddy’s got you,” I hear Zane whisper and I’m at my breaking point. Hearing him talk so quietly and sweetly to our son, hearing the love in his voice, makes me break down in tears. But when I try to cry, nothing happens. I can feel them there, but they won’t fall. What is wrong with me?
I try to move, but it’s like my body is being held down and I don’t know why. Why can’t I move? I realize then that I can’t see Zane or our baby, so I try to open my eyes, but just like my body, they won’t move. I can feel my heart racing and a panic attack coming. Something is wrong with me! Why won’t my body do what I want it to do?
And then it all comes back to me: being at the shop…the pain…and all the blood. No! The baby!
Suddenly, I feel hands on my face. “Dani? What’s wrong, Baby Girl? Open your eyes,” Zane says urgently. I try to listen and comply, but my eyes won’t open and it makes me freak out even more. By now, my heart feels like it’s one steady beat it’s beating so fast.
I hear an alarm go off and feet running, but I still can’t open my eyes. Please! Someone help me—why can’t I open my eyes?
“What’s happening?” Zane yells at someone and then I hear a baby cry. Is that my baby? Is he all right? I didn’t think my heart could possibly beat any faster, but not knowing if that’s my baby and if he’s okay causes it to beat so hard and fast it feels like it’s going to beat right out of my chest.
I feel something cool go into my arm and then my head feels fuzzy. No! “I need to know if my baby is okay,” I want to scream, but I can’t. I can’t fight off the heaviness that’s sinking me further and further away from my son and Zane and into the darkness.
***
I hear hushed voices. I can’t make out who’s talking or what they are saying, but I hear their tone. Whoever is talking is worried.
I try wiggling my toes and when I feel them finally cooperate, I try moving my hand. That seems to be working too.
Slow
ly opening my eyes, I’m blinded by a bright light. I don’t know if it’s the sun shining into my room or if the lights in here are just really fucking bright, but I have to close my eyes again because it hurts too much. I groan in pain.
The voices quiet and a couple of seconds later I feel someone grab my hand. I can tell before he even talks that it’s Zane with the only way his touch makes me feel. “Dani?” he whispers close to my ear.
I turn my head slowly toward him but don’t open my eyes again. “Too bright,” I croak, my mouth dry and my throat screaming after I speak the words.
“Fuck, you’re awake! Thank God. You had me so scared, Baby Girl.” At the word baby, I remember what happened the last time I was awake.
“The baby! Zane, where’s our baby?” I say, my eyes flying open, searching his face even though the brightness still burns my retinas.
“Hey, calm down. Everything is fine, just calm down.” At his words, I’m able to settle down a little bit, but now I’m anxious to see my baby. Where is he? Why isn’t he in the room?
My eyes start to hurt again, so I close my eyes and try to calm myself down more. The beeping from the heart monitor is going crazy. The sooner I calm down, the sooner he’ll tell me about the baby and then hopefully I can go see him.
Zane catches on that the sun is hurting my eyes and looks at someone on the other side of my bed. “Close the blinds,” he says then looks back at me. “How do you feel?”
I try to think about that and do a quick inventory of all my body parts. I can move my arms and legs and nothing hurts there. My head hurts a little bit, but it’s my throat and stomach that hurt the most.
“Water,” I say hoarsely, needing something to soothe my throat before I try talking more.
Zane places a mug of water in front of my lips. I sip tentatively at first, but once the water goes down my throat, I realize how thirsty I am, so I drink a little faster.
Born Into Destiny Page 6
