by Nancy Thayer
“Look at this,” she said, holding up a soft, white, fleecy, bunny-rabbit bunting. They all cooed together.
43
• • • • •
Snow fell all through that late January night. When Carley woke, she found the earth sheeted with a brilliant white, diamonds glinting where the sun touched. The temperature had dropped, the wind had died down, but ice glazed the land and streets.
It was a Saturday. Riding at Lauren’s was canceled. Carley and her daughters were in the kitchen. Carley was serving them big helpings of French toast when the phone rang.
“Carley? I’m in labor!” Vanessa almost squeaked with eagerness.
“Oh, Vanessa!” Quickly she counted: this was early, but only about two weeks early. “This is so exciting! Should you call an ambulance?”
“Oh, heavens no. But maybe you should drive me to the hospital? Ouch. Let’s time this one. Here it goes.”
Carley watched the second hand on the kitchen clock tick around.
“Done,” Vanessa said.
“Fifty-five seconds,” Carley told her. “I’ll come right over. Is everything ready at home? Suitcase packed?”
“Yes. Should I call my midwife?”
“Absolutely. And keep timing your contractions. I’m on my way.”
She was almost dancing with excitement. “Vanny’s having her baby! I’m going to go be with her. Cisco, you’re thirteen now. Can I leave you in charge?”
Cisco nodded soberly. “Yes, Mommy.”
“And you won’t torture Margaret, right?”
“I’ll play dolls with her,” Cisco said, full of sweetness and light.
“When can we see the baby?” Margaret asked, eyes bright with excitement.
“Honey, I have no idea. It’s different every time. Maybe ten hours, maybe more. But if the baby isn’t here by this evening, I’ll come home. You have your breakfast, and there’s peanut butter and jelly for lunch and lots of milk and fresh fruit. If you have a problem, call Molly’s mother, okay?”
“We’ll be fine, Mom.” Cisco promised. “You should go.”
“Right,” Carley agreed. “Right.” She needed to get—what? What did she need? She was so thrilled she’d forgotten whether or not she was even dressed.
She was. She needed only to pull on her boots, grab her keys and coat and gloves, and run to the car.
Cisco stood at the door, arms folded like a boarding school matron. “Do you have your cell?”
Carley fished around in her purse. “I do. Thanks for reminding me. I’ll call!”
She jumped into her car and started the engine with such exuberance it roared.
At Vanessa’s Carley found the front door unlocked. Vanessa was sitting on a kitchen chair, legs spread, huffing and puffing.
“My water broke,” she told Carley. “My midwife Kiki says I should go to the hospital.”
“She’s right.” Carley knelt around Vanessa’s chair, soaking up the fluids with paper towels.
Vanessa heaved herself up.
Carley’s senses clicked on to hyperalert. She double-checked the kitchen appliances. Everything was off. She held up Vanessa’s coat while Vanessa struggled into it. She picked up Vanessa’s bag. She held on to Vanessa’s arm while she made certain the front door was shut and locked.
As they waded through the heavy snow to the car, Carley put her arm around Vanessa’s waist, supporting her, protecting her from a fall. Just before they reached the car, Vanessa crouched down, groaning. Carley held on to her until the contraction passed.
In the car, she hit the heat up to high and flicked her windshield wipers into action. For a few moments, she tried to help Vanessa stretch the seat belt over her girth, but it was impossible, and they both ended up giggling helplessly.
She drove with great caution to the small hospital on Prospect Street. She used her turn indicator even when there were no other cars on the street. She didn’t go over twenty-five miles an hour. From experience, she knew where potholes hid beneath the snow, and she steered around them. Carley’s nerves were jumping. The Nantucket Cottage Hospital was small, with only nineteen beds and seven physicians, only one a surgeon. In January, some of the physicians were off on vacation. Oh, why was she worried? Vanessa had been attending childbirth classes, and she felt safe and comfortable with Kiki. Besides, Vanessa was a big-boned woman. She would be fine. The baby would be fine. Still, this was an event of great magnitude. Carley thought she’d have to do some deep breathing herself.
At the hospital, she helped Vanessa into the emergency room where Kiki was waiting with a wheelchair. Carley parked the car in the lot, then raced up the one flight of stairs—the hospital had only two stories—to the maternity ward and into the labor room.
Kiki was a young woman with flowing red hair, brilliant blue eyes, and the low, even voice of a hypnotist. As Carley bustled around, folding Vanessa’s clothing, Kiki helped Vanessa change into a hospital gown and paper slippers.
“She’s already six centimeters,” Kiki informed Carley. “She’s moving pretty fast for a primipara.”
“How long did it take you, Carley?” Vanessa asked. “I forgot.”
“Cisco took twenty-seven hours. Margaret came screaming out like a freight train.”
“Don’t sit down,” Kiki advised her. “Walk around. Keep moving. Or if you want to sit, try the rocking chair. It’s comfortable.”
“Twenty-seven hours?” Vanessa was aghast. “How did you stand it?”
“It wasn’t all bad. I wanted to have natural childbirth. Gus rubbed my back, helped me breathe. All the things I’m going to do for you.”
“What time did your contractions start?” Kiki asked.
Vanessa put her hand on the wall, waited through a contraction, then answered. “I’m not sure, really. All yesterday I thought I had the flu; I heard a stomach flu’s going around the school. I had diarrhea. I couldn’t get comfortable in bed last night. I think they started at midnight, really. But they weren’t consistent or regular. About four a.m., they started coming every four minutes.” She laughed. “I thought, ‘Is this a contraction? What’s all the fuss about?’ ”
“Is there anyone you want me to call?” Carley asked.
Clearly Vanessa was thinking of her ex-husband at that moment; her face went soft and sad, and her eyes, just for a moment, were full of regret. “Nope!” When she replied, she did so jauntily. “You’re my man for the day, Carley. Hope you can deal with that.”
“Las Dos Enchiladas!” Carley joked.
A contraction squeezed Vanessa and she grimaced. After a while, she said, “That one really hurt.”
The next few hours passed slowly for Carley, as she watched Vanessa endure the increasingly strong contractions. The time came when Vanessa’s legs shook too hard to support her, so Kiki and Carley helped her into bed. Vanessa lay on her side, absorbed by her labor. Carley rubbed her back. She spooned ice chips into Vanessa’s mouth, which kept going dry from panting.
When Carley left the warm room to use the bathroom, it was as if she’d stepped out into an enormous universe of sounds and healthy people, and it came back to her with a powerful body memory, how imprisoned she’d felt when in labor, how she couldn’t get away from it for even a moment, how she couldn’t just go for a walk or even think. She had been as much frightened as hopeful.
Around three in the afternoon, Kiki informed Carley cheerfully, “She’s eight centimeters! Not long to go!”
“Want me to rub your back some more?” Carley offered.
Vanessa’s face was blotchy from strain. “No.” Vanessa was standing again, leaning her weight on the side of the bed. This time the sound she made was an animal howl. Her body shuddered.
Carley went around the bed and stood next to Vanessa, putting a hand on each hip, holding her steady, not unlike the time in high school when she supported a friend while she vomited into the bushes. Vanessa moaned in pain, an extreme noise that pulled at Carley’s own gut, echoes of her own two labors
and of the passionate cries of sex.
Vanessa slumped against the bed as the contraction ended. “I can’t do this anymore. I had no idea it would be like this. I can’t make it.”
“You’re close, Vanny. You can do it. Your baby’s coming!” Carley felt almost giddy.
A knock came at the door and Kiki stuck her head in. “Okay, ladies?”
Kiki checked Vanessa. “Ten centimeters. You’re going to have a baby.”
Vanessa clutched Carley’s hand and grunted. The grunt turned into a long high wail of pain.
“I can’t do it!” Vanessa screamed.
“Vanessa, remember we talked about transition?” Kiki soothed Vanessa’s forehead. “You’re almost through.”
A nurse came in—Roma Caruso, who had children in school with Carley’s and Maud’s. Vanessa screamed and clutched Carley’s hand hard enough to crack bones.
Kiki announced, “Here we go.” She crouched beneath Vanessa’s legs, hands up to catch the baby.
Vanessa began to push. Carley on one side and Roma on the other held Vanessa up as she shuddered and grunted from the depths of her being. Carley’s heart raced, her skin was covered with goose bumps, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
Vanessa roared like a lioness. The baby slid out into Kiki’s waiting hands. The umbilical cord was there, a pumping red rope. Vanessa’s legs trembled. Her teeth chattered. The baby wailed. Kiki cut and clamped the umbilical cord.
“Help her back to bed,” Kiki ordered. She was busy with the baby, drying him, wiping him off. Roma and Carley hefted a moaning Vanessa up onto the bed. She was still panting. Kiki wrapped the baby in a blanket and put him in Vanessa’s arms.
Vanessa brought him to her breast, gazing enraptured at his tiny face. “Hello, baby boy, my darling, my own.” Her own face glowed with joy.
“He’s beautiful.” The miracle of this new life sent shivers through Carley, and an age-old desire streamed through her blood. A baby.
With trembling hands, Vanessa stroked his limbs. “Look. All his fingers. All his toes. He’s perfect.” Her eyes were shining. “Carley, I did it!”
“You did.” Tears blurred Carley’s sight. “He’s an angel.”
Blotchy-skinned, sweaty-haired, radiant, Vanessa announced, “Paul. His name is Paul.”
Carley touched his tiny hand. “Hello, Paul.”
Kiki was pushing on Vanessa’s abdomen.
“That hurts,” Vanessa complained.
“We have to get your placenta out,” Kiki told her. “Sometimes it hurts a lot, but not for long. Put him on your breast. Let him nurse. That helps the placenta come out.”
Vanessa touched her nipple to the baby’s mouth. It took a few moments, but at last he latched on. Roma took over massaging Vanessa’s lower abdomen, pushing down, while Kiki was between Vanessa’s legs.
The air of the room wavered as if struck by a rainbow. Carley was gently crying as she watched Vanessa with her baby, so tiny, so intensely alive to his new world.
Then Carley heard Kiki say, in a low, urgent voice, “Get Fegley.”
“What’s going on?” Carley demanded.
“The placenta’s being stubborn. Doesn’t want to leave the uterus. It happens. Just a little hitch.”
Roma rushed off, quickly returning with Dr. Fegley. The physician was dressed in scrubs and a gown tied in the back, a cap over her hair, and goggles hanging around her neck, ready to protect her eyes from blood if necessary. Dr. Fegley pressed Vanessa’s abdomen. She said to Roma, “Start the pitocin.”
“But the baby’s out,” Carley said.
“The placenta isn’t.” Kiki gave Carley a look that made her heart drop.
Roma wheeled the stand with the pitocin bag next to the bed and hooked up the pitocin. She deftly inserted an IV into Vanessa’s wrist. Kiki massaged Vanessa’s abdomen, and Carley could see from the way the midwife’s muscles bunched that she was pressing hard.
Carley stroked Vanessa’s hair. Vanessa didn’t seem worried … she seemed drowsy. Fading. Carley noticed, with horror, how much blood had spilled out of Vanessa, how much was still flowing.
Dr. Fegley was between Vanessa’s legs. “Placenta accreta.”
“What does that mean?” Carley asked.
Kiki’s smile was false. Her voice shook. “It means the placenta is abnormally deeply attached to the uterus. Perhaps through the uterus. We can’t get it all out. It’s torn.”
Dr. Fegley barked, “Get her on blood. Bag her.”
Roma raced out of the room. Another nurse flew in behind Roma and gently snatched the baby from Vanessa. “Just going to clean him up a bit.”
In the second Carley looked at the nurse, Vanessa’s eyes had closed and her face had gone slack. The doctor’s hand was fully inside Vanessa’s vagina. Vanessa’s head fell back against the pillow. Dr. Fegley ordered, “Call a code.”
Roma said to Carley, “You have to leave.”
“But I’m her—”
Roma gave Carley a commanding look.
Kiki said, “Carley. Go.”
Carley left the room as nurses ran in. More people were rushing down the hall, into Vanessa’s room.
“Please,” Carley begged at the door, “tell me what’s happening. Will she be okay?”
“I hope so.” Kiki was white.
“She’s bleeding too much.”
“Dr. Fegley knows what’s she’s doing. Look, I’ve got to get back. Wait in the visitors’ lounge. We’ll tell you when we can.”
Carley stood helplessly in the hall, burning with a need to be in the room, helping Vanessa. She couldn’t go to the visitors’ lounge and read a damned magazine!
She should call someone, she could call Maud, she should call Maud and Toby! She rushed out of the hospital where cell phones were not allowed and stood in the bright, cold sunshine, punching in Maud’s number. Then she stopped. Was she calling Maud for her own selfish purposes, because she was frightened, because she couldn’t face this alone? Was she being selfish, cowardly? Okay, fine, what if she was? She was frightened! She punched in the number.
“Maud, something’s wrong with Vanessa. She had the baby, the baby’s fine, but the placenta won’t come out and she’s bleeding too much. They’ve called a code.”
“Oh, fuck. I’ll call Toby. We’ll be right there.”
Carley wanted to sink to her knees in the snow. Instead, she looked up at the sky, a clear, cold, heartless blue. “Oh, God, don’t let her die. Please, I’m begging you. Let her live.”
She hurried back inside, shivering with cold and fear. Perhaps the crisis had passed. Instead of taking the elevator, she flew up the stairs and down the hall. She pulled open the door to Vanessa’s room. All she could see were doctors and nurses and machines and blood.
“Out!” a nurse yelled, striding toward Carley, and she looked angry as hell.
The visitors’ lounge was empty. Magazines and a bowl of plastic flowers lay on a table between two vinyl sofas. Carley went to the windows and looked out at the snow-covered landscape. The familiar world was as cold and white as the moon.
She saw Toby’s Mercedes SUV streak into the parking lot. He jumped out and raced to the door. As a doctor, he could enter Vanessa’s room.
Maud got out more slowly. Carley left the lounge and went down to meet her in the foyer.
Maud asked, “Where is she?”
“Upstairs.”
They walked up slowly.
“Which room?”
“The first one, but it doesn’t matter. They won’t let us in.”
“How’s the baby?”
“Perfect. All digits accounted for.”
“Were you with her when she gave birth?”
“Yes. I picked her up this morning around eight and brought her to the hospital.”
Maud studied Carley. “You need something to drink. Coffee or a Coke. A hit of caffeine. Come on, I’ll buy you something.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“You are,
you’re just not tuned in to yourself.” Maud put a comforting arm around Carley. “Vanessa’s going to be all right. Stop catastrophizing.”
“You didn’t see how she looks. All the blood.”
“Cut it out, you’re being morbid. Vanessa will be just fine. There’s always a lot of blood with childbirth.” Maud fed two dollar bills into the soda machine and pushed a button. The machine clunked and whirred and dropped down a Coke. “Here. Drink this. You look like shit.” She put more bills in and got herself a ginger ale.
Carley sipped the cold liquid. The sugar and caffeine hit her in a rush. She took a deep breath.
“Better?”
“Better.”
“Don’t you remember,” Maud recalled with a smile, “when I was in labor with Percy, I squeezed John’s arm and said, ‘If you don’t make this pain stop, I’ll bite you as hard as I can.’ ”
Carley laughed. “But that was labor, Maud. This is different. Her placenta was torn or something, it wouldn’t come out, it wouldn’t detach from the uterus.”
“Someone will fix it. Stop shaking, you’re giving me the creeps.”
“God forbid,” Carley snipped. She looked at her watch. “It’s been over thirty minutes.”
“Finish your drink and we’ll go back.”
Carley swigged it all down like medicine, and it did give her a burst of energy. “Let’s go.”
They headed back up the stairs and down the hall into the maternity ward. No one was at the nurses’ station. Everything seemed unearthly quiet.
Toby came out of Vanessa’s room. He looked at Maud, and then he looked at Carley.
Carley began to whimper.
Toby was beside her quickly, reaching out to hold her. Maud was trying to hug her.
“Ssssh,” Maud soothed, “ssssh, Carley, it will be all right.”
“No!” Clutching Toby’s jacket in her fist, Carley pleaded, “Toby, please, no.”
“I’m sorry.” Toby’s face was gray. “We lost her.”
Maud stumbled backward. “Oh, Toby!”
“We tried. They did everything they could. They tried to resuscitate her, they did everything right.” He fell against the wall, covering his face with his hands, and gave over to a full-hearted sobbing.
