by Sienna Parks
“It’s not looking good.” My world just fucking stops.
“We had to deliver the baby. She’s small, but she’s fighting. They’ve taken her up to the NICU.”
She? I have a daughter?
“Addison has extensive scarring on her uterus from her previous pregnancy, and the placenta was attached to an area of scar tissue. It ruptured, causing the hemorrhage.” Previous pregnancy? Why didn’t she tell me? “We’re struggling to stop the bleeding at the moment. She’s losing blood as fast as we’re transfusing it. If we don’t manage to stop it soon, she’s not going to pull through.”
All I can feel is my heart hammering against my ribcage, trying desperately to burst out of my chest. She can’t die. She… I… We… there’s so much I want to say to her, so much time we’re supposed to have.
“Our only option at this point is to perform a hysterectomy. I know she’s very young for this, but it’s her only chance of survival, and even then, I can’t guarantee that she’ll make it through the surgery. Her body is very weak. If we remove her uterus, it will give her a 50/50 chance.”
I feel Xander’s hand on my shoulder, and realize that everyone is standing around me, waiting for me to speak. I look at Addi’s parents, their faces distraught, devoid of color, their lips set in a grim line as they give me an imperceptible nod.
“Do it. Do whatever it takes to save her. Please.”
“We will. I can promise you that.” She makes her way to the door, turning just before she disappears from sight. “I would urge you go and see your baby, Mr. de Rossi. She’s fighting for her life, and hearing her daddy’s voice will be a big comfort to her.” And with that massive revelation, she heads back to the OR.
I completely fucking lose it.
“CAZZO… FUCK!” I lash out, punching straight through one of the walls in the waiting room. Xander is behind me, holding onto me, like he’s the only thing holding the broken pieces of me together.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Carter.” He pulls me back and into his arms. “She’s a fighter. She’s going to fucking fight to come back to you. To you and the baby.”
I cling to my best friend, my brother, hoping to garner some strength from him. “I can’t do this without her man. I need her. She’s fucking everything to me. This can’t be how it ends.” Tears well in my eyes. My desperation thick and heavy in my voice. “The last conversation we had, I told her I couldn’t trust her, and that it would never work between us. I told her I would be there for her and the baby, but that our relationship was over. That can’t be the last thing I ever say to her.”
“She knows you love her.”
“I didn’t fucking mean it, any of it. I was hurt and scared and I thought it was for the best. Now it just seems so fucking stupid. I love her, and I need her more than my next fucking breath. A world without her in it, isn’t comprehensible to me. It just isn’t right.” Lily comes to wrap her arms around us both.
“Lily, I’m so sorry. If I had never pursued her, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now, and Addi wouldn’t be… dying on an OR table. I only ever wanted to protect her, to love her, to build a life and grow old with her.”
“She’s going to get through this, Carter. Addi is going to get through this - 50% is more than enough odds for my girl to kick death’s ass. She loves you, and she wants this baby more than anything. She’s not going down without a fight.”
I squeeze her close. “I hope you’re right.”
I hear my mom’s voice close by. “You need to get that hand seen to. You’ll be no use to Addi or the baby with a mangled hand.” I’m suddenly aware of the pain coursing through my hand, looking down to see blood and shards of sheetrock protruding from my skin.
“I don’t want to leave here in case they come back to tell us what’s happening with Addi.”
“It’s going to be at least another hour before they come back with any information. Go. Get your hand seen to, and then come back.”
“Okay. But call me the minute you hear anything.” Xander assures me that he’ll come and find me if there is any news, and so, reluctantly I head down to the ER to find out what I already know, that I’ve broken my hand.
The staff are very understanding of my situation, fast-tracking my X-ray, and getting my hand put in a cast up to my elbow in record time. It hurts like a motherfucker, but it’s nothing compared to the pain of waiting to hear if Addi is going to live… or die.
Now is the time that I need to man up. I’m a father now, and my baby girl needs me, too.
As I step through the doors of the NICU, head to toe in scrubs, my body is vibrating with nerves and fear. I’m about to meet my daughter for the first time. This is not how I envisaged this happening. I thought, like everybody does, that Addi and I would be together, welcoming our baby into the world after nine months of waiting. Instead, Addi is fighting to stay alive, and so is our daughter. She’s ten weeks premature, and the nurses have already warned me that she’s tiny, weighing no more than a bag of sugar.
“This way, Mr. de Rossi.” A kind looking nurse leads me over to the corner, where I can see an incubator, surrounded by machines that are beeping, and tubes attached to my baby girl.
“She’s doing really well considering how premature she is. You’ve got a little fighter on your hands.”
My voice is a whisper. “Just like her mommy.”
Nothing prepares me for what I see as I stand in front of the clear box that is keeping my baby alive.
She is so incredibly tiny. She could fit in the palm of my hand, fragile, and breathtaking. She is covered in tubes and needles, with tiny bandages holding them in place. I watch the rise and fall of her almost transparent skin as the machines breathe for her, and the tiny flutter of her rapid heartbeat; my own heart swelling in my chest, overwhelmed with a love I never knew possible.
She has the smallest little hands and feet that I have ever seen, perfectly formed, and oh so beautiful. Even with most of her features obscured by tubes, it’s clear to me that she looks like Addi. A little princess, my tiny treasure. I press my hand to the glass because it’s the closest I can get.
“Hi, Tesorina. I’m your daddy. You have no idea just how much I love you. And your mom? God, she hasn’t been able to come say hi yet, but she desperately wants to meet you. She is going to be so in love with you. We’re going to be so happy together, the three of us. Us against the world. So, you just keep fighting for me, baby girl, okay? For your mom. We need you.”
I stand and stare at her, in awe, for the longest time, praying that she is strong enough to survive this. She’s so small. I have never been so consumed with love for someone in my life. I never knew this kind of love existed, until I looked into her tiny face and it hit me like a freight train. I can’t do this alone… I need Addi… our baby needs her mother.
The nurse appears at my side. “Mr. de Rossi, the doctor needs to speak to you about your wife. She’ll meet you up in the OR waiting room now.”
My heart stops beating, the gravity of what I’m about to hear weighing down on me. I’m terrified, but I need to know. I turn to my daughter, taking one last long look, before steeling myself to go and find out about Addi.
“Ti amo, Tesorina. I’ll be back soon.”
I can barely put one foot in front of the other as I make my way up to the waiting room, and when I finally open the door, everyone is looking at me expectantly, disappointment evident on their faces.
“Where’s the doctor?”
Xander stands up. “She’ll be here any minute.” He pulls me into a hug. “Did you go to see the baby?”
I manage a small smile as I remember her stunning little face. “Yeah. She’s so fucking tiny, and beautiful, and amazing. She looks just like Addi. She’s got tubes coming out of her all over the place, but she’s hanging in there… waiting to meet her mommy.”
The door swings open, and Doctor Field walks in, looking exhausted and drained.
“Mr. de Rossi.” A high-pitched whi
stling sound is all I hear; my body fighting against the possibility of hearing that Addi didn’t make it. That she’s… gone. “Your wife made it through surgery. She’s a tough woman.” I drop to my knees, my legs unable to support me. “It was touch and go there for a while. We had to perform the hysterectomy, but she’s going to pull through. We’ve transfused her to replenish the blood she lost, and she’ll need time to heal, but most of her recovery can be done at home. She’s a very lucky woman. The paramedics told me that you administered CPR at the scene… you saved her life, Mr. de Rossi. We couldn’t have done any of what we did today if you hadn’t stepped up when she needed you.”
“Doctor, I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done for her, for all of us. I really didn’t think she was going to make it. God… I thought… I was going to be raising our daughter alone. I can never repay you for giving my daughter her mom. For giving me back my wife.” Addi’s mom and dad drop to the floor beside me, throwing their arms around each other, and me.
I can hear Lily’s sobs of joy in the background, Xander soothing her; my mom and dad expressing how happy they are that she’s going to make it, that she’s alive, that her beautiful fucking heart is still beating in her chest.
Relief isn’t the word I would use for how I feel right now… I don’t think there is a word that could do justice to how I feel. She did it… my girl fucking fought… even when she was broken beyond repair… she fucking fought it, and came back to me, and I will NEVER let her go again.
I’ve been sitting next to her bed since they brought her back from surgery. She’s still under anesthesia, but just being here, beside her, holding her hand this past hour, has been more than I thought I would get with her when I found her earlier today. It’s been less than twelve hours since I walked into her apartment, but it feels like weeks. Endless hours of worry, despair, and paralyzing terror. The image of her on the floor in the kitchen will haunt me as long as I live.
I’m thankful for every breath she takes, but I realize that when she wakes up, I’ll need to tell her she will never have any more children; that we have a daughter who is fighting to survive, and that I know that she was pregnant before. Of course, that can wait until she’s ready to bring it up.
I can’t believe that after all this time, after all we’ve been through together she felt she couldn’t confide in me. I know it’s one of the reasons I told her we couldn’t work, but I just don’t care anymore. If she doesn’t trust me, then I just need to work harder to prove to her that she can trust me, with anything. If she wants to run, I’ll convince her to stay. I will do whatever it takes to make this work between us. I love her too goddamn much not to.
Her hand twitches in mine. Her eyes fluttering open.
“Carter.” Her voice is croaky and so quiet I can barely hear.
“I’m here, Tesoro. I’m here.” I gently kiss her hand, her face, anywhere I can, without hurting her.
“The baby? Is she okay?”
“She’s hanging in there, just like her mommy.”
Her eyes look pained as tears begin to fall. “I’m a mom.” She’s sobbing as I try to carefully lift her into my arms. “I didn’t think I was going to wake up from the surgery. I thought I would never see you again; that I would never get to meet her.” Her fragile body shakes in my arms, tearing me up inside to see her so distraught.
“You’re here, baby. You stepped up today and came through for our daughter, and for me. I thought… I thought I’d lost you. I’m so sorry, Addi… about everything. I love you.”
She’s groggy from the anesthesia, and her speech is a little slurred, but the words I cling to, the words that I never thought I would hear again, fall from her beautiful lips.
“I love you, Carter.”
ADDI
I feel like I’ve been run over by a steamroller. My body aches, and I have never been so tired in my whole life, but none of that matters today, because I’m alive, and Carter is coming to take me up to meet our daughter in a few hours. It’s been three days since she was born, since I had surgery to save my life, and now I’ve got enough of the needles removed from my arms, which look like pin cushions, the doctors have agreed to let me make the journey to the NICU in a wheelchair.
I’ve been pretty out of it on painkillers over the past few days, so this morning was the first time that I really had a proper chat with Dr. Field. She told me what happened; that the scarring on my uterus from Gavin’s attack when I lost the baby, was the reason that I started bleeding out. I asked if she had informed my family of the cause, and my heart sank when she said that yes, she had. It was the only way to explain to them what had happened, and now they all know. Not one of them has mentioned it to me. Carter knows, and he has been nothing but amazing. If he’s not with me, then he’s spending time with our daughter. He only leaves the hospital long enough to get a fresh change of clothes, or to eat.
It’s been a hard few days. The day after surgery, Carter sat with me and explained that the doctors had to perform a hysterectomy to save my life, and consequently I will never have any more children. I cried for hours. Crying for the lost possibilities of the family we could have been; crying because my baby is struggling to survive, and if we lose her… it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Carter was amazing, soothing me, telling me that I am all he needs. Me and our baby girl. Nothing else matters. I know that it will probably hit me hard when I’m healthy, happy, and feeling like it would have been nice to have more children. I’m devastated, but I’m so grateful to be alive that I can’t focus on that pain right now. I need to focus on getting better, on my daughter and the fight that she faces, and on living. It’s a gift that we take for granted every day. A gift that can be taken away in a heartbeat.
Carter’s got a broken hand, but he hasn’t complained once. I asked him about it; he looked so upset at the memory. All he said was that he needed to punch something to keep from losing his shit altogether. I didn’t press him. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for him to wait, not knowing what was happening to me or the baby.
I’m deep in thought when he walks into my room, his commanding presence like a cool breeze on a summer day. I breathe him in, savoring everything about him as he presses his lips to mine.
“You ready to go meet our baby girl?”
“I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life.” He ducks out of the room and brings in a wheelchair from the hall. Not just any wheelchair, it’s been pimped out with balloons and glitter and pink!
“Your chariot awaits, my queen.”
My palms are sweating as we enter the NICU. I’m so excited, and at the same time terrified to meet my daughter for the first time. Carter and the nurses have warned me not to be scared by all the tubes and machines, but I can’t help feeling that it’s my fault she’s in here fighting for her life.
Carter wheels me into the corner, next to an incubator with Baby Warner written in neat handwriting on a pink card attached to the bottom of the Perspex box.
“Addi, meet our daughter.” As I peer inside I see the tiniest little hand with perfect little fingers. My eyes slowly take in every detail, until I reach her face. A sob fights to burst out of me, but I clasp my hand over my mouth, scared I’ll frighten my baby girl. It takes a moment to regain my composure.
“Oh my God, Carter. Look at her. She’s so beautiful. I can’t believe we made her.”
His arms wrap around my shoulders in a sweet and tender gesture; his cast rough against my skin; his lips soft on my ear. “Thank you so much, Tesoro. You’ve given me everything I ever wanted. I love you both so much.” I grab ahold of his forearm, nestling into his warm embrace. He feels like home. At this moment, with him by my side and my baby alive in front of me, my life finally feels… real. When he lets me go, I lean forward to take a good long look at my daughter.
“Hi, baby girl. I’m your… mommy.”
Tears are streaming down my face as I gaze at her stunning face. Carter to
ld me that she looks like me, but I disagree, I think she looks like her daddy. She has a cute tuft of black hair, the sweetest pouty little lips, and the smallest nose you ever saw. She’s so tiny. It breaks my heart knowing that I should still be taking care of her, letting her grow inside my belly until she was ready to be born, happy and healthy.
“I’m so sorry.” I drop my head into my hands, only to have them gently pulled out of the way as Carter kneels before me, cupping my face in his hands.
“You have NOTHING to apologize for, Addi. You did amazing. You fought when so many people would have given up. Do you realize that you kept our girl alive, even when you stopped breathing? You came back to us when your body was broken and too weak to function on its own.” His voice is thick with emotion, his eyes full of pain. “God, Addi, they told me… they said… it was 50/50. I have never been so scared in my entire life.” His head rests on my lap as I stroke his hair; my gaze falling between him and my baby girl. We sit in silence for a few moments before he lifts his gaze to mine. Even after everything my body has been through in the past few days, his stunning brown eyes can make my stomach do somersaults. I am filled with so much love for this man. “What shall we call her? Baby Warner is cute and all, but she deserves a beautiful name.”
“I did have a thought before they put me to sleep. They told me I had a daughter, and I thought Verona was nice, but if you don’t like it we can pick something else.”
A slow, genuine smile tugs at the corner of his lips.. “Verona Warner. I love it.”
“No. Her name is Verona de Rossi.” I have never seen a smile so beautiful, so real, and filled with such all-consuming love.
“You mean it?” I nod my head, delighting in his reaction. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you, baby. Thank you so much.” His lips press tender kisses all over my face; every inch caressed by his gentle touch until he reaches my mouth. We share a heartfelt kiss, slow, soft, sensual and emotional. “I love you, Addi.”
