by Moss, Brooke
Patting my knee, Dr. Javornik smiled kindly. “You’ll live. Now, how about we get down to business. How are you feeling, Lexie?”
The baby wiggled deep within me, setting off another cramp that rushed to my spine, then receded. “Doing all right, I suppose. I’ve been cramping a lot lately.”
The doctor flipped open my chart, while Fletcher rubbed circles on my back. “Cramping is normal in the last weeks of pregnancy, but we’ll do a quick internal check to make sure you’re not dilating,” she announced. “Your non-stress test last week looked good.”
I nodded. I’d been having those tests on a weekly basis for four weeks now. They were a pain in the butt, but I’d been happy to get the weekly ultrasounds. I’d even decided to leave the baby’s sex a mystery, much to Candace and my mother’s frustration. But so much about my pregnancy had been unorthodox. It felt good to leave this one last detail alone. One last surprise for me to keep, when so much of my life was right out there in the open for all to see.
“Overall, I’m feeling okay.” I leaned back on the table, as Dr. Javornik started to feel my belly. “I mean, I’m a bit worn out, I guess. But I assume that’s what’s to be expected when you’re eight and a half months pregnant and working full time.”
“That’s true.” She smiled.
“How’s the swelling in your feet?” Fletcher interrupted. “Are you putting them up at night? Drinking the water like I told you?”
“Yes, doctor. I’m putting my feet up.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Isn’t Dr. Javornik doing this examination?”
“Right.” He sat on the stool next to my head. “Old habits, and all that.”
“Anyway, the swelling is—” I gasped as another cramp ripped through my abdomen, shooting into my back, and down into my bum.
“You all right?” Fletcher touched my cheek.
“Hmmm.” Dr. Javornik’s hand’s covered my stomach. “That’s a strong contraction you’re having. Your uterus is rock hard.”
I tried to reply, but all that came out was a mangled whimper. These cramps were really starting to tick me off.
Fletcher stilled next to me. “Want me to get a monitor?” he asked in a low voice. Dr. Javornik didn’t answer. She just watched me as I grimaced my way through the cramp.
Finally I caught my breath. “Okay, when you warned me about these practice contractions, you never said they’d make me want to die.”
“Sometimes they can be pretty rough,” Dr. Javornik agreed. “There can also be pain when you bend or twist, because of all of the ligaments being stretched in your midriff. But I think you’re having some contractions, young lady.”
“How long have you had them?” Fletcher asked me.
I sucked in a breath of air as the pain wore off. “I don’t know. A day or so.”
A line appeared between his eyebrows. “How far apart are they?”
My eyes searched Fletcher’s face for some sort of reassurance, but all I could see was complete seriousness. He was in doctor mode now. My new boyfriend was nowhere to be found. “I don’t know. I haven’t been paying attention. A minute or two, I guess.”
“Any back pain?” Dr. Javornik’s hands moved around my middle.
I thought for a moment. “Well, yeah, I guess. It usually starts in the front, down low, then sort of radiates upward before shooting to my back.”
Fletcher stood up. “What do you think, Bev? Should I get the—”
“Yes, please.” A line formed between her eyebrows.
I watched her as the pain receded. Panic was starting to creep up on me like a shadow. “Is something wrong?”
Dr. Javornik patted my leg reassuringly. “I’m sure everything’s fine. We’re just going to take a quick peek to make sure this isn’t preterm labor.”
“Wait,” I blurted. “I thought this was normal. Fletcher, what’s going on?”
“I’m sure it is.” He bent down and pressed a dry kiss to my forehead. “Dr. Javornik just wants to be sure.” Fletcher darted out of the door before I could ask him anything else.
“Is the pain in the perineum area at all?” Dr. Javornik asked.
“My what?” When she glanced downward, I laughed. “Oh, there. Um, yeah. That’s where the worst of it is.”
“Uh huh.” Her lips pressed together, just as Fletcher charged back into the room pushing a portable sonogram machine. “Have you had any discharge?”
I felt my face heat. There was nothing I wanted to discuss less in front of my new boyfriend that I’d not even gone on my first date with yet than discharge.
“I, um, well—” Again my words stopped, and I froze in place while my abdomen morphed into cement again, and gripping pain flashed through my body. I opened my mouth to keep talking, but no words came out. Just a high-pitched squeal of air. Part of me felt embarrassed, but the pain was too strong to care. I was locked into place.
“Lex?” Fletcher took my hand. “Squeeze my fingers. It’s okay.”
I obeyed, closing my eyes. These weren’t Braxton Hicks contractions anymore, that much was clear. And if they were, then real labor was going to freaking kill me. The pain in my back made me want to go lay down in traffic. After a minute, the pain started to subside, and I released a long, ragged breath. When I opened my eyes, Dr. Javornik was watching me closely, with her watch poised under her chin.
“Fletcher,” I said breathlessly. “I’m starting to freak out.”
“Everything’s fine,” he told me. “I’m right here.”
Dr. Javornik opened the door and called out into the hallway. “Hey, Joni?”
A heavy set brunette came into the room. “Yes, doctor? Oh, hi, Dr. Haybee. I didn’t know you were—” Her words stopped as soon as she saw Fletcher’s hands covering mine. “Oh. I see. Hi, Miss Baump. How are you today?”
I tilted my head upward. It was the nurse who’d helped Dr. Javornik conduct the stress test the week before. Waving awkwardly, I called, “Um, I don’t know.”
Dr. Javornik ignored out small talk. “She’s having some contractions.”
“They’re two minutes apart, and lasting for forty-five seconds, give or take,” Fletcher added, staring down at his watch.
“He’s just being protective, I’m okay.” I suddenly felt embarrassed. I didn’t want to be that patient. The one who made a big deal over nothing. Candace made Brian take her to the hospital four times before Ellie’s labor really started. What if I just had something simple, like gas? Marisol and I had made broccoli quiche the other day. What if I just needed to cut a giant fart? Oh holy crap, what if I did it while Fletcher was in the room?
“Protective?” Joni’s eyes flicked to Fletcher. He shook his head.
Dr. Javornik turned on the sonogram, and lifted up my shirt. “Let’s just take a little peek here.”
“I think I’m just having some tummy trouble.” My voice was starting to get high pitched as panic set in. I couldn’t be in labor. I wasn’t ready. “I had some quiche yesterday, that—”
Joni slipped a blood pressure cuff onto my arm. “I’m going to need you to lay back, Miss Baump. All right?”
Fletcher’s grip on my fingers tightened when Dr. Javornik squirted the blue goo on my skin. “Have you felt the baby move recently, Lex?”
“I…uh…yes.” My eyes went from Fletcher’s frowning face to Joni’s. “Just a few minutes ago.”
“BP is 167 over 120,” Joni called.
“I changed my mind.” I used my elbows to push myself back up. The thin paper underneath me crinkled. “I don’t think it’s a big deal. I—”
What happened next was definitely a big deal. There was another cramp, this one worse than all the others, and it shot straight into my spine like a bullet. I yelped, jumping off of the table an inch or two, then felt a tearing sensation deep within my core. The pain was bigger, so much bigger, than any pain I’d felt before.
Warmth soaked my pants. Black splotches appeared in my line of sight. A shrill ring filled my ears. Mother of God, I’m
going to die right here on this table!
“Where’s that ultrasound, Bev?” Fletcher’s voice was loud, and it cut through the ringing in my ears like a beacon, bringing me back to reality.
I opened my eyes, flinching when the light hit my retinas. Sweat had piqued on my forehead and underneath my arms. I’d fallen back into a laying position on the paper, shredding it with the waist of my jeans in the process.
“What the hell is going on?” I growled.
Dr. Javornik’s mouth pulled into a thin line. “She’s hemorrhaging.”
My head popped off of the table. “I’m what?”
Fletcher moved away from my side, to peer down past my belly. His eyebrows knit together, and he pulled the metal stirrups out from underneath the table with a sharp clack. “Possible abruption,” he muttered, pulling the door open all the way. “Nancy, we need ambulance transport, please. Stat.”
“Stat?” My head swam. I’d watched enough medical dramas on TV to know that stat was never good. “Fletcher?”
“You said you felt the baby move a few minutes ago?” Dr. Javornik felt my stomach, gauging the position of my baby.
Nodding, tears filled my eyes. “Yes. What…what’s wrong?”
“It’s going to be fine.” Fletcher’s hand touched my face, but his eyes stayed locked on my nether region. “You’ve got some bleeding.”
“Some bleeding?” My voice cracked. I didn’t know much, but I knew enough to know that bleeding while thirty-six weeks pregnant wasn’t good. I tried to push myself up. “Is my baby okay?”
Someone spoke from outside the examination room. “Ambulance is coming, doctor.”
“An ambulance?” I croaked.
Joni appeared on my other side. She used her hands to gently push me back on the table, then guided my feet to the stirrups. When I moved, I felt a gush. The paper beneath me was soaked. “It’s all right, Miss—”
Gasping, I gripped the edge of the table when another contraction barged through my body like a Mack truck with no brakes. I curled around myself, groaning.
“Her name is Lexie.” Fletcher said tensely, his voice cutting through the haze around me. I focused on his face and forced myself to keep my eyes open.
Joni touched Fletcher’s arm. “Are you okay, Dr. Haybee?”
“Yes,” he snapped. I’d never seen this side of Fletcher before. His face was pale, and his movements were swift and concise. A far cry from the ultra casual, gentle man I’d been kissing just moments before. “We need underpads. Quickly.”
“Got ‘em,” Joni announced, pulling them from a drawer.
“Thank you.” Dr. Javornik tugged latex gloves on with a snap. “And Joni?”
She stopped moving. “Yes?”
“We’ll need to do an internal exam. She needs to be undressed from the waist down.” Dr. Javornik moved the wand on my stomach. “Someone needs to alert the hospital that Lexie’s coming in.”
“Right.” Joni nodded, returning to my side. “Lexie, we’re going to get these jeans off of you, okay?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but the pain halted every word in the back of my throat.
“Just breathe. In and out, in and…” Fletcher’s directions faded away as Joni began peeling my clothes off of my bottom half. He craned his neck to look at the screen on the sonogram machine over Dr. Javornik’s shoulder. “There’s a heartbeat, Lex.”
I whimpered, sweat rolling down my forehead into my eye.
Dr. Javornik’s lips pursed as she scowled at the fuzzy orangish screen. Muttering under her breath, she moved it from one side of my belly to the other, then down close to my pubic bone. Lower, lower, and lower it went until her movements stopped. “There it is.”
Fletcher squinted as he watched the screen. “Shit,” he whispered.
I started to ask what he was talking about, but another contraction tore through my groin like a chainsaw, ripping me in half. I cried out, and Joni shut the exam room door. Everything in the room started to blur and spin, and I reached out for Fletcher, unable to make words while my uterus hardened into marble.
Dr. Javornik dropped the wand, and did an internal examination. The pain increased so suddenly that I saw spots of light, and arched off of the table. Everywhere I looked there were blue absorbent pads soaked and splattered with blood. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried desperately to block out the images.
Someone came to my side and took my hand. I didn’t know who. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t think straight anymore. It felt like I was drowning in the pain, too locked into place to do anything but sink.
“Abruption,” Dr. Javornik’s voice cut through the mayhem. “Joni, call Valley General, tell them to prep an OR.”
Fletcher cupped my face. It was all I could do to open my eyes and look him in the eye. “The baby’s still okay for now. But the placenta detached from the uterine wall, and you’re bleeding heavily.”
I nodded, gritting my teeth. Fletcher’s head started to waver, as my eyes unfocused again. Finally some words came to the surface. “Going to…get….sick.”
Joni showed up on my other side, placing a long plastic bag under my mouth. “Right here, dear.”
Turning to my side, I unloaded the contents of my stomach, and felt another gush between my legs. Suddenly I was chilled to the bone and shaking, despite the sweat dampening all of my skin. I wiped at my mouth and closed my eyes again to block out the gripping dizziness that took over my body.
To say I was scared would’ve been an understatement. I was terrified. But the pain had me so gridlocked I couldn’t articulate any of that fear. I just had to lay there and wait for whatever hell I was in to be over…
“Six centimeters,” Dr. Javornik announced.
“Transport is here.” I don’t know who said it, but the voice echoed in my head.
My eyes got too heavy to hold open anymore. Blackness filled my peripheral vision. Everyone’s voices sounded like they were at the end of a telephone connection a thousand miles away. The room was cold. My arms jerked as I shivered. I wanted to go home. I wanted my mom. I wanted to sleep.
The last voice I heard was Fletcher’s. “I’ll ride with her.”
And then the blackness swallowed me.
Chapter Twenty-five
Sleep. Blissful sleep.
“…gonna need an immediate cesarean.”
Sleep…
“One pint of O-positive.”
More sleep…
“…fetus will need corticosteroids.”
Am I dreaming all of this?
“Lex, everything’s going to be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
I want to talk back to Fletcher. But I’m just so tired.
“All right. Count backwards from ten…”
Ten, nine… what comes after nine?
I don’t remember anything about the birth. Just blips of sound in between hazy, slovenly dreams filled with muted voices and beeping machines. I was asleep, but still just aware enough of the noise in the ambulance and operating room to turn it all into an acid-trip type dream.
Fletcher rode in the ambulance with me, and I thought I’d heard the sound of my mother calling my name as they pushed my gurney through the double doors leading to the operating room. Guess I still had her listed as an emergency contact. Who knew?
I’d been prepped for surgery upon arrival. No time to stop. No time to think. No time to process what was going on around me. Just bam, bam, bam. And then nothing.
***
“Lexie?” I heard Fletcher’s voice. He sounded far away. “Lex, honey, can you open your eyes?”
I didn’t want to answer. I wanted to sleep. I hadn’t slept this good in so long. How long had it been?
“Lex?”
I tried to open my eyes, but the lids were apparently made of lead. Once. Twice. Third time was a charm.
The light flooded my pupils and I flinched as Fletchers’ face came into focus. I could hear the dull sound of phones ringing out in the hall, and
a soft beeping sound right next to my head. Looking around, my eyes rolled shut again, and I had to force them to open back up. The room I was in was decorated in pale pinks, with vertical blinds that partially blocked a view of the night skyline.
“What?” My mouth felt like it’d been lined with carpeting. I tried to sit up, but my arms and legs felt like sandbags. Groggy did not begin to cover how I was feeling. It felt like I’d been hit and dragged by a truck, and then thrown into a lake. Where I promptly sank to the bottom.
“What time is it?” I croaked.
Fletcher sat down on a stool next to me, and held a straw close to my mouth. “It’s six-thirty. Stay down. You just had major surgery. It’s too early to get up yet.”
Six-thirty! I’d missed the whole day. When I sucked on the straw and cool water filled my mouth, I nearly groaned in appreciation. I don’t think water had ever tasted so good.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded, then looked around the room. There was an IV pole with several bags, including blood, hanging from it.
“S-surgery?” I noticed there was an oxygen tube hanging down from my nose. “What the—”
“Shhh, relax.” Fletcher dragged his hand down the length of his face. He looked exhausted, and was wearing light blue scrubs. “You had a placental abruption. The placenta detached from the uterine wall, so Dr. Javornik did a C-section. I sat in on the procedure. You lost a considerable amount of blood, so a transfusion was necessary. She was able to save your uterus, though.”
“A transfusion?” I tried to reach for Fletcher, my hands heavy as they dragged across the sheet. As my fingers raked across my middle, realization settled in over me like a dark, dense cloud, pressing me into the bed like a vice grip. “W-where’s my baby?”
“Looks like someone woke up!” A cheerful nurse in baby pink scrubs strode into the room with a thermometer in hand. She patted Fletcher’s shoulder. “You’ve been here all afternoon, doctor. Don’t you want to take a break?”
Fletcher shook his head. “No, ma’am. I’m fine.”
“Fletcher,” I said, my voice louder now. “Where’s my baby?”
