“I’m on my way.”
“I love you.”
“I love you both. Keep me updated if anything happens.”
“I will. Drive safely.”
I hung up the phone and returned my attention to Mattie, still crying, still struggling against the nurses. She was a tiny little fighter at nearly three weeks old. One of the nurses looked up and saw me through the window. She said something to another nurse and then came out into the hallway.
“Are you the mother?”
“Yes,” I replied, not taking my eyes off of Mattie.
“Do you want to come with me to get a glass of water?”
My head snapped in her direction, immediately put on guard by her request.
“No. I’m fine right here.”
“I know it’s hard to watch, Sweetie. Let’s just take a walk.” She put her hand on my arm, gently trying to lead me away from the window, but I wouldn’t budge.
“Your baby is fine,” she said, trying to placate me.
“Her name is Mattie.”
“Mattie is a strong little baby. Most babies that we see come here in her condition don’t fight us at all. It’s a good sign that she’s crying. I know it hurts your heart, but it’s a good sign.”
I felt more tears welling up in my eyes at her words. Again, she placed her hand on my shoulder gently and turned me so my back was to the window. I allowed her to turn me, but wasn’t going to move away from the window. The nurse then put her arms around me and started whispering in my ear.
“You have to be strong for her, Momma. If you’re upset, it upsets her. I know it’s scary right now, but trust that the doctor knows best how to take care of her and be strong for your baby.” She pulled away and gave me a small smile. “I’m going to go get you some water.”
I stood there as she walked away from me, watching her disappear down the hallway. I wondered if she had any children. I wondered how she would be reacting if it were her baby being poked and prodded in that examination room. I knew she was just trying to get me to calm down, but there was a smug part of me that gloried in the idea that very few people could truly understand what I was going through in that moment, and I’d be damned if someone was going to tell me how to react.
I turned back to the window, and saw that the nurses were trying now to get a needle into her hands where there’d been warmers on them. I made an instant decision and pushed the door open, walking past all the nurses and doctors and made my way to stand closest to Mattie’s head.
I started by gently smoothing the baby-fine hair on her head and whispering to her.
“Mommy’s here, Baby. I’m here, Sweetie.” Mattie calmed almost immediately at my words, only letting out slight whimpers. I kept my voice soft and soothing, trying not to cry as I told her how much her daddy and I loved her. I just wanted her to know I was there. She hadn’t been out of my sight since the moment she was born and I didn’t feel like now, of all times, was when we should be separated. I watched the nurses give me strange looks, as if I’d crashed their party, but I didn’t care. She was my baby and I was going to be with her, wherever she was.
For nearly ten more excruciating minutes I watched as the nurses failed miserably at trying to find one of her veins. She’d been poked in every available part of her body.
“Should we try the frontal vein?” One of the nurses asked the doctor. Before she could answer I interjected.
“What is that?”
“The vein that runs down the middle of the forehead,” the nurse responded almost robotically.
“Absolutely not,” I stated. “She’s been poked enough for now.”
“It really would benefit everyone if we got a line in,” Dr. Bailey said, trying to convince me.
“Is it necessary?”
“She will need bloodwork, yes.”
“No, I mean, is it necessary that you take her blood right here, right now? Is it vital?”
Dr. Bailey watched me closely, her lips pressed firmly together. Then I saw her shoulder relax. “No, it isn’t vital.”
“I want this whole procedure halted. Let her rest. They can try again at the hospital.” I heard my voice and I sounded firm. I sounded like I was in control. It was exactly the opposite of what I was feeling. Dr. Bailey nodded and moved back, as did all the nurses in the room. I picked Mattie up and pressed her to me again, swaying back and forth. She started rooting around and I breathed a sigh of relief to see that she was hungry. “Would it be ok if everyone left so I could nurse her?”
“Sure,” Dr. Bailey said softly. “I’ll alert you when the pediatric ambulance gets here.” After her words, she left along with everyone else, and I was left in a room with just Mattie and me.
“Sweet baby,” I said as I situated her at my breast. I spent ten glorious minutes alone with her, cherishing what I considered might be our last quiet moments alone for quite a while. “I’m going to take care of you, Sweet Girl. I promise.”
When I heard a soft knock on the door, I knew it was time to go. Mattie had fallen asleep as she ate and it hurt my heart to remove her from me. I tried to hold the tears back, but it was impossible. When the door opened, a softer Dr. Bailey stepped in and spoke quietly.
“The ambulance is here. You can either ride with them or you can follow behind.”
“I’ll ride with her.”
She nodded and led me back to the original examination room and helped me pack and get everything together. When the EMTs showed up with a gurney, I tried again, unsuccessfully, to hold it together, but still a few tears managed to make trails down my face. I watched as they strapped her car seat to the gurney and then one of them nodded at me.
“Follow us,” he said. And so I did.
We walked through the clinic and I felt like I was in a dream. I saw everyone’s eyes follow the gurney, see the car seat on top, see my baby, and I felt their pitiful stares. I knew, if I’d just been a person in that waiting room and had seen a tiny baby being wheeled out on a gurney, it would have broken my heart. I would have looked at the mother and felt so sorry for her. I felt that. I felt people looking at me like the worst thing in the world was happening to me.
And it was.
I couldn’t argue with their looks, couldn’t even put on a brave smile. There was no bravery left in me. All I had to hold onto was hope. And even that was slipping away.
For the second time, I found myself racing toward the hospital on the hill. Much like the first trip, when Ella had been taken there after Jason Ramie shot her, I was panicked. The feelings of not being in control, not being informed, took over and I found it difficult to stay calm. My heart pounded, my chest ached, and my hands shook.
The difference this time was, even though I felt uninformed and lost, a new feeling came over me: terror. I was frantic when Ella was in the hospital, afraid I’d lost her before I’d ever even really had her. But I had Mattie. She was mine. The very thought of losing her, of her light being taken away from me, caused me to lose the air in my lungs.
My whole body shook with sobs. I cried harder than I ever had before. One hand on the steering wheel, one hand covering my mouth or wiping tears from my face—I was a mess. I didn’t know what was wrong with Mattie, but if she was being taken by ambulance, I could only imagine that it was serious, and the unknown was the scariest and darkest place to be. My mind was full of images that were shredding me from the inside out. I imagined myself getting there too late, that she’d already be gone by the time I got there. Another sob racked my body as I imagined Ella having to deal with this all on her own. I prayed she wasn’t alone, but I also harbored really hateful feelings towards anyone who was with Mattie and Ella right now as I was stuck in this godforsaken truck, alone, on the freeway.
My mind continued to torture me until I suddenly found myself parked at the hospital. I blinked, surprised that I hardly remembered the drive. I climbed out of the truck and walked into the emergency room. I stopped at the first desk I saw.
“
My daughter was brought here by ambulance. Where can I find her? Mattie Masters.”
“How old is your daughter?”
“Three weeks.”
“Ok, she would have been taken to the pediatric ER.” The woman gave me directions and I was off. I found the entrance and picked up the phone to get admittance. I told the person on the phone who I was, and who I was looking for. She told me the room number Mattie was in and the door next to me made a buzzing noise. I hung up and pushed through the door.
The hallway I entered was lit brightly with florescent lights and smelled exactly like a hospital should: stale, clean, and like chemicals. My eyes darted to the numbers next to the doors on each side of the hallway. I kept walking, forever it seemed, until I finally found the room I was looking for. I pushed the door open and what I saw nearly broke me.
My eyes first found Mattie, so small and so pale, cradled in Susan’s lap. She had two sensors on her chest, wires coming from them connecting them to a machine that beeped rapidly. Her tiny, fragile hand was wrapped with something blue, and through it I could see another tube coming from her, and an I.V. that was attached to a bag of fluids. She was sleeping, but she looked different. She looked sick.
The next thing my eyes took in was Ella, standing in the corner of the room, facing the window, looking out over the river and the Portland skyline.
“Baby,” I tried to say, but it came out a strangled whisper. She heard me and her head whipped around to find me and then we both lost our composure. She ran across the room to me, crying the instant her head met my chest. I cradled her against me, gripping her so tightly to my body, thankful to be together in this moment. “I got here as soon as I could,” I said against the top of her head, my lips moving against her hair, my tears dropping into the blonde locks.
“Trust me,” she said, still crying against me. “You didn’t want to be around for what happened earlier.” My body steeled at her words, fury raged through me, worried that she’d had to endure something terrible while I wasn’t with them to help or to comfort. I held her, my hands rubbing up and down her back, trying to offer her anything I could, even though I knew in this moment there wasn’t anything that could take away the fear I felt, which I was sure she felt deeper than even I did.
I loved Mattie, with everything that I was, but I could also concede that Ella loved Mattie in a way I could never understand. Ella’s love for our baby wasn’t better or worse than mine, it didn’t take anything away from how I felt about my child, but the connection I witnessed between Ella and our daughter was inarguably the deepest tie I’d ever seen two people have to each other. It made me love Ella that much more.
After a few minutes of crying with each other, I pulled away and used my thumbs to wipe the tears away from Ella’s face.
“What do we know? What’s wrong with her?”
Ella shook her head. “They don’t know yet. They think it’s some sort of infection. They said babies her age don’t get fevers unless it’s an infection. They tried to take her blood at the clinic . . .” Her words cut off and new tears sprung from her eyes. “They couldn’t get a vein, and Mattie was just crying, and I wasn’t in the room.” She leaned into me again. “I could hear her crying from down the hall. They took her from me and I wasn’t with her.” Hearing her words, feeling her body shaking against mine, broke my heart all over again. I knew it didn’t compare, but if someone had tried to keep me away from Ella in the same position, I wouldn’t have stood for it and I would have been just as broken as she sounded.
“Babe, it’s ok.” I tried to soothe her, but I knew what she’d experienced today was something she’d likely never forget. “You got her to the doctor and now the hospital, where they’ll take care of her.” I pressed a kiss against her temple. “You did everything right.” She pulled away again, wiping her newly shed tears away and I turned to see Susan still holding my girl.
“May I?” I asked, motioning towards Mattie.
“Of course,” Susan said automatically, smiling down at her granddaughter. She stood up slowly and let me take the chair, then gently laid my girl in my arms. When we got her all situated, being careful that none of the wires or tubes coming from her were tangled, Susan walked to Ella and wrapped her arms around her.
I tried to keep my eyes off of the pair of them, watching Ella cry was hard enough, but watching her cry into her mother’s shoulder was another level of gut-wrenching. Instead, I focused on my angel, trying to make sure she was as comfortable as possible.
We waited an eternity, switching between me holding Mattie or Ella nursing and snuggling with her. I was relieved that Mattie would eat; surely that had to be a good sign. Nurses kept coming in and out of our room, checking her stats, making sure the tubes and wires were working properly, but then they would leave and offer us no news of what was actually wrong with her.
As the day went on, we all grew more and more anxious. All our family members were anxious to hear of Mattie’s status, and due to hospital rules, no more visitors were allowed. The entire family came to a halt, waiting to find out what exactly was ailing Mattie.
Around five pm, a new person came into the room and gave us all sympathetic smiles.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Edwards.” She reached her hand out to Susan and Ella, but smiled and gave me a polite nod as I held Mattie.
“We’ve gotten back the preliminary lab results for Mattie here and I’m afraid we are going to have to admit her.” I watched Ella take in her words, process them as she nodded her head, and continue to look to the doctor for more information. “Mattie seems to have an infection in her kidney, her bladder, but most importantly, in her blood.”
“How does a three week old get this sick?” Susan asked.
“It’s pretty impossible to tell where the infections stems from. We just have to treat it fully and hope for the best.” Dr. Edwards flipped open Mattie’s chart and kept talking as she looked at the clipboard. “It also seems that one of our pediatric nurses might have heard a murmur in her heart, so we’re going to check that out as well.”
“What is the treatment for this infection?” I asked, still trying to process everything being told to us.
“We will need to administer aggressive antibiotics intravenously starting immediately.”
“How long do you think she’ll need to be here?” Ella’s voice was sturdy and strong.
The doctor stood up straight and looked Ella right in the eyes.
“Unfortunately, Mattie is very sick. You’re lucky you caught the infection when you did. Had you waited another day or two, this might be a very different conversation. However, she will still need treatment for a few weeks. She could be admitted to the children’s hospital for anywhere from two to five weeks, depending on how she responds to treatment.”
“Five weeks?” Susan stammered.
“I don’t want to downplay the severity of the infection. A blood infection in a three-week-old baby is serious. If we don’t treat it fully and entirely it could be devastating. The timeframe is just an estimate. We need to get Mattie on antibiotics as soon as possible. Then we need to see how she reacts to them and we’ll go from there.”
“When can we get the antibiotics started?” Ella’s voice came from across the room and she sounded almost stoic.
“Just as soon as you sign these consent forms. We’ll get the meds to her and transport her upstairs to the children’s hospital.”
Ella looked over at me, her eyes silently asking me what my thoughts were. I knew what she was thinking and I was on the same page. If they thought Mattie needed it, we would do it. I nodded at her and then looked down at Mattie still sleeping in my arms.
“What do I need to sign?” Ella walked towards the doctor and I knew she had it handled. I didn’t move from my seat or look in their direction. I focused on Mattie and trusted Ella to get everything sorted out.
What came next was a flurry of activity as nurses came in and hooked Mattie’s I.V. up with a second bag which conta
ined the medicine the doctors were hoping would heal her. Dr. Edwards came back and listened to her heart again, speaking to the medical student that was now accompanying her.
“Ok,” the doctor said with a sigh. “I did hear an abnormality, but I can’t be sure it was a murmur. It could be nothing at all, and most likely is, but I want to take every precaution. I will schedule an echocardiogram. For now though, hang tight and when they are ready to take Mattie upstairs, someone will come and transport you all.”
I walked over to the doctor and shook her hand, having missed the opportunity when we first met.
“Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate it.”
“She’s in good hands,” she said before she nodded at Ella and Susan, then left the room.
Ella walked back to the hospital bed and gazed down at Mattie. “She’s so small,” she said quietly. The baby laid in the middle of the hospital bed, looking quite tiny against the big bed. I came up behind Ella and made sure her back was pressed up against my chest, offering her someone to lean on. Sure enough I felt her relax into me and I placed my hands on her shoulders.
“She may be tiny, but she’s strong like her mother.” Ella’s hands came to cover my own and we stood there, watching Mattie sleep.
“It’s funny because this is what babies do, right? They sleep. That’s pretty much all she’s done since she’s been born. So why, now that I know she’s sick, the more she sleeps the more nervous I am? What if the whole time she’s been alive, she’s been ill?” Ella’s hands left mine and wrapped around her middle. “What kind of mother doesn’t notice when her baby is sick?”
“Hey.” I wrapped my arms around her chest, hugging her from behind, bringing her closer into me. “You did notice she was sick. That’s how she got here. You’ve done everything right, Ella. Kids get sick, right?”
“No, kids get colds and the flu. Babies don’t get blood infections, Porter.”
“You can’t beat yourself up over this, Babe. This could have happened to anyone. You heard the doctor, you brought her in at the right time. She’s going to be fine.”
Never Giving Up (Never #3) Page 18
