Pregnant Pause [H.S]

Chapter 35

Beautiful

 

"Where are you taking her?!" I'd asked the nurse my voice raw and desperate and my eyebrows pulled together nervously.

The baby had been cleaned and swaddled, her cries dying down and eventually ceasing. It was a speedy process, and before I'd had time to make sense of what was happening, the nurses were hurrying her from the delivery room.

They looked over their shoulders as I followed them out the door, and the one with the baby nodded to the other before speeding off. I made a move to catch up with her, but the remaining nurse stopped me.

"Lisa's taking her to the NICU," she explained. "The baby's premature and underweight. Did you notice her weak wailing?"

"Her weak... what?"

"She needs to be assessed for bradycardia – her resting heart rate is below sixty bpm."

It sounded serious in medical terms, but I'd had no idea what it meant. Staring blankly, I repeated, "What?"

"Beats per minute," she clarified.

It could have been that tears were still clouding my vision, but I couldn't make sense of it.

"Is her heart all right?" I asked. "Is she gonna be okay?"

"We'll do everything we can."

I shook my head as I swallowed, hating how sinister she made it sound. "What does that mean?" I pressed.

"She'll be placed in an incubator," the nurse said. "It will keep her warm and allow us to monitor her heart and her lungs. As long as she receives the proper care right away, there's no reason she shouldn't be well."

Not entirely reassured, I rubbed my lips together and nodded. The nurse looked like she wanted to get away. Lisa had rounded the corner with the baby, and I'd no idea where she went.

"Um... so she's in the Nic... the... um... ?"

"The NICU," she repeated. "Neo-natal intensive care unit."

"Oh. Right." Those were just words to me – a jumble of letters swimming before my eyes. "Which is where? Is she far?"

"No, not at all. It's on the fourth floor, Mr. Styles. You can visit her if you'd like."

"No." I gulped, shaking my head and reaching behind me for the doorknob. "I need to stay because Misty—I can't leave her."

She'd looked like she'd had something to say, but the nurse had merely nodded. "All right," she agreed, backing away.

"But just in case, it's the fourth floor."

I'd stored the baby's whereabouts in the back of my mind, wondering about her little hands and her little cheeks and her little fighter's heart as I made my way back inside.

*

Hours later, Muffy remained in a coma. They'd wheeled her out of delivery into her own room where she was being closely monitored and administered doses of magnesium sulfate, though it seemed too late to be pumping her with antidotes.

Her parents had arrived in a frenzy, demanding to know how this had happened and why. I'd been by Muffy's stationary side the whole time, but when her father yelled at the doctor for the second time in an hour, ordering and threatening and unable to control his devastation, I had to leave. I couldn't take it. Their worry and hysteria was not the reassurance I needed.

Not that I had any right to expect reassurance from them. After all, Muffy was their daughter. Her grave situation had to be more difficult on them than anybody.