Adopted by Phan

Chapter 108

Dan's P.O.V.

Little Phoenix was curled up against my chest, sleeping soundly with one of his thumbs in his mouth. He wasn't very coordinated yet and could only find his mouth a few times out of the many times he tried but it was one of the times he had managed to do it.

He was still hooked up to some wires, only one or two now, and was out of the incubator too, just sleeping in a cot. He was now almost a month old and getting close to the weight of an average new-born baby, meaning he could soon come home.

"Jay?"

"Hmm?" She looked up from her phone across the room and made eye contact with me, leaning with her elbows on the arms of the chair.

"Can you hold Phoenix for a couple of minutes? I'm gonna go downstairs and get some food." She nodded, holding out her arms for me to give her Phoenix. She was still struggling to get around even with her prosthetic and although she was trying as hard as she could we still had to help her with a lot.

Phil was at home, he had left a couple of hours ago to shift all of the furniture into Phoenix's room, now everything was dry after two coats of paint and some touch ups. We hadn't really had any time to move anything, what with spending all of the time in hospital and now with Phoenix going home soon we needed to get everything ready.

I bundled myself down the stairs and into the little room that was used for parents of children in the children's wards and the NICU. It was almost a little kitchen with free hot drinks and an oven and stove top with pots, pans and cutlery in the draw which Phil and I had used a lot over the last month.

I made a coffee for myself and a hot chocolate for Jay, as she didn't drink coffee or tea at all, and I just wanted something for her to drink as she hadn't had much that day. I also took a couple of the little sandwiches to eat between Jay and I and then pattered back up the stairs, in our room again.

It was much roomier now the incubator was gone, as the cot could be pushed into the corner instead of right in the middle, like the incubator had to be because of the wires and plugs. There was also some more comfy chairs, we had had plastic ones for the first little while and then we had found some that were nicer.

When I got back to our room Jay was rocking Phoenix on her lap, as he was wailing a little and waving his fists. Jay on the other hand was stressing at all, she knew at once what to do when he was crying as she had comforted him so many times and calmed him down.

She looked over at me when I came back in and smiled, rocking Phoenix to keep him calm. I placed her sandwich and drink on the little tray table beside her, going to adjust the blankets in Phoenix's cot and shifting around some of our belongings for easier access to the area where everything was.

"Do you want to put him down to sleep? We can go after that and come back tomorrow morning after we get up." She nodded.

"I guess." I tilted my head to the side.

"You guess? You don't want to leave do you?" She shook her head, keeping up the rocking of her arms to keep Phoenix asleep. "We'll put him down to sleep okay, it won't be long before we can take him home."

She sighed but moved one of her arms so I could take Phoenix off her, placing him gently in his cot and pulling a blanket over his chest. He slept soundly through the whole move, barely stirring and only moving his arm the tiniest amount.

I turned to Jay and helped her to her feet, packing everything of ours into a backpack and picking up my phone, texting Phil to tell him that we were on our way home.

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Phoenix was fast asleep in my arms, his head on my shoulder and his hands curled into little fists. He had just had a bottle and we were watching to make sure he was keeping everything down, and if he did we could take him home.

He could regulate his own temperature, he had been doing that on his own since he had been moved out of the incubator, and was steadily gaining weight. He had surpassed the weight of the average new-born in the days before and the nurses were very pleased with his progress.

If he managed to keep down a bottle every 4 hours, the average being a bottle ever 2-3 hours, he was allowed to go home.

Jay was reading her book in a chair just across from me and Phil had his laptop on his lap. There wasn't normally much talking while we were at the hospital, we just did our own thing and passed Phoenix around when we wanted too, passing him on to either one of the others.

Jay had passed on some of her duties to us now, relinquishing most of his care over to us so she could focus on healing, physically and mentally. Physically she was doing okay, the wound from the surgery had almost completely healed.

Walking around was still difficult and we knew she would never walk properly again, as she had lost one of her knee joints and would struggle for the rest of her life. She had also worked out that it was almost easier to get around with crutches rather than her prosthetic and had adapted to that.

Mentally was another story altogether. She was having nightmares every night, sometimes up to three times a night, and she would wake screaming in fear and sometimes what I thought was pain. When she did wake up from the nightmares she didn't let Phil or I go near her, drawing away whenever we got close to her and crying out if we tried to reach out for her.

She only seemed really stable when she was with Phoenix, he was almost a reminder that everything was okay and that the pain with her family was over. Phoenix also seemed calmest when he was in Jay's arms, he almost knew that Jay was his mother and she cared so, so much for him.

Jay seemed to be falling down a steep hill or into a hole but she didn't want to tell us what was happening in her head. She also seemed to be isolating herself from us, occasionally leaving the room when Phil or I got too close to her and, what scared me the most, she seemed to be almost scared of us.

Phoenix's nurses noticed too, the way she jumped whenever someone came into the room, flinching at an loud noises, pulling herself away from us and things like that. They suggested taking her to see the doctor, which we did and we got the news we were fearing the most, even though it wasn't surprising.

PTSD and anxiety.