Chapter 83: Will she survive?
"Mummy!" I hear my son cry.
James enthusiastically jumps on the hospital bed, making me wince as my wound from the c-section still hasn't healed yet.
"Careful James, Mummy is still in pain and we wouldn't want to hurt her more," Harry says gently and James, very carefully, tries to sit next to me.
Soon after James's entrance, Teddy, Scott (holding Albus) and Erin (holding Hope) come in. Teddy looks at me and gives me a hug, trying to avoid hurting me.
"Where's the baby?" Teddy asks, looking around.
"The doctors are looking after her while she's trying to gain strength," I tell Teddy and he nods.
"So it's a girl?" Erin smiles, sitting down and putting Hope on her lap.
"Jep," I nod, smiling at my goddaughter who is looking at me.
*
When visiting hours are over, everyone, except Harry, leaves. We didn't have any visitors other than Erin, Scott and the kids, because first of all, I'm not sure what they could do as Lily is still in the incubator and hasn't shown any sign of coming out before I leave the hospital, and I don't know if I can cope with it all.
"It will all be fine in the end," Harry smiles, taking my hand and smoothing my skin with his thumb.
"And what if it's not fine?" I ask him, feeling tears welling up.
"Then it's not the end," Harry says and wipes the tears from my face, despite his own watery eyes.
*
"So, Mr and Mrs Potter, your daughter seems to be doing well enough for you to hold her for some skin to skin contact," the doctor, named Dr Clay, says after a few days since I got discharged from the hospital.
I can barely contain my excitement. I squeeze Harry's hand to let the excitement out. I could have squealed but that would have startled the babies.
Harry very quickly decides that I have the right to go first as I was the one to carry her for just over six months and that I went in pain for her.
"Thanks," I smile and then sit down as a nurse helps me to undo my blouse and bra. She gives me a blanket to cover up while we wait for Lily.
"So, as you can see, she still has a breathing tube and a feeding tube so you need to be careful not to interfere with them and the same goes for her monitors," Doctor Clay says sternly and I nod.
I can't explain how happy I feel the moment he lays Lily on me. She's still so small and fragile but she has this strong vibe going on. I can't explain how I know but I just feel it.
At one point, Lily starts to cry, although barely audible (probably due to the tube down her throat) and it really hurts me to hear. By talking to her and making soft sounds, she calms down and I can feel her breathing slowly again.
"I'm afraid your time is up, Mrs Potter," they take Lily from me again and Harry helps me dress again.
We watch as she's put back in the incubator, softly wailing again. I immediately yearn to hold her again but then realise that it's unfair for me to think that because Harry hasn't held her at all yet.
*
When we're home and the children are in bed, I sob into Harry's shirt as he listens to me.
"She shouldn't be going through something like this, not at this age, not ever," I sniff, trying to remember the feeling when they laid her on me.
"I know, I know, but there's nothing we can do about it. It wouldn't help to bring her to St. Mungo's because even magic has its limits and when it comes to this kind of Muggle problems that are already being solved, it's past magic's limit," Harry says, rubbing my back soothingly.
"I know and I understand, I'm just not happy with it," I say.
"Neither am I, but we'll just have to wait," Harry agrees, wiping away my tears.
"I just hope it doesn't get worse," I say and Harry nods.
Well, I cursed it because a week and a half later, we receive a call from the hospital.
"Hello? This is Ginny Potter speaking," I say, picking up the phone.
"Hello Mrs Potter, this is Doctor Clay. Would it be possible to see you and your husband today to talk about your daughter's current condition?" he asks and I breathe in sharply.
"Yes, of course," I say, feeling my heart sink to my stomach.
Soon after the phone call, Harry and I are sat opposite Dr Clay, who has a grave expression on his face.
"I didn't say too much on the phone because I wanted to tell you in person," Dr Clay says and both Harry and I have extremely worried looks on our faces.
"At the moment, Lily's immune system isn't working as well as we'd like it to. She has pneumonia, a lung infection, and sepsis, a blood infection. Her body is working really hard but it's costing her a lot of energy, almost too much. Of course, we have her on antibiotics and even more oxygen but she was born at twenty-six weeks, which is extremely early for a baby. We are doing our best to help her but even our help has its limits. I'm sorry to have to tell you but we're not sure if she's going to survive," Dr Clay continues.
When he's finished talking, my throat is dry, my eyes are completely the opposite, my tummy is churning and I feel like I have to throw up.
When I look at my side, Harry is ghostly white and has his mouth open, trying to say something but can't seem to form the proper words.
After a minute of silence, tears streaming down my face, I feel my breakfast rising and I jump up and run to the nearest bathroom. I fall to the floor and throw up in the toilet.
The woman who was washing her hands comes and rubs my back as I vomit.
A few seconds later, Harry has also arrived and is holding back my hair. The woman doesn't even seem bothered by Harry's presence in the ladies' toilets.
After my last heave, Harry hands me some toilet paper which I use to clean the tears and vomit from my face. Despite my attempts to wipe the tears away, they keep coming back.
Both Harry and the nameless woman wait until I've stopped crying. It takes a while but I know Dr Clay will wait patiently until we've returned.
"Are you okay?" the woman asks but I shake my head.
"Are you still feeling sick?" Harry asks and I shake my head again.
The nameless woman stands up and gets a piece of paper and a pen (something Harry and I recently replaced the quills at home with after having trouble with ink spilling). After about half a minute, she hands me the piece of paper with her name, Kate, and a number.
"Call me if you need to talk and considering you came from the same corridor I go down every day to see my baby, I think we may be in the same kind of situation," Kate smiles and I nod thankfully.
"Thank you, I will," I thank her and she stands up while flushing the toilet.
As predicted, Doctor Clay is still sitting where we left him. He smiles at us when we come in. I sit down but remain holding Harry's hand.
"So, do you have any questions?" he continues and I look at Harry.
"What are her chances of survival?" Harry asks croakily.
"From what we've concluded from all the tests, I'd say about fifty percent," Doctor Clay says and my mouth falls open.
"And is there anything else we can do?" Harry asks again, also quite surprised.
"All we can do is wait," he answers, but this time I've found my voice and I'm not scared to use it anymore.
"Just wait?! Our daughter could be dying right now and you're telling us to wait! How can you? There must be something you can do just to help a little girl?" I shriek and stand up in fury.
Harry tries to get me to sit back down but I won't go down without a fight just yet.
"You're a doctor, for Merlin's sake, isn't it your job to make people better? And how long have you known about Lily's condition? You are not telling me that today is the first time you found out?" I say fiercely but Harry manages to get me down on my chair again.
"Again, we're sorry but I don't think there's a lot we can do for Lily except to let the antibiotics do their work," Dr Clay says calmly, not having noticed my slip up.
"So there's not a lot, but there is something? Besides the antibiotics?" I ask in a small voice.
"Well, there may be one thing that we can try," Dr Clay says and I perk up.
"Tell me," I say, a little demanding.
"Have you been pumping breast milk yet?" Dr Clay asks but I turn a shade of red.
"I've tried but there hasn't been a lot yet," I answer, a little ashamed.
"Don't worry, it's not uncommon for woman who had their child or children preterm. I'll prescribe you some medicine that should help and if you start taking it this afternoon, you should be able to see progression tonight. I want you to keep the milk you pump and then when we see each other tomorrow, we'll give it to Lily to see how she reacts to it. In a few rare cases, breast milk should increase Lily's chance of getting a necrotizing enterocolitis, which is a serious condition in the stomach and hopefully it should help with Lily's immune system as well," Doctor Clay says while writing the prescription.
After giving us instructions, Harry and I stand up and leave. We quickly pass the room where Lily is being kept and as said, she has a lot of tubes and wires in/on her.
"Come on, let's go and get this medicine and hopefully help Lily," Harry takes my hand and we walk to the car.
After we get the medicine, I call Mum and Erin, asking if they want to come over for a little while as I could do with some support. I would have asked Hermione but she just had her baby boy, Hugo, last week and I don't want to bother her.
All three kids are currently being looked after by the only family member who didn't just recently have a baby (or isn't looking after dragons in Charlie's case). George and Angelina happily agreed to take all three boys. Of course, they do still have Roxanne who is seven months younger than Albus but they were the first from the list I had made who said yes. Percy was second on the list but George had already said yes before I could ask my other brother. I didn't want to bother Hermione or Fleur as they both recently had a child, I felt guilty about asking Erin after she looked after the boys last time and she has her own daughter to take care of, Charlie has his own babies to look after and Mum and Dad went out for the day yesterday.
After taking my medicine, I hear someone arriving and when I go to the living room, I see both Erin and Mum standing outside the fireplace.
I give both of them a hug and offer them something to drink.
After sitting down and talking about the latest news, Mum asks how Lily's doing. This causes me to fall silent.
"Well, she has pneumonia and another blood infection. The doctors have given her a fifty percent chance to survive," I mumble, tears threatening to leave my eyes.
"Oh no!" Erin gasps and wraps her arms around me.
I bury my head in her shoulder and the tears start running down my face again.
Mum takes the other place next to me and rubs my back soothingly.
"It going to be okay," Erin says.
"How do you know?" I ask, fed up that everyone keeps saying that but it may as well not be true.
"With you and Harry as parents, I don't think she really has a choice. Besides, from that one time I saw her, she's a strong girl, she'll make it," Erin tells me which makes me smile slightly.
*
It's a few weeks later when the phone starts ringing. I stare at Harry and I'm almost too scared to pick up the phone. Harry follows me to the hallway.
"Hello, Ginny Potter speaking," I mumble and I immediately recognise the voice.
"Good morning Mrs Potter. We just wanted to inform you that after being extremely afraid that Lily wouldn't make it as her condition was worsening, we were extremely relieved when we found out this morning that her blood infection has completely gone away and the pneumonia is almost gone. She seems to be getting better and better and we wouldn't be surprised if we can start slowly reducing the amount of extra oxygen within three weeks," he says which makes me speechless.
"Mrs Potter?" Doctor Clay asks but Harry takes the phone from me.
"Yes, she's fine, just in shock," Harry smiles and then finishes the conversation.
With tears in my eyes, I embrace my husband.
"She's going to make it," Harry whispers and I nod.
"You and Erin were right. Everything will be okay in the end," I dry my tears before James comes walking down the stairs.
"Mommy? Are you sad?" he asks but I smile and shake my head.
"No dear, I'm really happy," I tell him and he walks up to me and hugs my legs.
"Good," he says with a nod.
I let Harry go when I hear Albus crying from the playroom. As James is still clinging to my legs, Harry goes to get him.
When he gets back, it appears that Albus was trying to walk through the door but walked into the doorpost instead and he now has a small bump on his head.
"You'll be fine Al, don't worry. Now, who wants something to drink?" Harry soothes Albus, who immediately perks up at the word 'drink'.
These past few weeks have been extremely tough for us all but especially for me and Harry. We've been worrying about our daughter who is still in the hospital, we've had to look after our three other sons, James just started school as we decided to send him to a Muggle primary school near Godric's Hollow and Harry has been taking him there everyday. We've been continuing with homeschooling Teddy again but all of us have our minds with Lily in the hospital. Luckily Mum has been amazing by helping me and Erin visits about twice a week to help out as well as keeping the kids distracted. I also spoke to Kate a few times and she had a few tips and she was amazing to have as company. She asked me to come with her once her daughter, Emily, got released and I helped her a lot after she told me that she's a mother alone.
"I just hope Lily gets better soon and that she can eventually come home," I tell Harry as I lay in his arms, feeling tired but looking forward to seeing Lily tomorrow.
"So do I, but all in good time," Harry says and I nod, knowing he's right and that we should be grateful that she's survived it this far.
Q: What would be your favorite subject at Hogwarts?