Page 53 of That Baby (That Boy 3)
"JJ. Wreck. Labor. Hospital." I say something to that effect.
Mom grabs my shoulders. "Is she okay?"
"She's fine but the wreck caused her water to break and she's in labor. I don't know much else."
"Okay, you go. I'll wait here for your father, put Angel away, and lock up. We'll be right behind you."
I nod as I open the car door and peel out of the garage.
Upon arrival at the hospital, I give them my name and Jadyn's and tell them she's on her way in an ambulance.
"I'm not sure if she'll give birth naturally or if they will want to do a C-section," the maternity nurse says, "but let's go ahead and get you scrubbed in."
Jadyn
The ambulance takes off, sirens blaring.
It reminds me of being in the police car the night my parents died. But that night, the siren's rhythmic sound was sort of soothing. Today it's not.
The contractions hurt way more than I imagined they would. I thought they were supposed to come in waves. Every few minutes. That you breathed through them, rested, then breathed through them again until they got closer and closer together. Then it meant you were ready to have the baby.
But in between these contractions, I still feel a deep pain coming from my side. I know I've never been in labor before, but something feels off.
I look down and notice blood on the sheet.
"I'm bleeding . . . " I say, mostly to myself, coming to the realization that my bad dreams are playing out in front of me.
The paramedic doesn't respond to me.
He yells to the driver, "We have a possible placental abruption. Let the hospital know."
Placental abruption. That's one of those worst-case scenarios. But I can't remember what it meant. Common sense tells me the placenta abrupts.
As in stops working?
I have another searing pain.
All I know is this.
Bleeding is not good.
I yell out again as I try to focus on the words and phrases floating around me and not on the pain.
Bleeding.
Possible placental abruption.
Baby's possible lack of oxygen.
Blood pressure dropping.
ETA.
Blood loss.
Emergency C-section.
"Marcus, is the baby going to be okay?" I ask, squeezing his hand as another contraction rips through me. "And tell me the truth--the worst-case scenario."
"There are a lot of factors. You're obviously bleeding but we can't know the extent of the abruption. In a full abruption, both the mother and baby are at risk. In a partial abruption, time is of the essence. The placenta feeds your baby oxygen and food and takes away the waste. Those things are key to the baby's viability."
"Viability?" I repeat, the word settling in.
Similar words scroll through my head from the night my parents died. Your father suffered severe brain trauma, and his body is shutting down. We've revived him once, but we need to discuss what you want done when it happens again. Did he have a living will?
I grab the front of Marcus's shirt and pull him close. "Marcus, this is important. I need to tell the hospital my wishes," I say as another contraction causes me to cry out in pain.
"What wishes?" he asks.
I close my eyes, not wanting to say the words I've been thinking. But there's something inside me that innately knows this is going to end badly.
"If there's a choice to be made, I want the baby saved. Do you understand?" I look at the paramedic. "Do you both understand?"
The paramedic nods but Marcus squeezes my hand. "Jadyn, I don't think--"
I cut him off. "This is important, Marcus. These are my instructions. Please, tell me you understand."
"I understand," he says.
"We need it in writing. We'll have the paramedics give it to the staff as soon as we get there. Do you have some paper?"
Phillip
Although it feels like forever, a few minutes later, Jadyn is being wheeled in on a gurney.
All I see is blood.
Why is there blood?
And whose blood is it?
Hers?
The baby's?
Marcus said everything was fine. That her water just broke.
There shouldn't be blood.
She sees me and reaches out for my hand.
"I'm sorry, Phillip," she says, crying, before a contraction causes her to groan and clutch her stomach.
Everyone is moving quickly around us.
"Her water broke, but we're seeing some blood, so there's a possible placental abruption," Marcus tells me.
The nurses rushing about haven't said a word. They are focused on her.
Marcus squeezes JJ's hand. "It'll all be okay."
"Remember what I told you," she says to him.
"What did you tell him?" I ask, but she cries out in pain again.
Placental abruption. That's bad. But I seem to remember that it could vary in severity.
I put my hand on her forehead, trying to keep her calm. Her eyes are big and she looks scared to death.
And that scares the shit out of me.
"It'll all be okay," I tell her, praying that it will be.
"Jadyn, we're going to do an emergency C-section," someone says.
Jadyn nods, tears filling her eyes.
"Phillip," she says in a panic. "I wrote it down, but you need to know too. Make them save the baby. Not me. And please promise me that you'll always remember what we talked about earlier. The love part."
"What? Don't even say that! Don't even think that!" I yell, repeating the words she said to me when I was telling her about all the things that could go wrong during early pregnancy.
"Here's the anesthesiologist," someone says as they're wheeling her into an operating room.
I'm following them, holding her hand and, so far, no one has said anything to me, but they are busy prepping her for surgery.
The nurse that scrubbed me in says, "You can be here for the birth, but they're going to have to put your wife under."
We're in the operating room now and everyone is moving quickly.
The anesthesiologist says, "Jadyn, I'm going to put this mask over your face. Just breathe normally and you'll be asleep quickly."
I give Jadyn's ha
nd a squeeze, hold it tight, and mouth, I love you.
"I love you too," she says.
She doesn't look as panicked now.
Instead, she has a faraway look in her eyes as the doctor puts the mask into place.
Her abdomen is draped, so I won't see them make the incision. I don't want to see that part.
Instead, I focus on her.
I gaze at her beautiful face and realize all the beautiful moments in my life have been with her by my side.
I try to focus on those moments.
Think positive thoughts.
She's here at the hospital. She'll be okay.
But her warning about saving the baby haunts me. Why would she say that? Does she know something we don't? She looked scared when they brought her in, but I'm sure being in an accident and going into labor when you don't expect it would be scary.
But it felt like more.
Then I remember her dream.
The reason I got crazy and bought her the safest car I could buy.
Oh. My. God.
No.
Please, God, please let her and the baby be okay.
Mostly, let her be okay.
I need her.
My eyes fill with tears as I imagine a life without her.
Something I can't even begin to fathom.
I shut my eyes tightly.
Stop thinking that way.
Positive thoughts. Positive.
Everything will be okay.
I look around the surgical room wishing I could remember more about emergency C-sections from our birthing classes. All the details I thought I would remember so clearly have vanished from my brain, probably because I thought it would never happen to us.
Everything is happening quickly but methodically around us, the surgical team moving like a well-oiled machine. And that calms me. They are calm. That means things are going to be fine.
In a few minutes, they have her opened up.
"The abruption is much worse than we thought," the doctor says, while I'm trying to remember what I read. What was the worst-case scenario for a placental abruption?
From somewhere in my brain come the words:
While a small abruption can be tolerated, excessive blood loss can result in the death of both mother and child.
I squeeze Jadyn's hand tightly, praying for the best and trying not to even consider the worst.
Make sure they save the baby. Not me.
She did know something. She knew something was wrong.
She knew.
Oh. My. God.
She can't die.
Cannot die.
It'll all be okay. It'll all be okay, I keep trying to tell myself.
