At least part of our dinner would be something healthy.
My lower abdomen started to cramp up again as I began chopping the vegetables. I did my best to hum, sing, and even dance a little through the pain. I managed to get the hamburger meat cooked through and poured in the seasoning packet and noodles from the box.
However, when I went back to the counter to toss the salad, searing pain ripped through my lower belly. I instantly fell to my knees and cried out in agony.
My belly burned and my vision blurred from the tears it caused.
“Ow.” I had one hand on my belly and one clutching to the edge of the counter.
“Baby,” Ace’s panicked voice broke through the haze of fire in my stomach. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I panted out in between breaths, gasping for air. It hurt so badly I could barely breathe.
“I’m calling the doctor.”
“No.” I shook my head. “They—they said since I’m not spotting, it’s okay.”
“Fuck that,” Ace growled. “You’re hurting.”
He kneeled on the floor next to me and dialed 9-11. The pain refused to subside, and instead of clutching to the counter, I held onto the front of Ace’s shirt.
“The baby,” I whimpered. “Please, let him be okay.”
Everything felt like it moved in slow motion. I couldn’t recall how long it took the ambulance to arrive or even when they loaded me onto the stretcher. All I remembered was Ace squeezing my hand tightly as he sat next to me in the back of that ambulance.
“It’s okay,” he said over and over, in between kissing my hand.
I tried to focus on one breath at a time. The pain in my stomach and back persisted while the paramedics wheeled me through the doors of the emergency department.
A curtain separated the room where they took me and then left. No one told us anything.
“What the fuck?” Ace growled after we waited for what seemed like forever but was likely only ten minutes or so.
“It—it’s all right,” I told him, squeezing his hand.
“The fuck it is. You’re in pain.” He barged through the curtain, turning his head this way and that, then disappeared.
Before I knew it, I heard him yelling at someone.
“My wife is in pain. She’s six months pregnant. What is going on?” he growled.
I wanted to yell for him to calm down, but the truth was that I was in too much pain to reel him in. I needed someone to tell me what was happening.
His temper worked in our favor that time because, minutes later, a doctor and nurse came through the curtain. Ace was right behind them, grilling them with his gaze as they wheeled in an ultrasound machine.
They asked several questions I felt like I either answered already or was in too much discomfort to even think of an answer to.
Once they conducted an ultrasound, all my hopes were dashed. Ever since my knees first hit the old, wooden floors of our kitchen, I’d silently prayed that our son was okay. I begged and pleaded to spare his life.
But then the words “Placental abruption” came out of the doctor’s mouth. Something about bleeding behind the placenta being the reason why I wasn’t spotting.
“There’s nothing we can do.” It was the ultimate crushing blow to what remained left of my heart.
I tried to fight. I attempted to get up from the bed and tell the hospital staff that they were wrong. My baby was still alive.
I almost fell, but Ace’s strong arms held me close. He whispered in my ear that everything would be okay.
I yelled at him too. How could everything be okay? Our baby was dead, and they told me that I still had to give birth to him.
