June, born in May.
“She’s okay. She’s okay,” he said, his eyes big and wild and frantic. “She’s in the NICU and they say she’s doing very well, considering she’s preterm. She’ll be able to go home no problem.”
The words rushed out of him. He seemed like someone on a massive number of uppers.
“She has your nose. She’s so small. Four pounds and ... Shit, I can’t remember how many ounces. But she’s good, okay? She’s good.”
It sounded like there was a “but” coming.
“AmIokay?” Gwen asked.
He started sobbing again.
“I thought you were going to die,” he said. “They couldn’t stop the bleeding. They had transfusions going from all these ports.”
Gwen just stared at him. It was like he was talking about someone else, an acquaintance of theirs. Janice, their neighbor. Carmen, their house cleaner. She was still so out of it.
“I’m okay,” she told him.
And he lost it again.
On day five, color started to return to Gwen’s skin. They took her off the Dilaudid, an opioid pain medication that had made everything feel like a dream. One by one, they disconnected machines. They removed the pneumatic pads from her legs, pulled the electrodes off her chest. Jeff helped her get out of bed, repeating “Nice and easy” as she set her feet on the floor. She wasn’t strong enough to walk, but she shuffled, wincing in pain.
“I feel like I got cut in half,” she said. Then, glancing down toward the vertical incision in her belly: “I guess I did.”
On day six, they transferred Gwen to the maternity ward, and that was when they said she could see June. Jeff sat by her bedside as they waited for the nurses to bring in their girl.
“Honey, there’s something I have to tell you,” Jeff said. “The doctors and I thought we would wait because we didn’t want to upset you.”
Gwen felt her heart free-fall in her chest. The baby was dead. That was what he was going to say. They had been lying to her all this time about how well the baby was doing, waiting for her to recover enough strength to absorb the tragedy.
“No,” she said. Then: “No, no, no, no.”
He looked at her with a quizzical expression.
“Is it June?” she asked, her voice high pitched and panicked.
He put his hands on hers. “Oh god, no. June is fine. She’s coming. God, I’m an idiot. It’s not that. It’s ... they had to take it out.”
Take it out?The baby? Of course they did. She had no idea what he was talking about.
“June?”
He looked apologetic, likeI’m sorry I have to be this messenger.
“Your uterus, sweetie,” he said. “A hysterectomy. To help stop the bleeding.”
His face was pinched. He knew this would devastate her.
“My uterus?”
He nodded.
“They had to. To save your life,” he said. “But the most important thing is that you’re going to be okay. June is okay. Right? That’s the most important thing, right?”
His “right?” was so desperate that she felt she had no choice but to say, “Yeah.”
“I need to see her,” she said.
