* * *
The next morning,Bolo walked me out to the SUV. My BP was stable again and had held all night. Dr. Natalie was having me come back in twenty-four hours to double check that protein in my urine again. She wanted to get a pattern on it but didn’t want me to stay in the hospital just for that. I needed to do the catch at home, and bring it in to her. Then she’d check me over while the lab ran their tests. No biggie.
I was wrong. It ended up being a big deal. I woke up the next day feeling awful. I had a headache, one of those warning signs of pre-eclampsia they always asked about, and it was like I’d been hit by a bus.
Bolo watched me with worried eyes as I dragged myself into the SUV and then into the hospital for my appointment. I was feeling entirely too awful to be surprised when the nurse took my blood pressure and it came back at one-ninety over one hundred and ten.
We’d just learned to bring bags of clothes, blankets, and things to do with us, so Bolo went out to the car to grab all that while they checked me into a room. I settled in the recliner—I still hated those beds—resigning myself to a night of blood pressure checks and fetal monitoring.
You could have knocked me over with a feather when Dr. Natalie came into my room that night and told me that she needed to put me on a magnesium drip. It was something they apparently put you on when your blood pressure was out of control and they were having trouble keeping it down so that you didn’t end up having a seizure.
She explained everything about it. They would have to monitor everything while I was on it. My heartbeat. The baby’s heartbeat. My blood pressure. How much fluid I was drinkingand voiding. Everything. They were going to watch me like a hawk to make sure I was doing okay.
No one was able to accurately explain to me the side effects of it. I mean, they tried. They told me what to expect. Reality was a whole different ballgame. No wonder they kept such a close eye on women who had to go on this stuff. It was the devil.
Within an hour, I felt like the living dead. My brain was foggy, I was exhausted, and it was like I had the worst case of the flu I’d ever experienced. Not so much the puking, but just that overall feeling of being unwell. My limbs were heavy and I couldn’t concentrate. I kept falling asleep, and then Bolo would wake me up because my oxygen monitor said I wasn’t breathing enough and would alert.
“Dev. Breath.”
I sucked in a deep breath, then drifted back off to sleep. I had no idea what time it was, though it was dark in the room so I knew it was late. I didn’t know if Bolo was sleeping at all or if he was staying up and keeping an eye out for me, but he was there each time the beeping started to remind me to breathe. I had no idea how much time had passed.
* * *
The next morningmy entire world changed, starting with a nurse waking me up with an exam. I’d gotten used to her waking me for her exams through the night. But this time it was different. She was asking me more questions. And she looked different. Worried. It was never good when the nurses looked worried because they almost never did.
Today I was twenty-eight weeks and two days pregnant and my nurse gave me a worried look as she told me that I had diminished lung sounds.
“What does that mean?” I asked as I sat up in my hospital bed. It was hard for me to understand what was going on because I was still on the mag drip. I felt chewed up, spit out, and what was left over was only a speck of myself. I really wasn’t able to be positive or cheerful while dealing with that medication. I wanted to be off it, but it would keep me from seizing. Maybe it would keep me from dying. Apparently, my pre-eclampsia was bad enough now, in two short days, that these things were something to be worried about.
How could this happen so quickly?
It was a question I didn’t have an answer to, but it was happening to me. I’d gone from thinking I’d get through this then hang out at home for a couple more weeks before hitting that thirty-week mark and be in the clear. The look in my nurse’s eyes was telling me I was far from in the clear.
Fear clogged my throat as I listened to my nurse explain.
“It means there’s fluid around your lungs.”
I looked over at Bolo, unable to speak.
“Does that mean we’re having the baby?” he asked for me.
“The MFM—Maternal Fetal Medicine—doctor gets to make the decision on whether a baby is born,” she explained gently. “The on-call OB is talking to them now.”
“Who’s on call?” I managed to squeak out. The relief was profound when she said Dr. Natalie’s name. Not that the other doctors who worked with her weren’t great. I’d gotten to meet most of them now with how often I’d been here, but I was glad she’d be the one here with me today. “So what do we do?”
“We’ll wait for Dr. Natalie to let us know,” the nurse replied. “Let me know if you need anything in the meantime.”
Bolo came over, squeezed his huge frame onto the bed where I was laying and wrapped me up in his arms. We waited like that until the next knock on the door came. It didn’t take long.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Natalie said as she came in. She gave us a weak smile. “We need to deliver your baby today. We’re worried there’s fluid building in your lungs, so I’ve ordered a chest x-ray before the delivery. And your numbers are showing that your heart is working too hard,” she continued. “Not to mention your kidneys. The MFM agrees, it’s time.”
“It’s too soon.” Both Bolo and Dr. Natalie stared at me. Thirty weeks would give my baby the best odds. But I didn’t speak the remaining words out loud because this wasn’t just about me. If I could hold out two more weeks and give him a better chance, I would. But if my body gave out, it gave out on both of us. Then Bolo would be left with neither of us.
I wouldn’t do that to him. Or to my baby. I trusted Dr. Natalie. She was doing what was right for both of us, and I was choosing to believe everything would be okay. “Sorry. I’m just worried about my son.”
“We’ll do everything we can. Twenty-eight weeks isn’t so bad,” she told me with an encouraging smile.
“I thought thirty was the line?” I asked.
