Authors: Christine Duval
I open my eyes. “You give your mother foot rubs?”
He laughs. “No! My dad can do that, thank you.”
“Good, ’cause you were worrying me there for a minute.”
“I do change diapers, though.”
“Wow, Mike. You’re turning me on now.”
He smiles. “Just close your eyes and relax.”
I have no problem obliging, and all the tension melts away. Not just in my feet, either, but everywhere.
After a while of working in silence, Mike asks, “So what happens after you have the baby? Are you going to try and stay in school? Go back to the city? Move closer to the baby’s father?”
I take a deep breath before I answer this one. “He still doesn’t know. And, um, neither does my dad.”
Mike drops my feet. “Still?”
I wait for the lecture, but instead, he picks them up again and resumes rubbing. I watch him, waiting for the next question, but it doesn’t come.
“You’re not going to ask me why?”
“You must have a good reason. So, no. Although I do wonder what’s at stake for you. You’re cutting this extremely close to the finish line.”
“I know.” I pull my feet out of his hands and sit up. “I’ve made a mess of this.”
Mike moves up my bed, so now he’s lying next to me on his side, his head propped on his elbow. “Tell me something. What are you afraid is going to happen?”
I lie down, facing him, and I can’t help but reach over to touch his hand. We wrap our fingers around each other’s.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m even afraid. It’s just…it’s gone on for so long now with me living like this in silence, in this bubble up here at Colman. It’s almost bigger than me, this giant lie.”
“It’s not a lie if you haven’t told anyone.”
“It’s deceptive. That’s the same thing.”
“In all honesty, Laurel, the only one you’re deceiving is yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re imagining you can handle this all on your own, and you can’t. It’s just not going to be possible.”
“I know.”
He leans in close. “Let me be your friend.”
I look into those eyes of his and nod. “Okay.”
Then he presses his forehead against mine, and we lie like this for a while.
On April 2nd at 3:34am, Chloe Agatha Nichols arrived into the world. And at 4:47am, my phone rings, and Audrey is on the line, wide awake with adrenaline, to tell me all about it.
“Right around ten, I started to feel kind of off. Then the cramping started. After a couple hours of this going on, I called my doctor. He told me I should walk around and that it would be hours because it was a first pregnancy. So Bill and I went out to walk around the complex. Well, we attempted to, at least. I barely got to the other building when my water broke.”
“I thought that only happened in movies,” I tease.
“Oh my god. It’s gross! It was just gushing. Anyway, the contractions started coming on strong right away. I couldn’t even make it back to the apartment to change my clothes. I was in too much pain. And it wasn’t even worth it ’cause the water kept coming anyway.”
Too much information
… “So what’d you do?”
“Bill leaned me up against the car, ran in and got our bags, and we left for the hospital. He called the doctor on the way.” She stops talking for a second to come up for air, then, “So, they check me into Labor and Delivery, have me put on a hospital gown, and even though I am DYING, the nurse wants me to keep walking.”
“Really?”
“So we’re walking and walking, and I have to keep stopping to hug the wall like every two minutes because it is SOOOO painful, and all of a sudden I feel something strange.”
“What?”
“The baby’s head!”
“Audrey!”
“They had to bring a stretcher for me and rush me back. She was out before the doctor even made it to my room. A resident delivered her. Or I should say, caught her!”
“At least it was quick!” I have to laugh. Even labor is easy for Audrey. “Where is she now?”
“Sleeping next to me. She’s so beautiful. Six pounds, five ounces. Nineteen inches long. She’s the sweetest thing.”
“Where’s Bill?”
“Passed out on the chair. I think this whole thing was too much for him.” She laughs. “When can you come see her?”
By the time we wrap up our call, I’m too awake to fall back asleep, so I walk down the hall to take a shower. While I’m waiting for the hot water to come up, it feels like my nose is running. But when I go to wipe it, it’s blood. I grab a handful of tissues and start the process of pinching my nostrils. This is my third nose bleed in a week.
It takes a long time for this one to end, and the amount of blood has me woozy. So I slide onto a seat in a shower stall and wait for the feeling to pass. My hands and feet have swollen up lately. The nurse explained that I’m retaining water. It’s normal at this stage of pregnancy, she said. But my hands don’t even look like my hands anymore. They may as well be bear paws, they’re so big. You really do get to a point when you are too pregnant.
I bail on the shower because now the dizziness has turned into a migraine. I’ve had couple of these too this past week, and they are debilitating. The only thing that helps is closing my eyes, so I go back to my room, and that’s what I do.
The headache is definitely more intense today than the other ones, and my vision is blurry, so I end up skipping my first class. But I NEED to go to my freshman seminar because I’ve got to do better on the final exam than I did on the midterm, and it’s only a few weeks away now. I lug myself out of bed and wriggle on some clothes, grab my books, and hobble down the hill.
Sanford Hall is on the completely opposite side of campus, and with the baby pushing on my diaphragm, I am winded by the time I reach its front steps. I take a seat in the back of the auditorium and watch as it fills with the 125 students in the class. My face feels flushed, so I strip off my coat, not caring how evident it is I’m pregnant.
The hour and twenty-five minute seminar involves two teachers – a sociology professor from Argentina and an economics professor from Connecticut – debating different issues about culture. Today’s topic is whether globalization is diminishing ethnic diversity. I try my best to focus, but my head is pounding. And now I feel sick, too. When they finally agree to disagree – fifteen minutes late – I have such a strange sensation running through my body. I’m warm, my head feels disconnected from the rest of me, and my heart is pumping so hard it’s like I can count every single beat.
As soon as I’m outside, I dial Prof. Stoker’s number. “Something is wrong.”
She’s in her office. “I’ll be right there.”
Dr. Adler is at the hospital delivering a baby, but the nurse tells me I can still come in because the nurse practitioner is there. As soon as I enter the office, I’m ushered ahead of the other patients to the back. A blood pressure cuff is promptly put around my arm. The nurse takes it two times, then says, “Wait here.”
In less than thirty seconds the nurse practitioner, who was in with a patient, emerges and takes my blood pressure a third time, listening to my pulse with her stethoscope. When she finishes, she has the same stunned deer expression on her face as the nurse. “I need to get a urine sample from you, and I want to check your weight.”
I am escorted to the bathroom with a plastic cup, then put on the scale.
“Ten pounds?” I gasp, when I see the number staring back at me.
Worry lines frame her mouth as she checks my chart. “Since just last week.”
“That puts me over forty pounds!” I gulp.
She doesn’t say anything but escorts me back to a chair, this time insisting I put my feet up on another one as well.
Once the urine test is complete, she kneels next to me, her round face pensive and focused. She smells like coffee. When she speaks, the gravity in her voice is alarming. “Your blood pressure is dangerously high. It’s 180 over 110, you’re retaining a huge amount of water, and there is protein in your urine.”
“Okay. So, what does that mean?”
“It’s indicative of preeclampsia. You need to go to the hospital. Right now.”
“The hospital? But I’ve been fine…up until today.”
“It can come on fast. Though with the headaches you’ve been having and the nose bleeds, it might have been brewing all week.”
She stands and grabs the phone. “I’m going to call Labor and Delivery so you don’t have to admit through the emergency room.”
“Labor and Delivery? Are they going to deliver the baby?”
“Usually the protocol is bed rest while they monitor you and the baby. They’ll try to get you as close to your due date as they can.”
“So I could be in the hospital four weeks? I have finals coming up!”
She shakes her head. “You may have to make other arrangements. The hospital will be able to tell you more when they’ve had a chance to evaluate you.”
After she makes the call, she tells me, “Labor and Delivery is on the seventh floor. Go directly there. They are going to notify Dr. Adler you’re coming.”
The nurses don’t even let me walk to the parking lot. I’m moved to a wheelchair and rolled out to Prof. Stoker’s van. Once in the car, she puts the pedal to the metal, and we fly all the way to Rochester.
My eyes well up. How can this be happening? She notices my silent tears and tries to console me, all the while weaving in and out of traffic. “I can talk to your professors. This isn’t the first time a student hasn’t been able to complete a term.”
“I know. It’s just this isn’t the way I envisioned it going. I wanted to be done with my freshman year before giving birth. I don’t even feel that bad now. I’m sure I could keep working.”
“Not with preeclampsia!” She takes her eyes off the road to look at me. “This is serious! You have to do exactly what they tell you at the hospital. Colman can wait.”
My whole body tenses up as we approach the massive brick hospital complex. This is it. This is how it ends. I’ve been irresponsible all year, and now I’m being punished.
Prof. Stoker doesn’t bother looking for a parking spot. She pulls right up to the entrance and explains to the guard that we have an emergency. He lets her leave the van in the circular drive, and she whisks me into the elevator.
When we reach the seventh floor, it’s as if the entire Labor and Delivery staff is expecting me. “Laurel?” a woman in blue scrubs asks.
I’m ushered into a chair at the admissions desk, and while someone behind a computer inputs my information, the woman in scrubs hooks me up to a portable electronic blood pressure machine.
When the first reading is done, 170 over 115, she raises her eyebrows. “You’re not fooling around!”
We get to the part of the check-in process where they ask, “Type of insurance.” I knew this day was going to get here eventually. I reach into my bag and present my insurance card for the first time all year.
A series of questions pertaining to my father follows, and I provide every last detail. I even know his social security number. “You have a $250 co-payment for hospital admissions,” the woman behind the desk informs me once she’s made a copy of the card. Since I have no cash, I hand her my father’s Visa card.
When we are done with twenty questions, scrub woman, whose name is Nancy, transports me into a wheelchair and pushes me and the blood pressure machine into a room directly across from the nurses’ station. “We’re going to be keeping an eye on you.”
I’m handed a gown, a plastic cup for a urine sample, instructed to change and then get into bed, where I will need to lie on my left side. Prof. Stoker and the nurse leave me to do what I’m told. They’re back in five minutes flat.
Nancy returns the blood pressure cuff to my arm. “This machine is your new best friend. Get used to it.” As soon as it is in place, it starts to take another reading. She disappears with the urine sample.
Dr. Adler is the next to come in. He’s wearing jeans and a polo shirt. Without his white lab coat, I almost don’t recognize him. He puts his hand on my shoulder. “What happened?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.” He and Prof. Stoker make introductions.
He glances at the reading on the machine, this time it’s 175/110, then with his stethoscope he listens to my heart and my belly. “Nurse,” he calls when he’s done. Nancy reappears.
“I want her to be hooked up to a baby monitor, order a blood work-up, 24 hour urine test, and we’re going to start her on magnesium.”
“Magnesium?” I ask.
“It’s to prevent a seizure.” Dr. Adler sits on the edge of my bed. “You’re exhibiting symptoms of severe preeclampsia. No one knows what causes it. The one thing we do know is there is only one cure for it, which is delivering the baby. I’d like to try and get you further along, but I’ll need to see what your blood work looks like. Since you already experienced a headache with vision disturbances today, the most prudent thing we can do is administer magnesium sulfate to be safe.”
“So I’m not going to be finishing school.” It’s not even a question, just a statement.
“You’re not going to be getting out of this bed.”
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?”
That question is answered within the hour when Nancy hooks me up to a catheter, two IVs, takes six vials of blood, and belts a baby monitor around my abdomen. “Do you want to watch some television?” She puts the remote on the table next to me.
“No, but can someone hand me my phone? I think I need to call my father.”
Prof. Stoker has to get back before her kids get home from school, but she promises to call later. She strokes my hair. “Hang in there.”
My door is not allowed to be closed because I am under intense observation. So the privacy of my conversation is limited, but at this point I am so defeated, I don’t even care.
I press the speed dial, and my father picks up on the first ring. “I’m late for a meeting, Laurel. I have to call you back.” Click.
I almost have to laugh. You’ve GOT TO BE KIDDING! Not this time. I press speed dial again, and he answers on the second ring now. “Laurel, I told you. I’m late for a…”