A/N: I told you there would be lots of cuteness! Here's a little bit more before I give you some action.
2 ½ Weeks Old
"I always hated getting unsolicited parenting advice but I didn't know how bad it would be getting unsolicited advice from an entire country." Elizabeth stated.
"I know." Henry responded as he scrolled through Twitter seeing the same statements and criticisms about his wife's parenting abilities.
"It was one margarita with dinner and suddenly I'm an unfit parent." This was her eye of verbalizing her eye roll. "I wish someone would analyze the trade deal with Lebanon as deeply as every person seems to be analyzing this."
"Major trade events that will help shape the world and the economy of Lebanon or the Secretary of State's margarita? How am I supposed to pick which one to be interested in?!" Henry responded sarcastically.
"Yea yea." She said jokingly hitting him on the chest.
"Come on…" He started, turning over to plug his phone in to the charger and turn off his bedside lamp. "Let's get some sleep so we can be terrible, unfit, and alcoholic parents for another day."
He rolled back over and placed a soft kiss on her lips. He wrapped his arm around her waist as she rolled up to turn her bedside lamp off.
"Oooh ouch!" He hadn't been paying attention to wear his arm had fallen over her stomach as she shifted her body to the other side.
"Oh baby are you ok?" He immediately sat up and worrying crept onto his face.
"Yea… just turned weird or something… I forgot how bad my scar would hurt." She told him. He watched her face as the pain quickly left it and he could tell she was feeling better.
She adjusted her position again and he curled up next to her. He wrapped her in his arms and placed a kiss on the top of her head as they drifted asleep.
Henry knew she had been struggling with being away from Layla but he was incredibly surprised how well she had been sleeping lately. They had many discussions about how they would try to get their sleep now because once the baby came home there would be much less of it to go around but the first few days Elizabeth was home she couldn't get into that mindset.
Their sleep tonight would be interrupted and in a way Henry thought he was thankful for the practice. Elizabeth quickly answered her phone but it took Henry a couple seconds to realize that wasn't something that should be happening at 2:17AM.
"Hello?" He heard her answer. There was a pause from her… he couldn't see her face in the darkness to see the look of concern that had taken the place of her usually relaxed features. "Oh my god…" He could hear the change in her breath and knew something had to be seriously wrong. "Yes yes we'll be right there. Thank you." He could hear the nervousness in her voice.
"What's going on?" He asked her sitting himself up as she quickly got out of bed.
"Something happened with Layla some sort of hemorrhage or aneurysm or something I don't remember what she said…" She was rambling and now crying as she tried to see through her tears and change her clothes.
"Wait what, slow down honey…" He had barely sat up completely because she was rambling so fast.
"Something is wrong and we need to get to the hospital, Henry." She was still crying and not slowing down at all.
"Ok ok." He got up quickly and did his best to keep up with her pace. It seemed like a bit of a blur but he somehow managed to be ready at the same time as her and quickly got the car keys out of his jeans from the night before.
"Alright let's go." She had somehow pulled herself together enough to get that statement out without crying.
He followed her quickly down the stairs and to their waiting car in the garage. She remained a stop ahead of him which proved to be valuable in giving her a couple extra seconds to get in the car so he could take a breath.
He drove as fast as he could the ten minutes to the hospital. Each minute felt like hours of each of them. Tears continued to fall from Elizabeth's eyes and Henry wasn't sure what to say. They spent the ride in silence and Elizabeth seemed to sprint into the hospital when they finally found a parking spot.
Thankfully the elevator presented them with a moment where she was forced to slow down. As the elevator doors closed he wrapped her in his arms, fulling allowing her to take in this moment in the most security he could provide. He placed a protective kiss on her forehead as he pulled her in just a little bit tighter.
"She's going to be ok." He whispered to her. He was secretly hoping this was all a bad dream, a mix up even, but anything but as real and serious as it actually felt.
The ding of the elevator pulled them out of their racing thoughts and Elizabeth quickly began walking towards the NICU. Elizabeth could see from the second she got to the NICU door that their daughter's incubator was not in her room. With Henry following close behind her, she continued to power walk to the nurses station that she usually would walk right past.
"Mrs. McCord!" There was already a nurse waiting for them.
"Where is she? Is she ok?" Elizabeth was once again rambling but the nurse was more than prepared for that.
"She's going to be fine. She suffered from an intraventricular hemorrhage…" Elizabeth hadn't noticed Henry at her side. "This can happen with babies born before 30 weeks. There's no way to predict when one is about to occur and there's no way to prevent it. Because the vessels in their brains are so fragile and still developing, this can happen just as a result of their brains developing."
The couple felt their hearts sink to the pits of their stomach and shatter into a thousand pieces. The nurse could see the tears forming in Elizabeth's eyes.
"She's been taken for a brain ultrasound, it's the best way to diagnose the severity of the hemorrhage." She paused for just a moment. "Most IVHs occur within the first few days of life so it is somewhat concerning…" She was careful to watch their emotions and give them more information when she could tell they were ready. "Depending on the stage, we could be looking at potential development problems and possibly long term brain damage."
"When… when will we know something?" Henry asked obviously nervous and worried.
"As soon as the ultrasound is done." The nurse answered. "Should we in the next 20 minutes or so."
"Thank you." Henry told her.
Elizabeth hadn't been able to process anything the other two had said after she was told that their daughter could have long term brain damage. She wasn't a doctor by any means but she knew that a diagnosis like that would completely change Layla's quality of life. Her mind was racing, thinking of all the things Layla may never be able to do. Simple things like riding a bike or painting her fingernails, things she had taken so for granted.
The other two eventually noticed that Elizabeth hadn't heard anything that just happened.
"It might be a good idea if you wait in her room." The nurse finally broke the silence.
"Thank you." Henry told her with the tiniest smile, it was the only smile he could bring himself to offer. "Come on honey." He pulled her out of her thoughts but kept his hand around her waist and led her into the room where Layla had spent her life up to this point.
She felt like she was operating on autopilot as she made her way to the rocking chair she spent most of her time in and her attention went to the space where her daughter's incubator usually was. Her expression was somehow blank and nervous at the same time.
Henry's expression was one of worry. He worried for his newborn daughter and her future, but also for his wife and her feelings. He had heard exactly what the nurse said, that there was no way to predict that this would happen and nothing they could do to prevent it, but he knew she was blaming herself.
She had been blaming herself for every single thing that had went wrong. She blamed herself for her health complications leading to Layla's very early delivery. She blamed herself for Layla losing weight after she was born instead of remembering that each of their children did that. She blamed herself for Laya's acid reflux even though every medical professional who treated their daughter told them it was extremely common with preemies. He knew should would never forgive herself if something major happened to their little girl.
He thought about verbalizing the denial of her thoughts, telling her that it wasn't her fault. It wasn't the fact that she had a margarita at dinner, it wasn't the fact that she slept in the next day instead of being at the hospital before the night shift nurses left. He was so incredibly happy to see that his own thoughts were broken up by their daughter being wheeled back into her room with a small team of doctors and nurses behind her.
Elizabeth let out an audible sigh of relief when the team of professionals brought Layla back in.
"Mr. and Mrs. McCord…" An older woman in a white coat began. "I'm Dr. Weise." She held out her hand to the couple. Henry quickly shook it and Elizabeth followed. "Great news! It looks like Layla suffered from a stage two intraventricular hemorrhage. There's four stages of IVHs with levels one and two being the most mild and causing no damage and no reason to believe there will be any other complications. We're going to continue to monitor her very closely but she should be just fine!" The woman offered them a smile.
The team of nurses quickly situated things around Layla's room to make room for the new monitors that would be part of her gang of machines for the next few days at minimum.
"Once she's situated, feel free to practice some kangaroo care with her!" Dr. Weise finished. "It was great to meet you!"
As the nurses began to leave the room, Elizabeth and Henry were glad to see a familiar face. Jen was Layla's nurse that night and stayed behind to help Elizabeth get Layla comfortably on her chest.
When Jen left the room, Elizabeth let the tears leave her eyes.
"You scared me so much baby girl." Elizabeth whispered to Layla while placing little kisses on the top of her head.
Henry leaned over and stroked Layla's back as he placed a kiss on Elizabeth's temple.
"Don't you ever do that again." Elizabeth softly joked with a little giggle. "Of you'll be grounded until you're 30."
Henry matched her giggle and watched as his wife, the mother of his children, continued to cry tears of joy while holding their youngest child close. They had had scary moments as parents, but nothing like this. He knew having a preemie would be scary, he had no idea it would be this scary.
He was thankful she finally broke the silence. "I think this means the score is now McCords - 0, Life - 164?" She joked.
"Whoa! Give us some more credit… we've probably got four points by now!"