A/N:
I don't really have anything to say here, so … go ahead and read ;-)
Title: Love is Strange
Author: MarieCarro
Beta: Alice's White Rabbit
Pre-reader: LunaEclipse
Genre: Friendship/Romance/Drama
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Bella Swan and Edward Cullen live in the small town of Ligonier in Pennsylvania. They've been best friends since they were six years old, and not much can keep them apart. Bella wants to leave small-town life behind, while Edward is fine with whatever, but that's not the only complication in their relationship. What happens when they fall in love … with each other?
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
CHAPTER 41
POSTPARTUM
"What was that?" Bella asked and grimaced as she handed the nurse the empty mug of chalky liquid she'd just downed in preparation for the surgery.
"Bicitra," the woman replied, her tone reminding Bella of Esme's maternal warmth. "It will make your urine less acidic and help your kidneys rid themselves of the uric acid after you've received your epidural."
"It tastes really salty."
"Yeah, it's not the most pleasant taste, but it's down now. I won't force you to drink anything else. I promise." The nurse smiled before she headed for the door, but she stopped before she exited and turned to Edward. "Someone will be in momentarily to help you with some scrubs, dear."
"Thank you," he said and turned back to Bella. "How are you doing?" he asked.
"Oh, you know," she started and sighed. "I'm nervous as hell to deliver our preterm daughter, but I'm doing my damndest to stay calm and keep my blood pressure down."
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "At least we got her to thirty-one weeks. That's much better than it was initially."
"That's true," she agreed. "But we're not out of the woods yet."
"No, we're not, but I'll be right there next to you. Okay?"
"Right."
After three weeks at the hospital, Dr. Graham had made it clear he didn't want to push it further when some test results came back showing Bella's symptoms were slowly worsening. Now, the entire process of preparing Bella for the OR was done in a calm manner and every step was thoroughly explained as ordered by Dr. Graham. Anything and everything was done to keep her and the baby's stress levels down.
In the OR, there was some activity but not enough to grab Bella's attention. Edward was sitting next to her, wearing the same scrubs as the staff and one of those fluffy, flimsy caps over his hair. He was telling Bella stories from their childhood about their old friend group in a very soothing tone, and it effectively distracted her as the nurses placed a curtain across her midsection.
The anesthesia had kicked in, and she couldn't feel a thing from her rib cage and down.
"Do you remember my seventeenth birthday slash end of school year party?" Edward asked her with a smile.
Bella rolled her eyes. "If I remember? How could I possibly forget that night?"
A playful twinkle glimmered in his eyes. "Yeah, that night will be etched in my memory forever, but I was thinking more of that awful tequila Jay passed around. Do you remember how disgusting it was?"
"To this day, I've never tasted anything worse than that," Bella agreed with a giggle. "I'd even take another swig of that chalk water from earlier over that tequila."
A stinging pinch caused Bella to pull a short gasp, but despite the unexpectancy of it, it was over quickly.
"Apologies," Dr. Graham said without taking his eyes off the incision. "The peritoneal tissue doesn't always numb completely. Do you feel any pain now?"
"No," Bella said and tried her best to relax again.
Edward took it upon himself to continue with the stories. "I have wondered several times over the years what would have happened that night if Kate hadn't gotten under your skin," he said, and Bella turned her head back to him as she tried to ignore the strange sensation of painless, numb prodding going on behind the curtain.
"Probably nothing," she said with a smile. "I guess she gave me the push I needed." A thought entered her mind as she remembered something. "That was the first time I said I loved you," she mused, not fully articulating the thought to anyone but herself, but Edward naturally heard her.
"I don't remember that. Wasn't the first time later that summer?"
"Officially, and to each other, yes, but I whispered it to you that night after you fell asleep."
"Really? You did?" A reminiscent expression softened Edward's face. "Now I'm sad I missed it."
"Don't be. You got to hear it whenever it coun—" She stopped herself when Edward suddenly whipped his head around and watched as Dr. Graham approached with a tiny, pink and purple creature, covered in goo.
She wasn't crying, but she was moving a little bit.
"I can only allow for a short moment of skin-to-skin contact before we take her to the NICU," he explained and placed her on Bella's chest.
Every last little bit of tension that Bella had felt over the last few weeks drained away when she felt the light weight of her daughter against her skin.
"Why isn't she crying?" she whispered.
"Preemie babies cry less than mature ones," Dr. Graham explained as he once again took her back from Bella. "Her lungs will continue to develop in the NICU, and she'll start crying more." He handed her to a nurse before he went back to focus on closing up the incision.
Edward was staring after his daughter with his mouth hanging open. The exchange between Bella and Dr. Graham had happened so fast, and he could barely wrap his head around the concept that he was now officially a dad.
"We're parents," Bella said softly, and it pulled Edward out of his brain fog.
He looked at Bella and smiled. "We are." He leaned forward, and they kissed, both of them processing what felt like a surreal moment.
"She was okay, though, right?" Bella asked next. "I mean, apart from being early, she's fine?"
Dr. Graham looked over at her for a moment. "Ten fingers and ten toes," he said, and Bella relaxed back to the best of her abilities as Dr. Graham finished up.
A lone tear escaped the corner of her eye and trickled down toward her ear, but she couldn't determine what emotion had brought it on because she was feeling everything at once. Fear, love, and relief intermingled into a ball that bounced around within.
The rest of the day was a blur for her as she was put in the post-op area for observation and monitoring, and later in the recovery unit. Edward was mostly with her, but during the times he wasn't allowed, she knew he visited their daughter, and she felt jealous.
She hadn't been cleared to move around yet, so that brief connection right after her birth was the only one Bella had had with the baby, and she felt empty and unfulfilled because of it.
However, when Edward then showed her the photos he'd been permitted to take just for her sake so she could at least see what she looked like, it calmed her down.
"She's so tiny," she said, her voice trembling with the emotions bubbling up.
"Yeah, they said she weighs just about three pounds and measures at fifteen point six inches, so she's on the smaller side of average."
"Did they say anything else?"
"Only that they're keeping a close eye on all the monitors. They're measuring her heart rate, respiratory rate, and her blood pressure, and the environment within the incubator is under strict control."
Bella looked at the photo on Edward's phone again. "I'm scared, Edward," she admitted. "I know they're taking care of her, but it's scary to be away from her now."
He nodded. "I know. I'm scared, too. But we'll get through this. As we always do."
~~LiS~~
A couple days later, Bella and Edward were sitting in their daughter's room in the NICU—she in a chair she could recline to keep pressure off the incision, and he on a sofa next to her—while a nurse assisted them with filling out the forms for the birth certificate.
Bella's eyes kept darting toward the tiny human in the clear incubator. She had pulled through the first forty-eight hours like a champion, but Bella had yet to even hold her, and it caused her heart to ache.
"Mother's full name?"
"Isabella Marie Swan," Bella replied mechanically while keeping her eyes on her daughter.
"Maiden name?"
"We're not married."
While Bella was unaware of it, Edward noticed the nurse's tightening of her mouth, and he felt the urge to reprimand her. He didn't, though, because he felt he shouldn't have to defend his and Bella's choices.
"Hmph. Father's full name?" The little scoff was almost inaudible, but it caused Edward to clench his jaw in annoyance.
"Edward Anthony Cullen," he spit out, and the nurse, having heard his tone of contempt, shot her eyes up to meet his. They had a tiny stare-off before she went back to the form.
"Right. Do you have a name for your daughter or at least something temporary?"
Bella forced herself to look away from the incubator to meet Edward's gaze. "I think we're quite settled on a name, right?"
He smiled affectionately at her. "Definitely."
"We're naming her Liv. Middle name Monroe."
For the first time, the nurse smiled. "That's a pretty name."
"Thank you. It's Scandinavian for life." She looked back at their daughter. "We thought it was fitting."
"And I'm assuming I should hyphenate your last names for her? Or is Swan enough?"
Edward had just about enough with the nurse's condescending tone, and he opened his mouth to give her a piece of his mind, but he was interrupted by Bella.
"No, her last name will be Cullen only."
He froze as they hadn't actually discussed that part, and he turned to Bella in surprise. "What?"
She turned back to him and gave him a shrug. "What?" she repeated. "We're most likely getting married eventually, and I'll take your name. This way, it'll save us the hassle of changing hers later." Her tone was very matter-of-fact, and it amazed Edward that despite her internal fears—which they were yet to talk to someone about—she had come to peace with the serious level of their relationship. She didn't even sound the tiniest bit scared when she mentioned their future marital status.
"To this day, you've never stopped surprising me, Bella Swan," he said.
"I hope that's a good thing," she teased lightheartedly.
"You know it is."
"Liv Monroe Cullen it is," the nurse said, and then continued down the form in the same stilted manner, but Edward was no longer annoyed with her. He was on cloud nine after hearing what Bella had said, and at that moment, he felt nothing could bring him down.
Not even a judgmental nurse.
~~LiS~~
"Are you okay?" Alice asked, and Bella forced herself to look away from the window.
"What?" she asked because she hadn't listened to what Alice had said.
"I asked if you're okay," she repeated, her expression concerned.
When Edward had to go back to work, he'd asked Alice to keep Bella company whenever she went to the hospital. He'd noticed some signs in Bella's behavior that worried him, especially when her appetite dwindled, and she appeared to sleep less.
"Why do you ask?" Bella was aware she avoided answering the question because she didn't know how she could. Physically, she was fine. The incision was healing nicely, but she didn't feel okay.
"Because you didn't even notice you finished," Alice pointed out and gestured toward the pumping Bella had done.
The nurses had explained to her how important it was that Liv was fed with her breast milk, and luckily, with some stimulation, her milk had come in just a couple days after the delivery. However, the sessions when Bella pumped happened to be the ones when she most often zoned out.
"Oh, right," Bella simply said and started to remove everything attached to her.
Alice sat down next to her and grabbed her hand. "Bella, talk to me. Edward's worried about you. I am too, and so is Jasper and Emmett and Rosalie. Ever since Liv's birth, you've isolated yourself." She paused to gauge Bella's reaction, but she got none. "And Edward said you're barely eating."
"I'm fine," Bella insisted and pulled her hand from Alice's grip. "I just haven't had much of an appetite lately."
There was an irregularity in the beeping of one of the monitors attached to Liv, and while Bella instinctively looked toward it, the second a nurse entered the room, she looked away again, back toward the window.
Alice silently observed her while also keeping an eye on what the nurse was doing.
"There we go," the nurse said a moment later. "It was just a small episode, but she resolved it herself splendidly." The nurse smiled at Alice, who smiled back gratefully.
"If you're fine, then how do you explain that?" Alice asked as soon as the nurse had left.
"What?"
"Don't play dumb, Bella. You know what I'm talking about. You barely look at Liv anymore. Whenever you're here, all you do is sit in that chair and stare out the window. It's okay; you can admit it. You're not fine."
Bella's eyes flashed toward Alice with a hint of fire in them. "No," she said harshly. The sudden mood shift took Alice by surprise, and she automatically took a step back. "I can't. What kind of mother can say she can't look at her own child without feeling uncomfortable? How can I admit to you that whenever I look at her, all I feel is an empty detachment?"
"It's oka—"
"Don't tell me it's okay," Bella spat out and tears formed in her eyes. "Just … don't."
Later that night, Alice was talking to Edward in the kitchen while Bella was lying down in the bedroom. Edward doubted she was sleeping, but she spent most of her time in bed when she wasn't at the hospital.
"She's really struggling," Alice told him. "And I think it's getting worse. She lashed out at me today, and then she couldn't stop crying."
Edward sighed despondently. "Dr. Graham said it's postpartum depression, and that it's very common for mothers of preemie babies. It's difficult to bond through a clear wall of plastic, and with Bella's history, it's not surprising she's taking it so hard."
"But I thought you were going to seek help together. What happened with that?"
"I've tried to discuss it with her, but it's hard to get through." He scrubbed his face with his hands in frustration. "It's been weeks, Alice. I don't know what to do. Dr. Graham says I have to wait until she comes to me, and when that time comes, I need to really listen, but it's torture to see her like this. I want to help so badly, but I can't."
Alice encircled her brother with her arms and hugged him, giving him as much comfort as she could. "I guess all we can do is show her we're here for when she's ready."
"Yeah." He sighed again. "I guess so."
A/N:
I have never been pregnant or given birth so postpartum depression isn't something I have any experience with. However, I have experience with depression, so I tried to keep it as simple as possible.
I know postpartum depression has many more aspects than what I've shown here, and it's much more complex than some would believe, but this is how I decided to portray it.
So, what are your thoughts?
Until next time,
Stay Awesome!