Chapter 9: Constant Vigil
Time, it didn't pass fast enough for Abby. The cold feeling in that room on the maternity ward, just didn't feel like the place where she was supposed to be. Having a baby, this wasn't what it was suppose to feel like. She should be happy, overjoyed, but yet she was neither of those. She was heartbroken, alone, desperate to see her child. Arms that should be holding a baby girl, rocking her, watching her sleep, those arms were empty and that's how her heart felt right now, completely empty.
The epidural had long worn off and she had control of her extremities again. She paced for a little while tiring herself the rest of the way out. Still no news of her baby girl. It had been four hours since she had been born and no one had even come into the room to tell her how her daughter was doing, and John, he was a useless bundle of information.
They will come and tell us when they know, hearing that from him hadn't set well with her and she wasn't sure if it was just the stress, the change in hormones or what it was that was making her feel the way that she did right now. Someone had to know something, but yet there was nothing.
She sat now on the edge of the bed, Carter having gone down to the cafeteria to get something to eat, telling her to have him paged if word came down. She couldn't make herself go. Abby pulled her feet up so that her arms were wrapped around her legs and her head rested on her knees, it seemed like forever that she had been able to get into this kind of a position. Her tears started to flow, she had to cry there was nothing else inside of her and no other release for the pain that she was feeling right now.
A soft knock on the door pulled her from her solitary crying. Who could be there? This might have been the news that she had been waiting for. "Come in." She called out running her hand under her eyes to wipe away the tears that had been there. She didn't want anyone to see her in her moment of weakness.
"Abby," a familiar face came into view, one that she knew would have some glimmer of news for her.
"Yes Dr. Simmons." It was the baby's cardiologist; he was supposed to be one of the best in Chicago.
She watched as he pulled a chair up next to where she was, "I'm sure that you are more than ready for news of your baby's condition and what we found in the cath lab."
"Yeah." She said nodding, she knew that John wanted to be there that he should be there for this, but she didn't take the time to reach over to grab the phone. "More than ready."
However it didn't matter, that she hadn't for Carter had bumped into the doctor in the hallway, he had been talking with the OB nurses rather than face Abby and stood now in the doorway listening to what the doctor was going to tell her.
"The baby…" Abby stopped him, not in an attempt to be rude, but more for her than anything else.
"Eryn." She said, a hint of a smile crossing her face when she said her daughters name.
He nodded in response, "Eryn, did as well to be expected in the cath lab. And it gave us pictures that we were hoping for, to get a better understanding of what exactly is the nature of Eryn's condition." He was making a point to use the child's name, knowing that it meant something to the parents to hear their child referred to it, rather than as the baby.
Abby nodded now waiting for him to go on. She didn't know if she was going to be able to handle hearing this, but she knew inside that she needed to know, she just wanted to be able to be upstairs to see her child.
"It's a little more complicated than what we thought we were dealing with, as you know we knew that Eryn had a coarctation but what we were also able to see what that she has a very small left ventricle." He was talking slow, knowing that even though Abby had medical training that the words that he was using were ones that she would know, but that she was now a patient's mother and needed those few extra moments to absorb the gravity of the situation.
"We have a two options here that we could pursue, our best one at this point in time is to keep the PDA in her heart open and then when she's a little bigger go in for corrective surgery. It would be the first of three that she would need to correct the defect in her heart."
Abby was trying to let everything that he was saying sink in to try her best to keep from breaking down again right there and then. This wasn't the news that she had been hoping for. She had wanted to hear that this was something that they could fix in a single shot and then go home and lead normal lives again. "What's," it took her a minute to form words, "what is our other option?"
He took a deep breath knowing that this was going to be a difficult thing for her to hear, "the second option is that we put Eryn on the transplant list and see if we can get her a new heart."
Those words hit Abby like a ton of bricks. A heart transplant in an infant. She could feel the tears in her eyes now, no this could not be happening; they had to have someone else's baby mixed up with hers. Those test results had to have been wrong.
"That's not the option that I suggest we chose." He said strongly stating his medical opinion to her. "I think that we should do the three stages of surgery. It's in Eryn's best interest to do it that way."
Eryn's best interest, what did this man know about that. She didn't like either of them but knew that she was going to have to make a decision.
"Abby." Carter's voice sounded in the room, it wasn't loud but he had made his presence known to her now. "I think he's right."
She sat there unsure of either man's opinion right now. "I just want to see her." Abby's voice was so soft and weak that it barely carried into the room.
"I understand." Dr. Simmons said, "talk it over; this is a decision that you both need to make together. If you have anymore questions for me the nurse knows how to get in touch with me and I'm sure that you can go up and see her now."
Those were the words that Abby had been waiting so long to hear that she could go up and see her baby girl. Carter put his hand on her shoulder now, standing next to her, "thank you doctor."
Abby nodded, "yes thank you." There wasn't much else she could say her thoughts had changed gears and she just wanted to get to the NICU. She did hold it inside until the doctor had left the room, "can we go please John, can we go see her?"
Carter held out slippers for her, "yeah baby come on." He said gentle with her right now, knowing that this was just as hard on her as it was on him. And knowing the conversation that laid ahead right now taking her up to see the baby was the better option it would do them both good to see the baby.
He helped to get her upstairs, the walk was slow, Abby might have been pacing in her room, but she was far from moving fast. Slow from the trauma of childbirth but determined to get up there.
Walking from her room to the maternity ward was the longest walk she had ever taken and it felt as if she was never going to get there. She scrubbed like she was told to, not wanting to get Eryn or any of the other babies sick and then let them lead over to the tiny baby's baby warmer.
As she stood there next to it what she saw was tearing into her. Her small fragile baby had a tube down her throat to help her breathe, wires and tubes appeared to be coming out her in places you never would have thought. Abby's breath caught in her throat, tears welling up in her eyes again threatening to fall.
She reached down and gently touched the small hand that was poking out from under the blanket, so tiny where those little fingers. Her daughter once pink and healthy looking, no different than any other newborn that she had helped to bring into the world was now not the same.
You could hear the heart monitor beep every time that her fragile heart beat. The gentle hum of the ventilator that was pushing air into those tiny lungs. She just wanted to scoop the baby up and hold her every so close to her but knew that she could, she would have to settle for just touching that little hand.
Carter wrapped his arm around her, helping now to almost hold her up. This wasn't an easy sight to see. It never was when it was someone else's child, but now they were standing there watching it happen to one of their own. His flesh, his blood was laying there needing all the help that she could get to fight for her precious life. That was his little girl.
Both minds filled with worry, with fears, uncertainty lie ahead of them with their future, with their child's future. What would happen to her was in the hands of other doctors, Carter was the doctor that, that trust was usually put into and now he had to stand back and put that trust into someone else's hand. A hard thing to do when your child's future was at stake. Soon enough they would have heart wrenching medical decisions to make but for right now, it was enough for them to be there with her. To let her know that she wasn't alone, her mother and her father were both watching vigil over her and that is where they would both remain.