Addison Montgomery Shepherd's Point of View
"This better be a real emergency Mark so help me. I just worked a double." Arizona runs into my hospital room. Mark had called, texted, and paged her nine one one more than several times "Three hundred and forty-two texts, calls, and pages between the lot of you."
"I wouldn't have been so frantic if you would have just answered the first time!" He accuses.
"I just worked a double. I needed to sleep. You know how noisy the apartment complex is during the day. I had my noise canceling earphones in. I'm sorry."
"Your residents and interns are clueless." Mark says gruffly. "I have no idea how they're even passing residency."
"You were clueless once too." She replies, annoyed. She looks at me, curled up in the fetal position with my head resting in Mark's lap. My hair wet and matted with sweat. With each contraction I pull myself into a tighter ball and bite down hard on my bottom lip, tensing my body up. I had removed all of my monitors. I could not stand not being able to move freely. I feel like I am on the verge of hyperventilating. I cannot slow down and even my breathing out. Mark is trying his best, but he can't soothe this pain away.
"How long has she been like this?" Arizona demands. She takes my vitals telling Mark that my blood pressure has sky rocketed and my temperature is 104.6. "Addison do you want to tell me what's going on?" She asks me her tone sympathetic, so much more kind than the one she used with Mark.
"What isn't wrong?" Is all I manage to say, and she looks from me to Mark helplessly and checks baby's heartbeat with a portable fetal monitor. She hadn't had time to grab the ultrasound machine.
"Derek is in jail. He assaulted her." Mark says through gritted teeth. He gives Arizona the cliff notes version of the day's events. "She got through the testing and procedures fine, but she spiked a fever and now she's contractions. Your team tried to stop the contractions, but it's not working." Mark looks up at Arizona pleadingly.
"Addison, I'm going to have to examine you and do an ultrasound to check on the baby. I can't get a good reading with this monitor." She says. I look up, confused, and then lay my head back down as if it has taken all the energy in the world from me to do so.
"She…can't… be… born…now." I say through broken breaths, all logic and reasoning gone. I can feel the baby moving downward with each contraction. I know there is no way to stop it. That truth makes things even worse though.
"This is scary. I know. We might not have a choice honey." Arizona sets up the oxygen and places the nasal cannula on me. "You're not alone. We're here for you. Just breathe. Slow deep breaths. Let the oxygen help you calm down."
"Do…a…emergent…cerclage." I suggest, trying to think of something, anything to keep this baby inside. I try breathing in slow deep breaths. The oxygen does help. It also helps clear my thinking enough to realize that surgery is not an option. I've been in labor for too long. The infection risk alone is too high even if you're not starting off with an infection. I frown, thinking of how cruel life is. I never wanted this baby. This baby was a direct result of Derek's abuse, yet I would do anything in my power to save her life in this moment.
"We'll check on baby for now, and then we'll decide what our next steps are." Arizona says, trying not to sound alarmed. Arizona leaves and comes back with an ultrasound machine. She puts a little more gel, I move my shirt up a bit, looking away from her moving the wand around, ashamed of the fresh bruising.
"You have to save her. Ari please." I say weakly. She moves the wand around some more, finally finding the baby. She looks at the screen to confirm what she is hearing and then shakes her head; this is more than she had bargained for when she came in after such a long shift.
"Baby's in distress. Her heartrate is all over the place." She said, she wipes the gel off of me, but then goes back, looks at the specific positioning of the baby on the ultrasound machine to me, raising her eyebrows at me. "I need to do a pelvic exam, and if you have not progressed too far, we will prep an operating room." Mark gets up from the bed and helps Arizona prepare me for a pelvic exam, trying to keep me comfortable by not having me make too many sudden movements on my own. Mark positions himself next to me, holding my hand, and gently wiping my forehead with a cold damp cloth.
"Okay, Addison you're going to feel my hand and some pressure." Arizona says, after she has washed her hands and changed gloves. She checks and lets out a sigh of discontentment. Whatever she saw just confirmed what she saw on the ultrasound.
"What is it?" I ask her, concerned. I try to it up, to see somehow, but Arizona shakes her head and Mark holds me down.
"Everything is going to be fine Addison." Arizona says, calmly. She looks so pale though, there is a fear in her eyes. "I can see the baby's head. It's in the +5 position. You're crowning." She gives me a little smile; I know she is trying to keep me calm. "Mark, I need you to do something for me. Call the NICU get an infant warmer and an infant crash cart down here STAT. We're going to need some help. We don't have time to move her. Mark nods, and attempts to leave, but I cling to him.
"You're safe." Arizona tells me firmly. "Let him go." Something about the authoritative tone in her voice causes me to release Mark's hand. He gives me a gentle kiss on the forehead, promising to return as soon as he can and leaves.
"I'm not safe; you know that. You can't deliver this baby Arizona." I bite my lip hard, drawing blood. "I won't let you… I'll… I'll leave." I threaten as panic fills me. I grab the edges of the mattress and push down, arching my back and trying to relieve some of the pressure. It feels like my spine may snap in half. She looks at me, a mixture of annoyance and compassion.
"Your baby is coming Addison. You can't just ignore this, and it's not going to go away. Look at me. You're bleeding heavily, you're fully dilatated. I have my hand on your micro preemies head." Arizona says, trying to reel my focus back in. " I need you to focus. Addie focus. Our goal is to get the baby out safely so we can help her, right?" She asks, and I agree.
"It hurts." I say wearily. I keep flashing back to Derek's abuse, the night that we conceived this baby. She won't survive. She was conceived through rape, and she will die as a result of rape. I cannot deal with the reality that my life has become.
"Do you want to talk about it? You have time. Unless you absolutely need to push, I don't want you to push until Mark is back with the infant warmer and crash kit." She says. I know she is hoping to distract me from the physical pain. I had refused any type of narcotics or an epidural. I was so certain that the labor would stop.
"No." I say, shaking my head. "I just…" I try to form what I want to say in my head, and I can't. I fall silent. Thinking about it a little more. "I just didn't expect that it would feel like he is raping me all over again. He tracks my periods, he raped me to have her, and then he rapes me to abort her when he realizes that she is going to come in between him and Meredith." I'm angry. I don't know what made me say this, but I'm upset, and confused. The truth though. I draw a breath in quickly, trying to fight nature, pain increasing ten folds as I struggle against the urge to push.
"Oh, Addie." Arizona says, sympathetically. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that. You should use this as a chance to let him know that he does not own you." She says, soothingly. "It's time Addison. With the next contraction I need you to push. Let your body do what it was made for. Don't fight against yourself. You can do this…I'm right here."
"I can't 'do this. Mark's not here. I need Mark. I don't want to do this anymore." I whimper as my body tenses, and releases. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I should have had more time to prepare. Time to turn things around for this baby. Time to give her the very best shot that she has to be healthy.
"I'm right here." Mark says, coming through the door with several members of the NICU team who busied themselves plugging in the warmer and getting it set up.
"No. You can't do that." I demand.
"Do what?" Mark asks confused. "Today is your day. Baby, we can do anything you need to help you through this."
"Don't be nice to me." I insist. "If you're nice to me I'll cry and if I cry I'll…" I trail off.
"Fuck it." Arizona says, and I am caught off guard, pulled out of my misery. Arizona doesn't swear. This forces me to look at her. "Fuck what other people may think. You've been through hell. You need to cry Addison. Get Angry. Scream if you need to. You deserve to be able to feel your feelings!" Arizona locks eyes with Mark and nods. I sit up slightly and Mark climbs up on the bed behind me. Without saying the source of the pain, he pushes pressure towards my back, providing support. I sigh with a little relief. He whispers something in my ear, and a single tear falls down my cheek.
"Ready?" Arizona asks, and I nod, a look of concentration taking over. "It's okay to scream. Tell us what you would tell him if you could." She suggests, trying to think of anything that would help. I shake my head. I don't want to be loud. I don't want to disturb the other patients. "What everyone else thinks doesn't matter. You do what you need to do to get through this. On the count of three. One… Two… Three." Mark takes both of my hands and squeezes them hard. I don't push, and I don't scream. I freeze. I can't hear them, not properly. There is a little white bunny rabbit just outside the window. It hopped out of one of the bushes. I watch as it turns around and looks up at the window. It blinks several times, twitches it's nose, and disappears. I have to be hallucinating. It's the fever or the pain, something. In a woosh everything returns to normal. I can hear them again. They're arguing. Arizona has the ultrasound wand out again and is checking on the baby's heartrate. She shows Mark the lines showing distress.
"You have to get her to push. The baby is in distress, she needs to come out, now. She can't handle the contractions, and with each contraction there is restricted oxygen flow. She keeps holding her breath."
"How am I supposed to do that?" He demands.
"I don't know. She's unstable. We can't operate here." Something about her frantic tone snaps me out of it.
"What do you know?" He demands.
"If we don't get this baby out within the next few minutes instead of having a baby, she'll be losing one."
"I'm okay." I say quietly. They both look over at me. "I'm ready now."
"Okay, lets try again." Arizona says. "One… two… three."
"I…Just…Want…To…Know…WHY!" I surprise myself when I realize that the scream had came from me. I gasped between each word. Breathing becoming more difficult as I lean against Mark and push through the contraction. My water breaks with the first push, and with the flood of amniotic fluid comes an unexpected flood of emotion. Anger, guilt, rage, sorrow, remorse. One of the nurses administer a fever reducer into my I V.
"You're doing great Addison. One… Two… Three…" Arizona coaches. "Deep breath and push."
"I hate you." I push a little bit. "I hate you!" I push again, stronger this time. "I HATE YOU!" I scream, pushing as hard as I can manage, with a gush I feel the baby leaving my body, and I collapse back against Mark. Panting, sobbing, exhausted.
"Look at this baby…she's A beauty." Arizona exclaims as she catches the tiny baby girl and suctions out her mouth. Happy tears of relief running down her eyes when the baby takes a breath and lets out a little cry. I know she is thinking the same thing that I was. We both thought the baby would not survive the birth. "You did so well Addison." Arizona cuts the baby's cord, and wraps her in a warm dry blanket, to transfer her to the warming bed. For a minute just a quick second if we're being realistic, they let me see her.
"Hi baby…" I whisper, crying harder for a whole different reason now. I take in every bit of her. I couldn't not take this second to see her, not after being denied this chance with Ella. The baby looks up at me and squeezes my finger. That quick second before they rushed her away to the infant warmer to be worked on was all that it took for me to feel completely different than I had before. She's, my baby. It doesn't matter where she came from. She's my baby, and I love her.