In My Blood
Chapter 6
Authors Note: THANK YOU for all of the amazing reviews thus far!
Addison Montgomery's Point of View
December 2010
"Six times. You stuck me six times. You blew six veins and you still do not have the blood you need. I've been more than fair. I've been kind. This is a teaching hospital; I tried to walk you through the steps of properly drawing a blood sample. I informed you of the best place to get blood from me. Right now though? My hands are tied, and my tolerance is wearing thin. You need to get your supervisor before I take this butterfly needle and cram it in your..."
"I'm sorry Doctor Montgomery Sloan. I .. I uh..." The intern cuts me off, stammering as I glare at him with distaste.
"In addition, if you would have bothered to read my file, you'd see my last name is Montgomery, not Montgomery Sloan." I don't know why this annoys me so much. Most people know Mark and assume I took his last name when we were married especially considering Heavenly had his last name, and this baby will as well assuming we do not go forward with an adoption. I guess it is just his lack of attention to detail.
"Addison stop, you're going to get security called. They'll kick us out." Mark warns gently.
"That's okay. I don't want to be here anyway." I say.
"Very funny." He steps between the intern and me. I don't know what he thinks I'm going to do. "I'll take the blood." He says, turning to the intern. "Watch and learn, you're lucky my wife has had her coffee this morning." Mark takes my wrist in his hand and tightly ties the rubber tourniquet around it causing the vein in my hand to bulge. He cleans the skin and then in one swift motion inserts the butterfly needle. One by one he attaches and fills the seven different vials. For good measure he reads the tests off to me to confirm HCG testing, CBC, quad screening, blood type and cross, fasting glucose tolerance levels, and several more. I just nod at him. He asks me to say confirm my full name and birthday and then puts the stickers on the vials and one by one places them in the bag.
"Take this to the lab." He tells the intern, who looks grateful for the opportunity to be away from me and leaves the room.
"I told you this was a horrible idea." I tell Mark.
"I'm proud of you." He offers, and I scowl at him. My wrists and my arms are beginning to bruise and hurt from where the intern blew the veins.
"These interns, they cannot even take a simple blood draw properly. We were never this bad."
"We were once. St. Helen." He teases with a smirk. I narrow my eyes at him. He was referring to the first time I attempted to take a patient's blood during med school clinical. Not only did I hit an artery, but I also forgot to close the valve off. I turned to grab another tube and the patient started spewing blood out of the port. The patient began freaking out and waving her arm about. Let's just say blood ended up all over us, the hospital room, and the ceiling.
"Oakley's fine Mark. I can feel her moving. This isn't necessary." I say, he just sighs, shakes his head 'no'. He wipes my hand with the alcohol again and then presses a cotton ball to keep the bleeding stopped and wrapped it in a bright red co flex tape bandage.
"You passed out in the shower; you hit the ground really hard. It's better to be safe than sorry." He kisses the top of my head, which wasn't completely dried yet from the shower. He helps me to lay back on the hospital bed and prepare for the ultrasound just as the attending OBGYN comes in with the machine.
"Are you ready to see this baby?" She asks cheerfully. She rubs the clear gel on my tummy with the ultrasound wand and moves it around until she finds the baby.
"Don't bother with the cheerfulness and pleasantries." I say impatiently. I have only been laying down for a few minutes, but my back is starting to ache from lying flat. My head is pounding, and I feel like I am going to be sick from not eating for the tests and only having black coffee. Every single time Oakley moves this heightens the overall nauseating sensation. I turn my face to look at Mark, anywhere but the screen as Oakley becomes irrationally active trying to escape the ultrasonic waves the wand is putting out. Mark grabs a basin just as I sit up, body trembling and vomit into the bowl. He gives me a paper-towel to wipe my mouth and slips me a hard candy from my purse that is supposed to help with nausea. It's bitter and tastes like sour apple. When the doctor asks if I am okay and if I want to try again, I nod, apologizing. I don't know this doctor, not really. She was brought in after I quit. I didn't even stay to train her.
"It's okay. This isn't the first time I've nearly been thrown up on. Don't worry about it." She says with a compassionate smile. Her teeth are white, too white. I wonder if she whitens them, or if they're just fake. She hands me a cold wet rag and I place it over my eyes.
"I don't want to see." I explain. "I don't want to see the baby or hear her heartbeat. I'm considering adoption and seeing her, hearing her will only cloud my judgment." Marks hands are on my face. He gently turns me, so I am facing him, and reposition the cloth so it's only on my forehead. I make this request too late, or maybe she didn't hear me because mid-sentence Oakley's heartbeat fills the room. Tears of relief I didn't even know I was holding in fall from my closed eyes. Her heartbeat is healthy, strong.
"You have to look Addison." He wipes the tears from my eyes as I shake my head 'no'. "If you do not look, I will never forgive you. You have to look before you make a decision that is going to destroy the rest of our lives." I'm crying harder now, but still can't bring myself to look at the screen.
"Dr. Sloan that's not helpful." The doctor says. "If she wants to look that's fine, and if not that's okay as well. I will put the images and video I take today on a disk if she'd like to see later."
"Baby please look." Mark begs. "It's okay. Our daughter is perfect. She's healthy." He reassures me quietly. I take a deep breath and force myself to open my eyes, and look up at the screen, observing as each measurement is taken.
"Here's baby's face." The doctor pushes a few buttons and prints out the image before moving on and continuing with her measurements.
"Oakley looks just like you." I say to Mark. I find myself smiling, and it feels so wrong. I realize it feels wrong because it is genuine. My personal feelings aside I am genuinely relieved, maybe even happy that the baby is healthy. I think a little of the numbness inside of me is fading just a teeny bit. It small but it's noticeable as I watch her move across the screen. We look at each other, and it's a moment before I realize we're both crying.
"You always knew she'd be a girl." Mark says, nodding over at the screen where the doctor had just snapped a picture of the baby's gender. She types "Mommy was right, I'm a girl!" on the monitor a prints the picture. He kisses me gently as the doctor finishes up her measurements and wipes the gel from my belly.
"Everything looks okay." She starts. "Her heartbeat is strong; she's very active, blood flow and oxygen levels are strong." She hands me the pictures she's printed out. "How many weeks did you say you were again?" She asks.
"Twenty-four." I say quietly, trying to swallow down the lump forming in my throat when I realize that this means Heavenly has been gone for twenty weeks already. It seems like a lifetime, and just yesterday all at the same time.
"I am, very certain." I respond. "What did you see?" I ask her. Mark presses his hand on my shoulder, grounding me. I wasn't paying the closest attention when she was doing the measurements, but I didn't see anything that screamed abnormal. My trained eye would have caught it if there was.
"The baby is..."
"We named her Oakley." Mark informs her,
"Oakley..." The doctor corrects herself. "Is measuring at 20 weeks' gestation. She looks perfect and healthy. I am positive her delay in growth is innocent and due to lack of prenatal care and proper nutrition; however, I would like to order a non-stress test and see how she does, as well as monitor her closely for the remainder of the pregnancy. She says, and I know all too well what's coming. How many times have I given this same lecture? "As I'm sure you know low body mass index places you at a heightened risk of complications." She continued, just as I knew she would. I can't help myself grimacing when she mentions my weight though. I weighed a hundred and forty pounds before Heavenly's death. Since the initial appointment when I found out I was pregnant until now I have lost twenty-five pounds. My once healthy body fat percent reduced to clinically underweight. Clinically high risk.
"I do know." I say quietly, looking down at my hands, ashamed that I couldn't do better. I should have forced my grief away and been better for her.
"What does that mean for Oakley? What can we do to fix this?" Mark asks, pulling her attention away from me and onto himself.
"Right now, Oakley is healthy, just behind in growth. My approach is going to be to prevent any complications before they arise. I am going to prescribe Addison a pregnancy safe appetite stimulant and do weekly non stress tests to assure she stays healthy until we can get Addison back up to a healthy weight. I want her on a two thousand five hundred calorie a day diet to start, follow ups with me every two weeks. It's going to be hard, and it's not a perfect option but my goal is to keep both Addison and Oakley safe. As her nutrition and weight stabilize her blood pressure should also stabilize. Until then I want her on restricted activities, nothing strenuous."
"You could have just asked me." I tell Mark, rolling my eyes.
"And get the truth? Not a chance. Things are going to have to change."
"I would have told you the truth."
"I agree it's unlikely." The doctor countered gently. "You know as well as I do that, you'd do anything and everything to convince everyone that you're fine. You may even look fine for a while, but then something happens, and you can't hide it anymore. So, you crumble, you hit your rock bottom and then you begin to build yourself back up and rise again. Like a phoenix for the ashes. You can do this Addison; I've seen it a hundred times and I'm sure you have as well. It's just going to take time.
Authors Note:
Thank you for reading Chapter 6 of In My Blood! Please review with any questions, comments, concerns.
I need to write more; writing is my happy place.
I figured it's about time we got Addison to a doctor to check up on everything she has been avoiding since Heavenly's death. I couldn't find where I calculated her due date so here it is. She would be due April 20th.