In My Blood
Chapter 7
Addison Montgomery's Point Of View
Christmas Eve 2010
"I'm fine Mark… Please stop worrying!" I snap. I stand up too quickly. My head is spinning, and I am unsteady due to the newfound heaviness of the pregnancy. The last week since we visited the doctor's office has been hell. The medication I was prescribed seems to be working wonders though. I am feeling a little stronger as the nutrition I am taking in is replacing that that is being constantly depleted by the baby. I steady myself against the kitchen counter for a minute and then busy about the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee and washing up the breakfast dishes.
"You need to rest." Mark says, forcefully.
"I promised Willow we'd bake cookies tonight for Santa. Her parents are having dinner at Masa. They go every year. They booked this reservation last Christmas Eve. I still have to go to the store and get ingredients. I forgot to go to the store yesterday, and we're out of glitter sprinkles." I protest. I hadn't even realized how much I was looking forward to her visiting. Slowly a little bit of light and joy has crept in through the darkness. I'm slowly finding a new normal.
"What a horrible tragedy, no glitter sprinkles." Mark says, sarcastically.
"She's a tiny human. Tiny humans love glitter sprinkles." I remind him.
"Addison you're bleeding." He is full of concern, and I look at him, trying to keep my expression void of any real emotion, but my mouth makes a little 'oh' as I feel the dampness and look down at the drops of blood on the floor. I did this. I put myself in this situation. I try not to show the guilt of the terrible thing I've done.
'I want you on restricted activities, nothing strenuous.' The doctors' instructions played repeatedly in my head. I would have given any of my patient's similar instructions.
Yesterday I cleaned the house top to bottom, all four stories while he was at work. Last night was anything but restrictive. It fun, sexy, groundbreaking. Mind blowing. Freeing. I felt like myself again. For the first time since Heavenly's death I could breathe freely. I knew the risks, yet I played with fire, my wants outweighing my baby's needs. I was selfish and deceitful.
"It's not that bad." I try to assure him, not wanting him to worry more. "I'm sure it's only because we had se…" I try to figure out something, anything to take the blame. Something that will hide what I did several days ago, what really happens.
"You're standing in a puddle. We need to take you labor and delivery, just to be sure."
"I'm fine. I refuse to spend the night in the hospital when there is no just cause." I argue, stalling for time. He comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around me and then resting his hands on my tummy. As resistant as I am to bring another baby into this world after what happened to Heavenly Mark is the complete opposite. He has fully embraced being a father again. He loves every single little thing about our unborn child. It is not his intention, but this makes me feel worse. How can he move on when Heavenly was his everything? How can I raise this baby with him when I'm not even sure I will ever be able to love her as much as I loved Heavenly? Would I ever be able to love her at all? Will Mark ever forgive me for what I've done?
"I love you both, I just want to be sure that you're alright."
"The fact that you don't believe me is insulting." I say. I narrow my eyes at him, trying maybe a little too hard to be playful, distracting. He kisses my lips in response, gently silencing me, but his worry shines through. He lets me go and we move away from each other. A moment flashes through his eyes, and in that moment, he looks like he is afraid to touch me, a delicate winter flower.
"I shouldn't have pressured you." He says finally. "You weren't ready what if I hurt her?" I cringe at this. Mind blowing sex has nothing to do with what's going on right now. I cringe at the hurt in his expression. Him taking the fault was in no way a part of my plan. The depression was getting so much worse. I made a choice, an impulsive, stupid choice. Everything is going wrong, so wrong.
"Mark, I love you. You didn't do this." You didn't force me into anything I think silently. Well aside from being a human incubator to your child. I stop myself there though. That's not fair. "I'm going to go shower. I'm sure it isn't as bad as it looks." I walk towards the bathroom, and he follows me.
"So, after months and months of nothing you magically want me again?" He accuses and despite everything I'm still not sure how he's tuned this around on just me when we were both very willing and active participants last night.
"The medication… I'm just starting to feel better." I say simply, shrugging my shoulders as if this is the most logical conclusion in the world. I am not usually one to be uncomfortable, but my face flushes as shame rushes through me. It would be the first time we've had sex in months that I wake up in a pool of sticky blood. That is exactly what my life is right now. "We didn't hurt her." I assure him, only a partial truth. We didn't hurt her. I hurt her.
"You didn't even want her. How do I know you're telling the truth?" Is he really going to bring this up everytime we argue? I push my fingers into the bathroom sink impatiently, biting my bottom lip hard in agitation as the cramps are getting worse.
"Because you love me, and you trust me?" I have no other reasons, and he has no reasons to trust me. He will never trust me again if he finds out the truth. I'm a liar, but for now he is having to go on blind faith that I didn't just finally have enough and do something idiotic.
"Please Addison." He requests, so gently.
"Fine." I say, defeated. "Order grocery delivery from Trader Joes. The list is on the fridge, be sure to get red, white, green, and multi color sprinkles." I am beginning to feel sick. "Just let me get a shower, and then we can go." I was going to take a shower in the downstairs bathroom, but that doesn't make sense. My clothes are upstairs. I go upstairs, taking the stairs slowly. I just want him to hush more than anything else. At least he allowed me to walk up the stairs on my own and didn't attempt to carry me or something else ridiculous. I don't even want to think of what it will be like when I actually do go into labor. He's freaking out this much over only a little blood. I am too wrapped up with my own misery and annoyance with him to realize that he is just being a concerned dad. He has no idea that there is actually cause for that concern. All he knows is the lies that I've fed him. 'Everything is fine.'
The thought reminds me painfully of Heavenly. She was brought into this world with soft lights and gentle voices. She was born to the sounds of uplifting classical music. She was surrounded by nothing but love as I dismissed everyone from the room and Mark delivered her slowly and gently into this world. She didn't even cry at first, just looked up at Mark with those baby blue eyes, smiled, and cooed. Mark placed her on my chest to stay warm and nurse. From the moment I looked into her eyes I had all of these plans for her future and the life we'd have together. They danced around in my head like something from a fairytale. She was so precious. So, wanted. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. She's gone now, and now Oakley is the one paying the price for my inability to cope.
I shower quickly, trying to ignore the amount of blood mixing with the water and going down the drain. I get dressed, putting a pad to collect the bleeding, I'm so exhausted though. I realize I can't go down the stairs or call out to Mark for help. I curl myself into a ball on the bed as the tears and guilt overwhelm me. The dull ache in my stomach turn to cramps that come into waves. Likely contractions, but I don't move. I can't move. I don't know how long it's been, but after a while Mark comes and lays down next to me. I automatically curl against his warmth, resting my head on his chest.
"Are you okay?" He asks, holding me close and stroking my hair back. This only makes me cry harder. I don't deserve him. I've done nothing to deserve someone as good to me as he is.
"I will be." I say, and then suddenly I can't go through with this. I can't keep what I've done a secret any longer. My water hasn't broken. There are no clots in the blood. All good signs. "I'm so sorry Mark." I whisper, and fear is starting to overwhelm me as the cramps worsen. "I'm so sorry. I did something really stupid. I need you to call Derek and Meredith to cancel. I need to go to the hospital." I can't stop crying. He tries to soothe me before turning me to look at him. His first line of response is always comfort.
"What happened?" Mark asks, fear shows but he is trying so hard to remain calm. My face is deathly white as the ramifications of what I have done, that I didn't care enough to consider before hit me, and the regret is massive.
"I'm sorry." My eyes are begging, pleading for him to understand. I'm having a hard time catching my breath between the hysterics and the cramping. "I'm in preterm labor Mark." He goes very still, studying me closely.
"What aren't you telling me?" He asks again. I didn't stop to consider the fact that even without the bleeding he would automatically know something is wrong. I can't deal with physical pain well. He wasn't supposed to be here though. He has been working nights all this week. He says he's saving up. For what I have no idea. He wasn't supposed to be here. I was supposed to do this alone. He had taken off last minute to spend time with me.
"When you went to the restroom, I stole Laminaria from the hospital last week." His expression is blank and so I continued. "3 days ago, I inserted the Laminaria to soften my cervix and begin dilation. I ingested large quantities of blue and black cohosh which aids in uterine contractions. I feel like I'm dying Mark. Every single time she moves it kills me a little bit more knowing she's here incubating and Heavenly's gone. Everytime someone coos over her it's like someone is physically stabbing me in the heart. I just wanted the pain to stop." I am talking so fast now, afraid that if I don't get it out it will never get said.
"You were trying to induce her? Are you fucking insane?" Mark shouts getting up off the bed and pushing me off of him in the process.
"Mark I'm sorry!" The words aren't good enough though, and I know it.
"I should report you to the police. You may have killed our child, intentionally killed our child and all you have to say is you're sorry? What's even worse is you did this knowing you're supposed to have Willow tonight. It looks like a murder took place downstairs. Are you suddenly in the business of killing and traumatizing children?"
"I didn't agree to keep her until after I was certain the Laminaria, and Cohosh didn't work. I thought I was among the small population of women that it just doesn't work for. It's supposed to work within hours. Twenty-four hours later I wasn't dilating, wasn't cramping or bleeding and my water hadn't broken. It was a stupid, impulsive decision, so stupid, but the baby and I were fine. It didn't work Mark."
"Until we had sex." He counters miserably.
"I checked for dilation beforehand. I was at a zero there is no reason it shouldn't have been safe."
"That's semantics at this point. You're not fine because she's not fine. You knew that sex would put you into labor after a failed induction. There is no way you wouldn't have known that. You're barley twenty-five weeks and you're trying to induce the baby. Did you seduce me into having sex with you with the intentions of killing our baby?" He demands.
"Mark, I didn't!" I plead. "That was genuine. I wanted to…"
"Of course, you did. You wanted to because you know that you're high risk. You know it wasn't safe. Oh God. How could I be so stupid?"
"I told you the truth because I'm afraid."
"We're all afraid Addison. That doesn't justify attempted murder. How long did you know?" He demands. He grabs me by the arms and shakes me hard. "How long did you know our daughter could be dying before you finally spoke up?"
"This morning when I woke up, I saw the blood." I hung my head in shame. "I thought it was just from having rough sex. I didn't want you to worry. You were already up, and so I changed the sheets before you could see them." He calculates the time between when I woke up this morning until current time. This wasn't supposed to happen like this. I was fine. My attempt failed. I should be fine right now. Inductions fail all the time. Mothers have gone weeks even up to a month sometimes.
"Four hours Addison?" He shouts. He lets go of me just as I attempt to pull away and I stumble backwards. I trip over something on the floor and fall to the ground. Sharp pain shoots through me, and I feel my water breaking. He goes silent when I fall, looking in horror at the scene before him. I move slowly and get up from the ground. He tries to comfort me, whisper apologies, but I push him away.
"Addison!" He says my name forcefully, but I ignore him. I quickly clean myself up and change into a flowing skirt, a pair of always discrete underpants to catch the amniotic fluid that was continuing to gush and a simple tee shirt. "This isn't going away just because you're ignoring it."
"Mark just shut up for a minute." I say, trying to stay calm myself. I throw several changes of soft comfortable clothing into a bag. When I zip it he grabs the bag I threw together and follows me. I pull on my coat, and purse from the downstairs closet and pull them on.
"Addison what…"
"I'm in preterm labor. I'm going to the hospital. You can either come with me or not, but I'm going now. If you want this baby to have any chance of survival…" I stop moving my hand to my stomach as she kicks. I'm not even sure if that's possible. "Just… we need to go."
"Addison? I didn't expect you back so soon. What happened?" The doctor, I've since found out her name is Joy Thompson asks. She skips right past all of the normal bedside manners and pleasantries. She turns her back to check the vital machine and move an IV pole closer to the hospital bed.
"My water broke. I…" I start to tell her what happened, but Mark gives me a warning look and slowly almost indiscreetly shakes his head 'no'. It doesn't matter though. She's not looking at him. I'm freezing, and a cold clammy sweat covers my body. It's probably a good thing he plans on talking. I'm not sure I can open my mouth without vomiting. The uncontrolled pain is making me nauseous. The bands holding the sensors on my stomach are tight, too tight, and with each contraction and arch of my back it feels like the baby, even at her delicate twenty-five weeks is trying harder and harder to kick them off.
"We had sex last night and it got a little rough. She woke up spotting and cramping this morning, but thought it was a result of that. Her water broke around an hour ago. She's lost a lot of blood." He takes my hand and squeezes it hard. Our eyes lock, and I know it's going to be okay. He's not going to tell them what really happened.
"When did the fever start?" She asks, wrapping a band around my arm, taking a blood sample, and then starting an I V . She gives me one mediation for nausea, one for pain, and another to try and slow the contractions.
"I don't know. It must have been after my water broke."
"And it was a spontaneous rupture?"
"Yes."
She looks at my charts and flips through the labs from the urine tests and swabs the nurses took upon arrival. She gets the ultrasound machine and beings slowly looking for the baby, taking measurements of her, and then looking at my other organs trying to determine the cause of the rupture.
"I hope you're prepared to stay with us for a while."
"What why?" I ask, unthinkingly. "What do you see?" She turns the ultrasound towards me and points.
"What do you see?" She counters.
"A severe kidney infection." I let that sink in for a moment. My act of desperation really did have absolutely nothing to do with my situation. "The infection likely caused my water to break." I say, looking at Mark miserably.
"Oakley's fluid is low, but that's to be expected. You're contracting every ten minutes, but you've only dilated to a two and you're zero percent effaced. Her stats are good, no signs of distress. I'm going to give you steroids to mature the baby's lungs. I've started you on medication to stop the contractions. With any luck we can get you to at least thirty weeks. A nurse comes in and adds the different medications to my I V .
"Everything's going to be fine Addison. We got you." Were the last words I heard before the medication finally begins to fully kick in and everything goes dark.
I begin swimming slowly back to consciousness hours later. I feel the weight of a child against my body. She's heavy and breathing deeply. I move, slowly, trying hard not to disturb her. For a single delusional moment, I think it might be Heavenly. Surly I was lucky enough to have died and reunited in some new world with my baby. I put my arms around her in my sleep, embracing her. When I wake up, I realize it's not Heavenly though. I am still in the Hospital and its little Willow who has curled up next to me. Gently I kiss her on the top of the head. I look over to see Meredith asleep on the other side of me. I smile. How many times had we spend all night in each other's beds? Our husbands kicked out when something was going on? It's a testament to our friendship that after shutting her out when Heavenly died she is here with me now. She wakes up when I move. I realize that I am laying in a bariatric bed. The labor and delivery ward must be full tonight. This room is typically reserved for Momma's weighing four hundred and fifty plus pounds at the time of delivery.
"What time is it?" I ask, my voice horse. She checks her phone.
"Shh… it's just barely two in the morning."
"I'm so sorry Meredith, for everything." I say, and I mean it. Fuck now I'm crying again. I'm sorry I didn't reach out to her after Heavenly's death. I'm sorry I didn't look after Willow and make sure she was okay sooner. I'm sorry I shut her out all this time. I'm sorry I went into preterm labor and ruined her date night. I'm a terrible friend.
"You don't have to be sorry. If It had been Willow I…" She stops talking and swallows hard, unready for the conversation that It was Willow the gunman was aiming for. She swallows hard and I can tell she's trying not to cry. "What happened to Oakley?" She asks quickly, changing the subject. Of course, she'd want to talk about Oakley.
"I don't know." I could give her the truth, or any variation of the truth, but in the end, I go with something vaguer. Something that doesn't completely alleviate me of the guilt. "I was fine until I wasn't anymore." I know Meredith has read my charts by now. She would have done while I was sleeping so I couldn't argue her down. I know she would have been able to read between the lines of what was written in the chart.
"She will never replace Heavenly." She says soothingly. "You're not replacing the daughter you lost by giving this baby life."
"I know… just sometimes it feels that way, you know? This is one of those days it feels that way." I say quietly.
"You'll get through this." She smiles at me, and I realize just how tightly I am clinging to her sleeping child. I move to reposition, but when I do Willow wakes up and begins to cry. I incline the bed and allow her to lay her head on my chest.
"Oakley's going to be okay Aunt Addison." She says sleepily. I almost didn't hear her over the beeps and hums of the machines.
"How do you know?" I ask her curiously.
"Heavenly told me." She whispers, and without further explanation to why she keeps bringing up Heavenly she falls asleep listening to the sound of my heartbeat.
"How's your pain?" Meredith asks, checking the monitor. "You're still contracting can you feel that?" She asks and I shake my head "no."
"I'm alright." I insist.
"You don't have to be brave." She says. "It's just me. It's OK to admit you're hurting."
"It's not okay to complain when I deserve every bit of this pain and more." I say, hollowly.
"I can get you something to ease the pain."
"I don't want anything, I need Mark." I say sadly. I gently hand her Willow and she manages to transfer her to the little couch where she has her pillow and her blanket.
"He called me to come sit with you, and as soon as I got here, he left, but he didn't give me any details. When it was apparent, we were not going out Derek took an extra shift, so I had to bring Willow. Did you have a fight?"
"No." I say, picking at the tape on my IV. "I'm just a horrible excuse for a human being."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really."
"Are you seriously going to shut me out?" She asks. "Again?"
"I guess not."
"Spill."
"This pregnancy has been extremely hard for me. I found out hours before the shooting at the hospital. I wanted an abortion from the beginning, but Mark wants to keep the baby. I thought I would be okay with that. I can leave as soon as she's born. I can give him this child he wants so much and leave."
"But you couldn't?" She asks.
"Not anymore." I shake my head sadly. "I feel like I am suffocating. He's upset because I started procedures to end the pregnancy and went into preterm labor." I say, purposely leaving out the part where I tried to end the pregnancy at home with stollen medical supplies and strange herbs. She knows that the baby is measuring behind. I could have gone to any clinic, told them I was twenty weeks, and ended the pregnancy. "He blames himself because we had sex a few hours before the labor started. I thought the laminaria had failed, but then I woke up and I was bleeding, and in early labor. It happened so fast; I didn't get to go back for the shot to end the heartbeat. I got scared and told Mark the truth."
"Oh Addison" Meredith gasps and she begins to cry. She sits back down on the bed next to me and pulls me over into her arms. Maybe she feels the same guilt that I do. Maybe if we had talked to each other things wouldn't be so bad now. She held it together, but I am shredding thinner and thinner, trying everything in my power to keep from completely falling apart. "I cannot even imagine what you must be going through to feel like that was the only choice you had." I hang my head in shame. I hadn't even told her the worst part. After it was over, I had planned to tell Mark that I had lost the baby. I didn't want him to know the evil I had done, the thing I am so ashamed of. He ended up with the truth anyway though. In the end I just couldn't keep it from him.
"I'm just so tired Meredith." I tell her. "When will this ever end?"
"I know sweetheart I know." She says, soothingly. "You're over halfway through though. You just have to hold on a little bit longer. Just a little bit longer and, at least, this part will be over."
Authors Note:
Thank you everyone who is reading this newest chapter of In My Blood. I am loving exploring the Addison / Meredith friendship. I think she needs someone who loved Heavenly as much as she did to help pull her out of her grief. Meredith got a slightly different version of events so only Mark knows the truth that could end her up in jail. My heart breaks for Mark. I feel like Addison struggles with how much he wants the child vs how much she doesn't. Willow is so creepy. I love her too.