In My Blood
Chapter 13
Addison Montgomery's Point of View
February 2011
I walk around the room gathering all of my belongings and stuffing them in my bag, not even caring how they land. I am finally free. I have finally been discharged from this prison like existence. I never have to step foot in the hospital where Heavenly took her last breath every again. The image of Heavenly being taken to the operating for the organ transplant haunts me daily. It is forever engraved in my mind. I can't be in this place without thinking about her. This place that was once my heaven has become a living hell.
"I know you're planning on leaving." Meredith says, she leans against the wall and watches as I pack up my belongings from the bathroom, and then back to the hospital bed to throw them in the bag.
"Of course, I'm leaving. I've finally been discharged." I say, mocking confusion at her intent.
"That's not what I mean, and you know it. I saw the airplane ticket." She says. Damn it. I've been caught. The second they discharged me I bought a plane ticket to Los Angeles. The plane is scheduled to leave in a few hours. I have just enough time to finish packing and get to the airport if I want to make the two hours early, they are requiring to get through security.
"You went through my phone?!" I exclaim.
"Well, you've had the same password for at least the last five years." She says. I look at her betrayed and she adds. "It was an accident. You don't have your lock screen notifications turned off. Your phone buzzed and I saw the confirmation email in your notifications."
"You read my email?!"
"It's about the only way to find out what's going on with you anymore." Meredith says, shrugging.
"I don't want to talk about this Meredith. That's why I haven't told anyone about this." I say, trying to avoid the topic all together. Dr. Thompson knows I plan to leave, but she doesn't know where I was going. I am sore from the surgery. I am moving slower than I normally would. Even so, I am happy to be leaving.
"You can't leave. If you leave it will kill Mark." She objects.
"I have no reason to stay Meredith. I'm getting a divorce. Mark can't stand me and the baby…" I don't finish the sentence. I was going to say, 'I've already hurt her enough.' But Meredith cuts me off when I say, 'the baby' and not her name.
"Oakley." She corrects, as if I could have forgotten.
"Uh huh. Oakley." It feels so wrong for me to say her name when I have spent the last thirty-two weeks wishing that she'd just disappear. "I have no attachment to her. She's not mine Meredith. She's his. Heavenly was mine. She was my everything and now she's dead because some psycho was mad at your husband and decided to shoot up a hospital. This baby's not mine. She never was. She has always been Mark's."
Meredith Grey-Shepherd's Point of View
Addison is my best friend. She has been for years. We possibly know each other better than anyone else. Living next door to each other, being pregnant at the same time, and raising our daughters together has bonded us. It's a bond unlike any other. She's my best friend. I don't want to argue with her. I don't want to make her feel worse than I know she must feel already. I try to be sensitive, but honestly sometimes I think I know her better than she knows herself.
'This baby is not mine. She never was.'
"So, are we going to pretend I didn't witness you almost dying to give birth to her a week ago?" I can't shake the eerie feeling. I was holding her hand when she coded. Even though they had already knocked her unconscious I was talking to her gently. I almost knew it was going to happen seconds before it did. Her hand went completely limp in my own. It's hard to explain. She was already unconscious, but it was just like all the life left her. Her eyes go dangerously dark when I say this. I know I shouldn't have, but I am getting frustrated with her. Should I just sit here and passively watch as she completely throws her life away?
"I was Mark's surrogate Meredith. Incubating a child is complicated. The complications, well, they could have happened to anyone." She says, sighing and sinking down onto the bed. It is littered with clothes sh had not yet finished packing. Mark brought her about a month's worth and dropped it off once the baby was born and she was no longer required to wear the hospital gown. Now it's my turn to sigh. I can see she is trying hard to convince herself she's doing the right thing. She wants my reassurance. She's trying to convince herself that leaving is the best choice.
"You are so much more than a surrogate Addison." I say gently. I sit down next to her. "I know you're hurting, but giving up custody of Oakley and jumping ship isn't going to change that."
"How did you…"
"There were two notifications." I say. "And I'm a nosey bitch. Come with me, just for one minute." The lawyer's paperwork, just needing Addison's signature stated that she is giving up her parental rights, to the baby's father Mark Sloan. I beg her to come with me. If only she could see what I see everytime I walk into the NICU maybe she wouldn't be so afraid. Her little girl is healthy, beautiful. We were able to wean her off the oxygen. She just needs the feeding tube. She is a miracle, not a plague to be avoided.
"I'm not going to th U." She insists. I don't know why I am so insistent. I wish I wasn't so tiny. I would drag her to th U. I understand she needs her space, really, I do. It's been a week though. A solid week and she hasn't seen or asked about Oakley once. She has had no interaction whatsoever with Oakley. We have seen this in surrogate mothers, but I'm concerned for Addison. This isn't like her, not when one of her children are involved. Is she really as detached as she claims?
"You've never even seen her. How do you know there isn't a connection?" I ask gently.
"Because I carried her." She sounds frustrated and we sit for a moment in silence. I wonder if I'd be the same way if the rolls were reversed. "She grew inside of me, and not once did I feel a bit of connection or love or anything for this baby." I give her a sympathetic look when she says this, but I find it hard to believe. I'd believe her more if I didn't know the entire reason, she chose gynacology as her specialty.
*Addison's Back Story
Still Meredith Grey-Shepherds Point of View
When we were first year medical student's Addison called me in the middle of the night, frantic, begging me to take her to the hospital. When I got to her off campus apartment she was doubled over in pain, crying hysterically, and bleeding.
"I'm dying. I think I have uterine cancer or something. Please, just take me to the hospital." She had grabbed several towels and trash bags. I look at her questioningly, but don't say anything. When I help her to the car, she puts the trash bag down on the seat, and then the towels. She is so prim and proper it drives me crazy sometimes. She is in unspeakable amounts of pain and yet here she is, protecting my car seat from blood damage.
"Let go. It's fine I'll take it to the dealership to get detailed later." She gets in and buckles up.
"Please don't call Bizzy." She begs. "Whatever you do please don't call my mother." I know she is trying to keep things light. We don't really 'do' mothers around here. Just how light can you keep things when you're convinced that your dying?
Upon arrival to the hospital emergency room, we discovered through urine sample that she was pregnant, and then through exam that she is in active labor, not dying. They did a quick ultrasound which revealed she was twenty weeks pregnant, and the baby had no heartbeat. They rushed her to the maternity ward. She was twenty weeks pregnant with zero pregnancy symptoms. She didn't gain weight or have cravings. She was never sick. Her period came monthly, and the baby did not yet move. Pregnancy was the last thing on her mind in terms of possible diagnostics.
She delivered Michael Zachary Montgomery, stillborn on May 25th at 2:35 am. Exactly forty-five minutes after we had gotten to the emergency room. The nurses put a tiny little cap on his head and wrapped him in a receiving blanket. She was in such shock over the situation, but she held him, talked to him, and cried. It was in that moment, holding her micro preemie in her arms only to have to let him go that she decided to choose gynacology as her specialty. She wanted to help other babies, even if she couldn't save her own. She was monumental in getting the push for earlier legal age of viability. She helped fund different companies to make micro sized breathing tubes and other medical equipment. She knows it wouldn't have saved Michael, but what about those born at twenty two weeks and later, or even twenty three weeks. Babies born just days short of the twenty four week viability have been lost because they are not twenty four weeks and doctors feel like they can't try, or trying will do more damage. She wanted to do something that would make a difference. She wanted to honor his life.
She never told anyone about Michael. She didn't even let his father, Mark Sloan, know. He's only come up once since the day she lost him. It was one of the days when she was still heavily drugged and stuck in the brownstone. Mark had to work and so I sat with her. She has so much regret. She regrets not spending more time with him before she handed him to the nurses. She regrets not taking pictures and memorizing every single bit of his features. She wonders what her life would have been like if he had been born healthy. Would she have quit medical school? Hired a Nanny to raise him? She was young, and afraid. She didn't even know she was pregnant, but he changed her. She fell into a deep depression. She broke up with Mark and she cut me off. I think she may have left the city, because I tried contacting her and I got nothing but silence as a response. Then almost like magic five months later she shoes up to class again. She was like the old Addison again, and it was like she never left.
END Addison's Back Story
"Addison, you've been pumping milk for her day and night since she was born." I point out. "That's not nothing." The entire mini fridge is fully of those little two oz bottles. She has a mini fridge in here as well. She wants to keep her distance. She doesn't want Mark to know that she has taken any interest to provide Oakley with nourishment or helping with her in any way. She forced me to tell him that the milk came from an anonymous donor.
"It's not for her." She says, miserably. "It's for me. I'm like a cow, do you know how uncomfortable it is to be full and not have a baby to…." She catches herself though and stop talking. Addison has always been one whose milk comes in perfect, early, and in mass quantities. When Willow was having trouble gaining weight and I couldn't pump enough to 'top her off' with a bottle Addison kept us supplied. She donated her milk when Michael passed as well. Her milk came in normally and she was able to donate over six thousand four hundred ounces of breastmilk to the NICU where he was born. On the date they gave her as her due date she made her final donation and took measures to dry up her supply. She has always been pretty kickass. "This has nothing to do with the baby."
"She looks for you Addison."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't even know if it is possible or if I am imagining it, but she looks so deeply into our eyes. It's like she is trying to steal our souls. She waits until we speak to her, as we've made a habit of speaking to her when we pass. She always looks at us confused and then cries when she realizes we're not you."
"That's not even humanly possible." She argues. She looks at me strangely as if I have lost my mind. "She is only thirty-three weeks, babies that young do not…." She sounds like she's doubting herself now.
"Oh, it's true." I say. "Do you want proof?" I ask. She sighs and leans against me.
"I want you to leave me alone. I want to get as far away from this city as possible. I'm not her mother Meredith. Why are you so insistent on pushing Mark's child on me?"
"Even if you don't want to be her mother you gave birth to her. She's your child too. Even if you don't want her. Even if you never see her. She's a human being Addison. She deserves to be more than 'just another thing' that happened to Addison Forbes Montgomery. She deserves to grow up knowing that you love her. Knowing what you sacrificed for her. She needs to know you loved her enough to make that sacrifice because if she doesn't…" My voice cracks and I am crying at the thought of Oakley growing up thinking Addison didn't even love her enough to hold her before she vanished. "Don't do that to her Addison. No child deserve that." She looks at me for a minute as if considering this. She has her own mommy issues that are coming into play. Bizzy royally screwed her up and her upbringing is fighting against her, convincing her that she is a bad mom for what happened. Hardening her heart.
"If I watch the video will you leave me alone?"
"For alittle while."
"Fine." She says, and she really looks like she wants to kill me. "But only for a second." I nod and take my phone out of my pocket. I flip through the pictures and the videos until I find just the one that I want.
"Are you ready?" I ask, and she nods her head, holding onto my arm tightly for support. Before I give her a chance to second guess herself or tell me to stop, I press play.
Addison Montgomery's Point of View
February 2011
Iphone video
Mark and Meredith are standing over baby Oakley's incubator. She looks up at Meredith and Meredith smiles down at her, talking gently. Almost instantly Oakley wrinkles up her face and begins to cry. The video zooms in on her face, and then out again as Mark steps in and tries to soothe her. She cries, if possible, even harder at this.
'Can you believe this?' Mark asks. 'The entire time you were in your Mommy's tummy I talked to you. I loved on you, and you don't even know me do you?' He asks. Mark sits in the rocker. Meredith takes the baby out of her incubator and hands her to Mark. She still had the oxygen and feeding tube when this video was taken. They reposition, careful not to kink any of the cords. She puts the blanket over Oakley to keep her warm. Mark takes out his phone and opens an audio file. He presses play, and my voice fills the NICU. "Deep in the Meadow". Within seconds Oakley has stopped crying, was quiet, calm, and looking around for the source of my voice.
"Addison must have sung to her." Meredith says with a smile as the video shuts off.
END iphone video
"She's only been on this earth a week and already her Daddy and Auntie are torturing her." I say, trying to keep the situation light. I don't have the heart to tell her I have never sung to this baby. Not even a single time. Seeing her on the video and hearing her cry had a reaction I didn't consider. My brain and my heart are telling me she's not mine, but my body is still going through all the aftermaths of childbirth. I move my hands to my chest, annoyed as it painfully lets down and fills with milk.
"Oh Addie." Meredith says, realizing what happened.
"I don't want to see her." I say forcefully. My body doesn't know I gave the baby away. It just wants to make milk for to nourish the baby I'm supposed to have. I can't go near her. I can't let myself get attached to her. I don't even know if it's possible, but I don't want to risk it.
"She's better off without me messing up her life." I take the double pump from the bedside table, connect all of the tubes and bottles. I stick the flanges under my shirt in my bra and turn the machine on. Slowly expressing the milk, now in five-ounce bottles as if it is the most natural thing in the world. How many times had Meredith and I breastfed our babies together, or pumped in front of each other on those crazy first weeks when neither of our babies would sleep?
"She won't even remember." Meredith assures me. "Seeing her once isn't going to screw her life up." She promises. I think back to all the babies in the NICU that I had set with for hours, or days, sometimes weeks. The ones who truly have nobody because their parents have either died or abandoned them. Why was it easier for me to show more compassion to a complete stranger than to the baby I birthed? I hate that Mark chose that song. That wasn't her song. That was Heavenly's song. The day he recorded me singing that was the day she was taken off life support. I hadn't realized he recorded me. I can't be mad at Meredith though. She wouldn't have known.
"Can I see her?" I ask, knowing I am going to completely regret it. I used to run this wing. I had a staff of one twenty. I don't remember a single time where I've ever had to ask permission for anything, but now I am terrified to even walk thirty feet down the hall to visit the baby.
'She's not yours Addison. She belongs to Mark.' I tell myself repeatedly. 'Don't do this to yourself, or to her.' I think quickly. 'Don't get attached, you were her surrogate, nothing more.' I spent my entire pregnancy telling myself these things. These were a key component to 'getting through' it and they worked. The baby is alive and healthy. I panic for a moment grasping the consequences of my decisions. Do these things I told myself really make sense? I should force myself to love her, right?
"You can. You can even hold her if you'd like. Mark gave very strict orders. You are to have unlimited access to her."
"He did that?" I ask, confused. "Why?" I thought I had made it very clear to him that I did not have any intentions of raising this child with him.
"I guess he hoped you'd change your mind." She says with a sad little smile. "He loves you both, so much." Deep inside I know that he was just doing everything in his power to keep me alive, but it hurts all the same. I can't help but flinch when she says this. She notices and hugs me to her as closely as she can without disturbing the pump. "You've been through a lot. It will take time Addison." She reminds me, her tone gentle. I finish pumping and label the bottles with Oakley's first and last name, date of birth, and the date and time the milk was collected. Meredith watches me, standing up and reaching out to help me off the bed, as if she's begging me to come with her.
"Meredith I can't do this." I say, the tears are coming so fast as I finish adjusting my top.
"There's a difference between can't and won't" She points out.
"You're no better than Mark." I say giving her a look of deepest loathing. "Why are you defending him? Why are you bending to his wishes? Are you this way with other surrogate mothers?" I ask her. "If so, you suck at your job and need to be fired."
"I'm not O B." She reminds me.
"Thank God." I murmer, but she takes my hand and I let her lead me out of the hospital room, towards the NICU. My legs feel like Jello. My heart is pounding a million times a minute. No mother should feel this much anxiety. How did I let her talk me into this? When did I become so submissive? This is going to cause nothing but more pain for everyone involved. How can I trust myself with her when I couldn't even protect Heavenly, or Michael the baby that was stillborn? What if she dies too just because she has me for a biological mother? We stop just outside the NICU. The curtains are open, and we peer inside the window at the babies.
"Do you see Oakley?" She asks me. "She's right there in the incubator with the rainbow quilt on top." She turned from the window to see if I am listening. "That's your Oakley." There is a sense of pride in her tone. I press my hand to the glass and look at her, just watching as she sleeps. She's wearing a tiny outfit. Her pants and bow hat are a soft rainbow fabric. It looks like something custom. The tiny shirt says 'After every storm there is a rainbow of hope, here I am.'
"This is a mistake I need to-" My chest is tight reading her shirt. I feel like I can't breathe, and I squeeze Meredith's hand tightly for support.
"She's beautiful Addison." She says.
"She's a baby… she looks like the other babies." I respond.
"I know it looks scary, but she's healthy Addison." Mereidth says, talking to me like a friend, maybe even a patient or a patient's family. Not at all like the double board certified OBGYN subspecializing in maternal fetal medicine and fetal surgery, neonatologist, and medical geneticist that I spent over half of my life in college to become. I am thankful for that because right now I'm just afraid and confused.
"Only a feeding tube." I observe. If that's all she needs she is doing well for a thirty-three-week preemie.
"Would you like to hold her?" Meredith asks, and instantly I back up.
"No." I say quickly. "I want nothing to do with this baby. What if I hurt her?"
"You're not going to hurt her Addison." She says confidently. She opens the door and I follow her, like a small child into the NICU. She helps me put on a gown and I wash my hands. I am standing there at the scrub sinks frozen until I feel her hand on the small of my back. Gently pushing me forward. I try to open the bassinet, but my hands are trembling so hard that I can't stop. Meredith raises her eyebrows at me and helps me to sit down in the rocking chair. She ever so gently opens the bassinet and lifts Oakly up, wrapping her in an extra blanket so she will not lose her body temperature too quickly and places her in my arms, careful not to disrupt her feeding tube.
My heart is pounding in my ears. My body is stiff. She moves in my arms, and I am terrified I'm going to drop her because I cannot make my arms relax. It's like holding a preemie for the very first time all over again. I pinch my lips together, face crumpling, trying not to cry again as I study every little inch of her face. I gently remove her cap and look at her curly strawberry blonde hair. So reminiscent of Heavenly's that I quickly put her cap back on. She is starting to wake up now. Moving more in my arms and making little whimpers. She looks up at me, studies me for a moment and then starts wailing. I jump when she starts to cry, nearly dropping her for real. The sound is so foreign, so unexpected that something so loud can come out of something so small. I look at her for a moment in shock. As I expected I have zero maternal instincts or feelings towards this child. When Heavenly cried I instantly knew what she needed. I had the maternal intuition to pull heaven and earth for her. Holding Oakley is weird. It's like I am holding a stranger's baby. A mini patient at most. The love just isn't there. I put her to my chest, patting her back gently in an attempt to quiet her down.
"She doesn't know me Meredith, she obviously don't want…" I say, trying to hand her back to Meredith, but something weird happens. When Oakley hears my voice, she lifts her head to look at me, locking her blue eyes on mine. I know it's just a reflex smile, or gas that all newborns have, but she smiled at me and instantly stopped crying, relaxing against my chest.
"Doesn't know you huh?" Meredith asks teasingly.
"Just stop." The emotions inside of me are too big, too conflicting. I carefully unwrap Oakley's blanket and count ten little fingers and ten little toes.
"The funny thing about children is they love their parents unconditionally." She watches as I swaddle Oakley back up, bringing her back to my chest. She lays her head there for a while, listening to my heartbeat. We sit in silence for a few minutes and Oakley beings rooting against my chest.
"She's hungry." I say as dully as if I were saying the grass is green or the sky is blue. I look down at the tiny little girl turning her head from right to left on my chest, leaving me uncomfortable all over again with this whole situation.
"She smells the milk." Meredith says. "She can take fluids safely by mouth now. Her tube feeds have been adjusted to account for that change. The tube will be removed altogether as soon as she can maintain her weight." She explains. I know all of this, I do, but it's so different when the baby you birthed is on the NICU bed.
"That's good." I murmur.
"You can nurse her if you'd like, or I can get you a bottle." Meredith offered. She had placed the fresh milk in the NICU fridge for me, plus there is the stockpile. I have been sending milk with Meredith. I look down at Oakley, the little parasite I carried inside of me for the last thirty-two weeks. She looks so tiny, so frail. I catch her scent on the air and my milk lets down painfully. Thank God for whoever invented nursing pads. She smells so sweet, almost like roasted almonds milk and sugar. I look up to Meredith hopefully for help.
"I told you this was a mistake. I'm sorry Meredith, this is just too much too soon." Oakley begins to whimper, and I panic as she roots more. The weight of this tiny baby feels like a truck against my pounding heart. My breathing speeds up as I break out into a cold sweat. I feel like I am going to throw up and I push Oakley back into Meredith's arms. I get up quickly, I can't imagine throwing up on her would be a good idea. I rush to the scrub room where I throw up repeatedly in the scrub sink. I look out the window when I finally stop throwing up to see Meredith sitting in the rocking chair smiling down at Oakley as she drinks a bottle of expressed milk. It feels like my heart is being ripped in two. I rinse my mouth and sink to the ground, knees pulled up chest, trying to breathe as the tears come. I spend so much time crying these days I have a constant headache. I just want it to stop, but now I'm going to vomit again. I move back to the sink, letting the vomit come and don't hear the door opening.
"Oh Red." Mark says sympathetically. He holds my hair back and wraps his free arm around me. I smell his soap and oddly it calms my stomach, but the tears don't stop. He pulls me ack down to the floor, talking to me carefully and gently as if the last three weeks hadn't happened.
"I'm sorry." I whisper automatically.
"You need more time." He says.
"I do." I respond. "I tried. I held her." I can't get my words out properly. "She really is beautiful."
"She is a miracle." He agrees. Meredith comes into the scrub room shortly after and glances down at us sitting on the floor together.
"Sorry, I wanted to make sure you were alright, but Oakley was hungry and crying so I went ahead and gave her the bottle of milk. Are you alright?" She asks, sitting on the floor next to us kindly not commenting on me resting my head on Mark's chest. I just look up at her miserably. My throat aching and burning from being sick.
"What happened here?" Mark asks gently. I don't say anything, so Mereidth steps up.
"I pushed her to visit Oakley. She isn't ready. Seeing her induced a panic attack."
"Hopefully it will just take time." He says. "Maybe once you're home things will get better."
Meredith and I lock eyes and then I look down, ashamed. Mark doesn't know about the plane ticket. He doesn't know that I was planning on leaving New York this afternoon and never looking back.
'He doesn't know?' Her eyes are screaming as she looks at me.
'Meredith please don't.' Mine respond.
It was a quick and silent exchange, but he picks up that something is wrong. Things like this happens when you've been through trauma. You become hyper aware of your surroundings and everyone in it.
"What's going on here?" He asks, looking between us.
"Nothing, it's nothing." I say automatically, as if that's not suspicious at all. Meredith gives me a dirty look that is clearly stating 'Just tell him the truth.'
"It doesn't seem like nothing." He points out.
"Naomi needs my help on a case in Los Angelas." I invent. "I bought a plane ticket. I fly out this afternoon." I don't want him to see Meredith as the bad guy.
"You what?" He asks, eerily calm.
"She asked for my help, and I need some time. I need to find out who I am again without all of this." I say gesturing towards the NICU, but really meaning this hospital, this life.
"Honey…"
"No. You don't get to honey me. No anymore. Not after what you've done." I wonder briefly why I am so hellbent to ruin everything all the time? Why can't I just be happy? All he wants is for me to stay, to raise this child with him. He was being kind, showing compassion and now I've ruined it.
"Just… Addison please stay." He looks at me and I can see his pain, something deeper than I've noticed before and I can't quite place it. "You can help Naomi over video chat or the phone. Please give us time. I can't lose you too. Not now."
Authors Note:
Thank you for reading chapter 13 of In My Blood. I love the Addison and Meredith friendship. I felt it was more appropriate for Mark to extend her an Olive Branch of Kindness in this chapter instead of flipping out on her. Do you think Addison will go back home or do you think she will stick with her guns and leave? Please review : ) I love reading reviews. It makes my day to see people reading and enjoying my writings.