CHAPTER 6: Abby

God, what a day, I thought as I was sitting in the Recovery room. My mind was flashing back to when I was in the OR for an emergency C-section less than an hour ago. I had two and a half more months until I was ready to give birth, and Dr. Coburn had exhausted all her efforts to keep me from going into premature labor. Well, not only did I have the abruption that we were all dreading, when Luka checked the monitor, he'd found that the baby's heart rate had dropped into the 60s. Then, if that wasn't bad enough, when they cut me open and took the baby out of me, I heard one of the Residents say, "C'mon, little buddy, gimme a cry."
"Oh, come on!" I silently whispered to myself. That could only mean one thing: he needed to be intubated.
"Pulse is less than 60," the NICU nurse reported.
"Let's bag him. Intubation tray, 2-0 ET tube."
"Add 20 units Pit to the bag and draw up Methergine and Hemabate!"
"I'm in. Ambu-bag."
I looked back and forth between the ceiling and my right side. And then, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I heard Dr. Coburn groan, "Goddamn it! Abruption clot!"
"What?"
"Consumed all your clotting factors," she answered. "The uterus isn't responding to massage. Let's pack it off."
As if he was on auto-pilot, Luka came over to my bedside and took my hand in both of his just as the resident ordered .03 of epi.
It's okay, Abby, the look in his eyes told me. They're helping our son. I don't know who needed to believe it more, him or me.
When I heard that his pulse was up to 120 and they were getting ready to move him to the NICU, I actually started to breathe a sigh of relief, and was able to convince myself that perhaps, just possibly, everything would be okay now.
Naturally, I was wrong.
"The uterus is boggy and hemorrhagic," Dr. Coburn's disappointed voice cut into my thoughts. "And the sutures aren't doing jackshit. I'm sorry Abby; it's been 20 minutes, and you're still not clotting."
To say that I was devastated would be putting it mildly. Deep down, I knew what was coming next. So did Luka, so did Dr. Coburn, and so would anyone else with half a gnat's brain. But for some reason, I still wasn't ready to face the inevitable yet.
"Am I in DIC?" I asked.
"The FFP should reverse that, now what the baby's out."
"What if it doesn't?" Luka wanted to know. Like me, I think he was still clinging to a thin, miniscule shred of hope that they could pull it off.
"BP's down to 80/50!"
"Okay, two more units! We gotta control this bleeding!"
Then fucking do it already! my mind was screaming. If I hadn't been in the condition I was in, I would've completely gone off on Dr. Coburn and everyone else in that OR. And I mean really gone off, enough to make one of my mom's manic episodes look like a firecracker.
"Go to the NICU," I told Luka.
"No, I'm staying."
"You need to stay with the baby."
"Abby..."
"JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STAY WITH OUR BABY!" I exploded. I knew that yelling at Luka wasn't going to help, but I didn't care. Somebody had to be with him.
"Try to ligate the uterine arteries," Dr. Coburn ordered as she ignored my outburst. Then, to Luka, she added, "Go. I will call you if we need you."
"I don't want him to be alone," I pleaded. Sighing in resignation, Luka gave my hand one last squeeze, then followed the nurse and the Resident out the door.
Well, as you can probably guess, Dr. Coburn and her team had thrown everything but the kitchen sink at trying to get the bleeding to stop, but nothing worked. What's more, too many transfusions meant I was back in DIC and the bleeding would get even worse. And now, as I sat there in Recovery, the one thought that kept gnawing at me was how I would break the news to Luka.
As it turned out, I didn't have long to wait.
"Hi," he said softly as he entered the room.
"Hi. How is he?"
"He's fine. Still intubated, but he's satting well. Pressure's holding with dopamine, and he's making urine."
"Brain scan?"
"All clear."
"Oh, thank God," I sighed with relief. "Uh—any word on Sam?"
"I just talked to Kerry," Luka answered. "Sam has a broken left humerus, and a laceration over her right eye. Alex had to have stitches in his forehead, but neither of them suffered any internal damage. They're gonna be fine."
That was the best news I'd heard all day today. However, in light of what I'd just been through, it was a bittersweet moment. "Is one gonna be enough?" I finally managed to ask.
"One what?"
"One baby."
I blinked back the tears that were coming as I explained to Luka what had happened in his absence, then held my breath as I waited for his reaction. "Well—one is all we need," he said at last. Upon hearing that, I laid my left cheek into his palm. I always knew Luka had pretty big hands, but for the first time since I'd known him, I realized just how gentle they really were.
"So, uh—I won't be able to see him for awhile," I said. "Not for at least 24 hours."
"I already thought of that."
"Huh?"
Luka took his phone out of his pocket and pressed the video icon on the screen. And there was our baby. Despite the tubes in his mouth and the leads on his pale, tiny chest, he was the most beautiful thing we'd ever seen in our lives. And somehow, he'd found the strength to lift up his right arm.
"That's when I told him to wave to Mommy," Luka whispered. "Yeah, he's a smart one."
"He sure is," I chuckled. "Joseph."
"Hmm?"
"I don't remember much about my dad, but, uh—Mom used to tell me that when I was little, he loved watching boxing. Especially Smokin' Joe Frazier, because he thought he was the best 'pure' fighter. So, if it's okay, I—I'd like to call him Joe."
For a moment, we watched the screen on Luka's phone before he finally said, "Joe Kovac. Yeah, I like that."
"Me too."
After another moment, Luka stood up to give me a kiss. "I'm gonna go check on Sam. Do you need anything?"
"No, I just wanna get some sleep."
"Okay. I'll be right back."
As I drifted off to sleep, a million thoughts rushed through my head. As relieved as I was that Sam and Alex were out of danger, I was still worried for baby Joe. I also remembered when Luka told me about how he'd lost his first wife and their kids back in Croatia, and I couldn't think of anything worse than having to go through that again.
Joe had to survive. He just had to.