Exposed: A Novel (29 page)

Chapter 69
Ally

When the other nurse confirmed what I didn’t want to know, Lisa looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” I asked as another contraction messed with my brain. “I’m in labor. My baby is coming. What are you sorry for?”

“Allyson, we can’t find a heartbeat.”

“There’s a mistake.” I ripped one of the straps from my stomach. “I’m having contractions. I’m in labor. This doesn’t make sense.”

“Allyson, I’m sorry.” Lisa’s gentle tone scratched my wound. “We can see on the ultrasound that your baby’s heart is not beating. This is the worst thing I could ever tell you, but the fetal heart rate is a flat line.”

My gaze fell on Jessie, curled up in the chair across the room with his face covered.

“Get me a c-section,” I yelled. “Get her out so you can save her.”

Lisa looked at Jessie and back to me. “It’s too late. I’m so sorry. I’m going to give you a few minutes. I have another baby to deliver. I’ll have another midwife take care of you and explain your options until I’m finished. But don’t worry, I’ll check on you every chance I get.”

Options. She said we’d talk about the options. But to me there were no options. My baby died. The only baby we managed to keep alive until full-term, and she died. She died at the very last minute. I know this because I felt her kicking just before we came to the hospital. If only I would’ve come sooner, I kept telling myself.

When the new midwife, Pamela, wheeled me into the delivery room on the second floor the sun had almost parted for the day, leaving the fluorescent lights of the hospital to do their job. Jessie walked beside me and I felt like the chair wheeled over my heart every time Pamela took a step. Every contraction reminded me of the dead life inside of me. The life whose name meant “lively and pleasant.”

I feared giving birth to her. I wanted a c-section so they could take her away without me seeing her little fingers and toes. There, in our bag hung on Jessie’s shoulder, a pile of baby clothes and diapers sat tucked away, waiting to be filled with life. And the blanket at home, the one with her name on it. And her crib. And her lavender room.

“The best thing for you is to deliver your baby vaginally,” Pamela said, trying to coat her words with as much sympathy as possible. “However, you can have an epidural if you want. I know that wasn’t your original plan, but it might ease the pain.”

Nothing could ease the black cloud settling on my soul. But I didn’t question the epidural. Sure, I didn’t like the idea of that thing sticking in my spine before, but things changed. This labor would be the most difficult thing in the world for me and I needed drugs to get me through it.

Sorry, but I did.

Pamela settled us in the room, then left to notify an anesthesiologist. When he came in to do his thing, I already felt numb. The contractions still hurt—yes, no denying that—but the pain hid behind my agony. And agony didn’t do the feeling justice.

It felt as though someone twisted my heart and flung it outside of my body. I watched it float away down the flat line of my baby’s heartbeat, and nothing mattered anymore. My Avelina. My dear, Avelina. Please, wake up when I push you out, I told her in the silence of my brain as my heart drifted even further away.

Jessie, there in the corner of the bright delivery room, sulked in fetal position. I wanted to grab his legs and force him into another position, but I couldn’t move.

Why would you do this to me, God? Why me? Why Avelina?

I closed my eyes and hummed songs in my head, trying not to focus on the pressure. Soon, I’d be forced to push my dead child out of my body. Dead. The word still made no sense to me. Somehow I hoped they were wrong, that my Avelina would come out screaming and breathing in the hospital air.

Pamela came back in the room after what seemed like hours of silence between Jess, the occasional nurse, and me. No one seemed to care about me anymore. There were no monitors wrapped around my waist. No Group B Strep antibiotics draining into my body, even though I had GBS. I wanted to tell them to hook it up just in case she came out alive, but my mouth couldn’t find words.

“I want to check and see where the head is.” Pamela sat at the edge of the bed and checked. “The head is right here. Are you ready to push?”

Tears. They stung underneath the pain in my eyes. But they wouldn’t come. I shook my head. “I can’t do this. Where’s Lisa? I want Lisa here.”

Jessie walked over to the edge of the bed and held my hand. His eyes said, “I’m here,” while his crinkled brow said, “I’m hurting, too.”

“I can’t do this, Jess.”

“Yes, you can, sweetheart. I’m with you.”

I squeezed Jessie’s hand into my chest.

The quiet in the room seeped into my heart and resided there, stirring thoughts and pictures I didn’t want to imagine—pictures of my beautiful baby girl, my first baby, without a breath on her lips or a blink of her eye. This should’ve been a time of excitement; instead the stillness was as still as Avelina. My hollow chest ached.

“Pull your legs up to your chest.” Pamela’s faint voice made its way through my messy thoughts.

I didn’t feel anyone pull my legs up, but when I looked down I saw Jessie’s hands and a nurse’s hands wrapped around each of my legs, holding them up so I could push.

I shook my head and flopped my head back on the pillow.

“You can do this,” Pamela said to my knees.

Tears burned their way to my cheeks. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

Jessie took one hand from my leg and rubbed my cheek. “I’m sorry.”

His words, those two words, lingered in my ears. I grabbed his hand and pulled it to my lips. My heart, beating fast, so much faster than Avelina’s flat line, made me realize how much I needed my Jessie. Finally, I let the

sobs shake my chest and lips.

Through my glazed-over eyes I looked at my husband’s wet, creased face.

“I’m sorry, Jess. I’m sorry for not being able to keep the baby alive. I’m sorry for pushing you away. I’m sorry for thinking only of my needs and not seeing your problem.” My words flew out without acknowledging anyone in the room but my husband. And my tears poured. “I’m sorry.”

Jessie broke down beside my bed and nuzzled his head into my swollen belly, my Avelina. When he peered up at me with tears covering his face, I wiped his face, then my own, and looked at Pamela. She nodded. And I nodded.

It was time.

Chapter 70
Taylor

After an hour of pushing, Layla’s head pressed through. It stung. Bad. Worse than losing my virginity. Way worse. But more than anything, the pressure is what made me feel like I would die before I got her out.

Lisa pulled my hand down to feel Layla’s head. Her hair, so much of it, gave me the strength to keep going.

“Push again.” Lisa smiled. “Good. Nice and hard. Breathe.”

With all my might, I pushed and squealed at the pain. My shaky hands made their way down to Layla’s head. For some reason it made me feel better to keep my hands down there.

“That’s it,” Lisa said. “I’ve got one shoulder. One more push and your baby will be here.”

The world stopped. The room spun. The idea of Layla being in my arms scared me as much as I wanted to see her. I feared failing her. I feared her longing for a daddy, just like me. And I wanted to keep her safe, inside of me, where she’d never feel pain.

“One more push,” Lisa said. “Take a breath. You can do it.”

The pressure hurt, like a ton of bricks crushing my body from the inside out. But Layla needed me to push. I inhaled. Exhaled.

Lisa’s eyes met mine. “Almost there. One more push.”

I pressed my eyes shut and pushed. The other shoulder came out and Layla’s little body squirmed out of me. Lisa smiled, the nurse smiled. When I saw my baby, all blue with her eyes rolling around, I freaked out and reached for her. “Is she okay?”

Lisa placed Layla on my chest. “She’s fine. Her color will change in a few minutes. She’s perfect.”

Her little cheek pressed into my chest. Her dimpled hands curled into fists. I slipped my index finger into her left hand and pulled it to my lips. Her dark eyes peered up at me. She looked like Daddy and me.

I held her as long as I could, then one of the nurses took her to the table beside me to clean her up and dress her. Meanwhile, I never took my eyes off of her. Lisa helped me deliver the placenta, which hurt more than I thought it would. Maybe it’s just me, but it burned and I didn’t like the feeling of that thing oozing out of me.

Layla never cried. When the nurse finally handed her back to me, her pink color settled in. She looked perfect.

“Do you want to try to nurse her?’ Lisa asked.

“Nurse her?”

“Breastfeed.” She smiled.

“Oh, um, I don’t know about that. I don’t think I know how.” Not to mention the implants, they probably ruined my chance of that.

“Doesn’t hurt to try.”

I nodded. “How do—”

Lisa’s hand gently held the back of Layla’s head while she touched my breast. All the times people touched me in the past few months didn’t make me feel any more comfortable with the situation, but thankfully it went by fast. She pressed Layla’s mouth onto my flesh. Like a pro, Layla suckled.

Nothing in the world could compare to the feeling I experienced in that moment. Love. Pure love.

“Okay,” Lisa said. “Looks like you are both quick learners. I’ve never seen a mom and baby catch on so fast.” She turned to the nurse and whispered something about a stillbirth, then gave me a weak smile. “I need to go deliver another baby. I’ll be back to check on you soon.”

Chapter 71
Ally

The epidural helped, I’m sure. I don’t know how I would’ve been able to push my Avelina out without that. Lisa came back, finally. But with Jessie by my side, with his hand in mine, I didn’t need her anymore.

It only took five pushes until we saw her face at 4am on that bittersweet April day. Lisa pulled Avelina out and I immediately saw the reason behind her death. The chord was wrapped around my little angel’s neck twice and under her arms once.

“Oh, Avelina.” Tears rained and rained and rained.

Jessie fell into my chest and wept. I’d never seen him weep like that before, even through our hard times. Lisa placed Avelina on my chest. I pulled her into my neck and wet her head with my tears. Jessie caressed her bruised face with his trembling fingers. I did, too.

Never in my life had I felt closer to my husband than I did when Avelina brought us together, right then.

When my eyes finally dried up, Lisa took Avelina from me to clean her up. Then Jessie and I dressed her in one of our outfits for her. Even though she wasn’t alive, I still dressed her with delicacy. She looked so cute—her face like a porcelain doll, minus the bruises and scrapes on her because of the chord. I tried not to focus on those marks though. They made me wonder about the pain she went through as the chord strangled her in my womb. And I didn’t want to think about that right now, I wanted to savor every moment of her before they took her away.

I cuddled her in my arms, held her lifeless, cold hands, and kissed her neatly closed eyes. “I love you, sweet girl.” Tears came again. “I never want to forget your face.”

Jessie never asked to hold her, but I could tell he wanted to. I held her up and nodded for him to take her, but honestly, I didn’t want to give her up. As I watched his long fingers smooth over Avelina’s eyes, nose, and lips, I fell in love with Jessie all over again. And for the first time in a long time, I looked up, through the ceiling over my heart, and said to God in the quiet of my soul, “I know I can’t fix everything. I’m not you.”

When Jessie handed Avelina back to me, I talked to her closed eyelids, cuddled her, and longed to see her smile. I imagined what she would’ve been like. I pictured her wobbly first step and her first tooth poking through. And when it was time to finally let her go, the sun was up again and my heart was setting on the other side of my world.

But I let her go.

And instead of letting my heart leave with her, I gave my heart to my husband. In the quiet of the room, alone together for the first time in twenty-three excruciating hours, I placed my hand on Jessie’s chin and pulled his face to mine. On the bed, with the sound of birds singing in the background, I kissed my husband, my sweet, sweet husband, and silently thanked God for him.