Never Giving Up (Never #3) (21 page)

“Porter, Ella, the baby’s heart rate is good, Ella is holding up through this. I just need you to dig deep and do your best to get this baby out.” The doctor sounded confident, but a little worried as well.

Another hour went by, Ella pushed and pushed, but the baby made little progress. She started to fade, reaching new depths of exhaustion, I imagined. It was hard to believe she held up this long. Thoughts kept racing through my head, things I was unable and unwilling to say out loud. Why was this taking so damn long? How long did she have to do this until they decided it was long enough? Wasn’t there anything they could do to help her? Between contractions her eyes fluttered closed, but she still quietly moaned in pain, clutching the same spot on the right side of her belly. Something wasn’t right. I panicked on the inside, but tried to remain calm on the outside, not wanting to cause Ella to panic as well.

“Ella, look at me,” Dr. Bronson said, a new edge to her voice. “I need you to focus, look at me.” Ella opened her eyes and groggily gazed at her. “This is it, Ella. You’ve got three more tries to get this baby out, but then I’m going to have to
take
the baby out. I know you can do this. I know you can.”

“I don’t want a C-section,” Ella said, barely able to keep her eyes open.

“And I don’t want to give you one. But you’ve got to rally, Ella. You need to get the baby out on the next contraction or I will have to take the baby.”

“I need something to hold on to,” she said raggedly, obviously at the edge of exhaustion.

I didn’t understand what she meant, but the nurses did. One of them reached into a cabinet and pulled out a sheet, tying a knot in one end and handing it to Ella. The nurse held on to the other end and stood behind the doctor. I bent down so that my mouth was against the shell of her ear.

“I’m so proud of you, Baby. You can do this. I know you can.” She smiled and leaned her head against me.

“Ok, Ella, here comes a contraction. It’s time. Push your baby out.”

I watched as Ella gripped the sheet, pulling herself up, using it as leverage to push. A nurse held up her left leg and I held her right. I watched and waited, hoping that this worked.

“Porter, count!” Dr. Bronson yelled, focusing on Ella. I quickly began to count, a little embarrassed I’d forgotten my one job. When I made it to ten, the doctor yelled again. “Don’t stop, Porter, count again. Ella, it’s working, keep pushing!”

Ella took another deep breath and bore down, pulling on the sheet, giving the nurse on the other end of it quite a jolt and she had to readjust her footing to keep from falling over. I smiled on the inside, knowing Ella dug deep. I made it to seven this time before the doctor yelled again.

“One more push, Ella. The baby is right here!” She turned to the nurse beside her and said much quieter, “I’m not letting this baby get stuck.”

Ella took another deep breath and started all over again, pushing and groaning, working harder than I’d ever seen anyone work at anything. I watched her face as I counted, not sure I was even counting correctly. For all I knew, I could have been saying all kinds of random numbers for all it was worth. I just held her leg close to me and said words that I thought were helping and watched her do the most miraculous thing anyone had ever done.

Suddenly she collapsed back onto the bed and a whole new flurry of activity happened. People moved all over the room. I watched as Ella’s eyes slowly opened and then grew wide. I dropped her leg and saw a beautiful and spectacular look of love spread over her face. Her hands reached forward and grabbed something as tears started spilling from her eyes.

“Oh my God,” she said through her tears. “She’s beautiful.”

She’s beautiful.

She.

A girl.

My eyes moved from Ella’s face to her hands and something new and wonderful clicked inside of me. Ella held my baby. Our baby. She was small and pink and loud. She cried as if she was trying to tell us all how much the last few hours had been so horrible. I couldn’t move for watching her. Watching them. Ella. And my daughter.

My daughter.

Our daughter.

Ella looked up at me, the happiest tears I’d ever seen from anyone coming from her beautiful eyes, and softly she said to me, “Thank you.” Stunned, not having moved much or been able to say anything yet, I crashed my lips against her mouth, trying to convey every emotion I was feeling at that moment through our kiss—an impossible task. I broke away and although the kiss was short and chaste, it was the first time I’d kissed Ella as a mother and it was beautiful. She was beautiful.

“Porter,” I heard a fuzzy voice in the back of my head. “Porter, would you like to cut the cord?” I looked up to see Dr. Bronson smiling at me. After a moment to piece together what she’d said, I nodded and took the scissors she held out to me. She showed me where to snip and I did, eliminating the last physical tie the baby had to Ella. She was really, truly, here. I handed the scissors back to the doctor, still looking at the cord I’d just cut.

My gaze swept back down to my daughter as Ella positioned her against her chest, moving her hospital gown out of the way so that the baby lay against her, skin to skin. Ella’s left hand rested on the baby’s back while her right hand glided softly over the baby’s head. She closed her eyes and her head fell back to rest against the hospital bed, completely exhausted but with a look of pure, exalted joy across her face.

I watched my wife hold our daughter and felt as if I was floating above everything. This had to be a dream. Love like this didn’t exist in real life. You can’t meet a person, a baby, and love them this deeply, irrevocably, in an instant. If all parents loved like this, if every single person who had a child felt this way, how did life go on? How could there be anything after this?

We stayed like that for a few moments, then the buzz of what was happening around us brought us back to reality.

“We’re going to have to weigh and measure her now,” a nurse said with an apologetic smile towards Ella, obviously knowing giving up her baby in that moment would be painful.

“You’re not taking her away, are you?” She asked, a little panicked.

“No. I’m just going to take her over there,” she pointed to the cradle on wheels I’d noticed earlier. “She won’t leave the room, I promise. We just want to check her out. It’ll be five minutes, tops.”

Ella kissed our baby on the head and then pulled back quickly, a look of terror on her face.

“What is this?” Ella cried, looking at the baby’s head, her fingers feathering over it. I looked down and saw what had Ella worried and my heart began to pump rapidly.

On top of the baby’s head was a bump—a big bump—and what looked like a scrape. And there was blood. The nurse reached for the baby, taking her from Ella gently, bringing her over to where the rest of the medical staff stood ready to examine her. Dr. Bronson was still at the edge of Ella’s bed doing Lord knows what.

“Ella, Porter, it looks like the baby has what is called a subdural hematoma. There seems to have been some head trauma during the birth. They are fairly common and not necessarily dangerous.”

“What do you mean ‘not necessarily’?” I asked, angry at the game of verbal dodgeball we seemed to be playing. I wanted to know what was wrong with our baby, and I didn’t want it sugar coated or danced around.

“Well, what I mean is, it might not be a cause for concern. We’ll have to watch her. It literally is just a collection of blood underneath the surface of the skin. It will eventually just dissipate and be absorbed back into her body. The main concern is with jaundice. So, over the next couple days we’ll just need to watch her bilirubin levels.”

“Her what?” Ella said, sounding scared.

“Bilirubin. It’s just a fancy word for how clean the blood is. Too much bilirubin is bad, and when the blood dissipates from the hematoma it can cause a traffic jam, of sorts, for the liver, causing the baby’s skin to turn a yellow color.” The doctor said all of this while focusing between Ella’s legs. I found myself wondering what she could possibly be looking at with such concentration.

“That sounds serious.” Ella’s voice was faint and frightened.

“It can be, if you don’t watch it. Don’t worry, she’s in good hands.” The doctor stood and removed her gloves, throwing them in the trash can by her feet. She came up to Ella’s side and pressed her hands against Ella’s stomach, feeling around for something. “Ok.” She placed a hand on Ella’s shoulder and gave her a smile. “Your uterus is still contracting and making very good progress on shrinking back down. You lost a lot of blood so I am going to prescribe you some iron. You needed four stitches so you’ll need to be extra careful for a few days while those start to heal.” She paused and gave Ella’s shoulder a small squeeze. “You did really well, Ella. I was worried for a while, but you did a great job.”

“She’s going to be ok?” Ella asked, hopeful.

“Everything looks excellent,” a nurse said as she brought the baby back to her. She handed her over, wrapped in a pink blanket, a hat on her head, covering the large bump, hiding it from view. “Eight pounds, four ounces, twenty-one inches long. Scored a nine on the Apgar test.” The nurse noticed the confused look on Ella’s face. “She’s perfect.” She laughed. “Don’t let the bump bother you. She’s perfectly healthy, just needs a little extra care. She had a rough exit, seems like the side of her head might have gotten caught on your pelvis.”

“Is that why my side hurt so much?”

The doctor and nurse both just smiled at her. That bothered me. How many times did Ella tell them she was in pain while she was pushing? They hadn’t paid much attention to her complaints and it seems like there might have been something legitimately wrong. I liked Dr. Bronson, and I wanted to believe she did what she thought was best for Ella and the baby during the delivery, but a small part of me was angry they had let her push so long when it turned out the baby had been in distress the whole time.

I tried to let my feelings of anger go, now was not the time to harbor negativity. Now was the time to cherish the little girl that was currently snuggled against my wife.

“So,” the nurse said, upbeat. “Do we have a name for this little, darling girl?”

Ella turned her head and looked up at me, smiling, eyes shining, looking like the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

“Yeah,” I said, not breaking eye contact with her. “We do.”

When my parents and Tilly walked into the hospital room, I couldn’t contain the smile that spread across my face. Watching their faces light up, witnessing their eyes go wide as they found the little bundle of bliss currently resting against my chest; it was a moment of pride for me. I wanted to show off the perfect little baby I’d made. I wanted to watch them fall in love with her, just like I had, and take all the credit for their happiness. She was my most impressive accomplishment, and also the most precious one. In an instant, just one moment in time, she’d become the singular and most crucially vital person in my life. All she had to do was
be
. She existed and therefore, so did I. It was amazing.

Mom and Tilly instantly cried. I expected nothing less. She was perfect and worth crying over. My dad walked to Porter and shook his hand, saying something congratulatory to him. Porter smiled as he shook his hand but then turned back to me and the baby, just as enraptured as I was.

“Oh my word, Ella, she’s just perfect,” my mother said, looking adoringly down at her sleeping face.

“I know,” I said, my eyes gliding back to her soft cheeks, one of which was mushed against the swell of my breast.

“Well,” Porter’s mom said through happy tears. “What’s her name?”

My eyes darted to Porter, nodding, letting him know he could reveal our secret.

“We’ve decided to name her Matilda Rose,” he said softly, watching his mother closely. It was like watching an artist create a painting. First you saw both of our moms hear the name, then you could see the understanding cross their faces, and then the best part: The surprise, the joy.

“You named her after me?” Tilly asked, tears now coming quickly, flowing over cheeks big from smiling.