Never Giving Up (Never #3) (26 page)

As the day went on, we all grew more and more anxious. All our family members were anxious to hear of Mattie’s status, and due to hospital rules, no more visitors were allowed. The entire family came to a halt, waiting to find out what exactly was ailing Mattie.

Around five pm, a new person came into the room and gave us all sympathetic smiles.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Edwards.” She reached her hand out to Susan and Ella, but smiled and gave me a polite nod as I held Mattie.

“We’ve gotten back the preliminary lab results for Mattie here and I’m afraid we are going to have to admit her.” I watched Ella take in her words, process them as she nodded her head, and continue to look to the doctor for more information. “Mattie seems to have an infection in her kidney, her bladder, but most importantly, in her blood.”

“How does a three week old get this sick?” Susan asked.

“It’s pretty impossible to tell where the infections stems from. We just have to treat it fully and hope for the best.” Dr. Edwards flipped open Mattie’s chart and kept talking as she looked at the clipboard. “It also seems that one of our pediatric nurses might have heard a murmur in her heart, so we’re going to check that out as well.”

“What is the treatment for this infection?” I asked, still trying to process everything being told to us.

“We will need to administer aggressive antibiotics intravenously starting immediately.”

“How long do you think she’ll need to be here?” Ella’s voice was sturdy and strong.

The doctor stood up straight and looked Ella right in the eyes.

“Unfortunately, Mattie is very sick. You’re lucky you caught the infection when you did. Had you waited another day or two, this might be a very different conversation. However, she will still need treatment for a few weeks. She could be admitted to the children’s hospital for anywhere from two to five weeks, depending on how she responds to treatment.”

“Five weeks?” Susan stammered.

“I don’t want to downplay the severity of the infection. A blood infection in a three-week-old baby is serious. If we don’t treat it fully and entirely it could be devastating. The timeframe is just an estimate. We need to get Mattie on antibiotics as soon as possible. Then we need to see how she reacts to them and we’ll go from there.”

“When can we get the antibiotics started?” Ella’s voice came from across the room and she sounded almost stoic.

“Just as soon as you sign these consent forms. We’ll get the meds to her and transport her upstairs to the children’s hospital.”

Ella looked over at me, her eyes silently asking me what my thoughts were. I knew what she was thinking and I was on the same page. If they thought Mattie needed it, we would do it. I nodded at her and then looked down at Mattie still sleeping in my arms.

“What do I need to sign?” Ella walked towards the doctor and I knew she had it handled. I didn’t move from my seat or look in their direction. I focused on Mattie and trusted Ella to get everything sorted out.

What came next was a flurry of activity as nurses came in and hooked Mattie’s I.V. up with a second bag which contained the medicine the doctors were hoping would heal her. Dr. Edwards came back and listened to her heart again, speaking to the medical student that was now accompanying her.

“Ok,” the doctor said with a sigh. “I did hear an abnormality, but I can’t be sure it was a murmur. It could be nothing at all, and most likely is, but I want to take every precaution. I will schedule an echocardiogram. For now though, hang tight and when they are ready to take Mattie upstairs, someone will come and transport you all.”

I walked over to the doctor and shook her hand, having missed the opportunity when we first met.

“Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate it.”

“She’s in good hands,” she said before she nodded at Ella and Susan, then left the room.

Ella walked back to the hospital bed and gazed down at Mattie. “She’s so small,” she said quietly. The baby laid in the middle of the hospital bed, looking quite tiny against the big bed. I came up behind Ella and made sure her back was pressed up against my chest, offering her someone to lean on. Sure enough I felt her relax into me and I placed my hands on her shoulders.

“She may be tiny, but she’s strong like her mother.” Ella’s hands came to cover my own and we stood there, watching Mattie sleep.

“It’s funny because this is what babies do, right? They sleep. That’s pretty much all she’s done since she’s been born. So why, now that I know she’s sick, the more she sleeps the more nervous I am? What if the whole time she’s been alive, she’s been ill?” Ella’s hands left mine and wrapped around her middle. “What kind of mother doesn’t notice when her baby is sick?”

“Hey.” I wrapped my arms around her chest, hugging her from behind, bringing her closer into me. “You
did
notice she was sick. That’s how she got here. You’ve done everything right, Ella. Kids get sick, right?”

“No, kids get colds and the flu. Babies don’t get blood infections, Porter.”

“You can’t beat yourself up over this, Babe. This could have happened to anyone. You heard the doctor, you brought her in at the right time. She’s going to be fine.”

“I know she is,” she said softly, surprising me.

“You do?”

“She has to be.”

I pressed a kiss against her temple because I couldn’t argue with her.

Our new hospital room reminded me a lot of the room we’d spent two days in after Mattie was born. Same uncomfortable half-bed that was disguised as a bench seat. The same box TV hanging from the ceiling, same hospital smell. The only difference was that there wasn’t a bed. There was a crib, but it actually resembled more of a cage. It was taller than me and really did become a cage if you raised up the only movable side all the way. It was everything we’d worked so hard to avoid at home. It was cold and hard and uncomfortable. It was stale and flat. It wasn’t soothing and warm, or soft, or loving. It was clinical and it served a purpose.

My mother had been with us nearly all day, but when visiting hours were up, she had to go. She promised she’d be back in the morning and she promised she’d bring me coffee; her small way of trying to make this awful situation not as unbearable and I loved her for it. Porter went to grab us some dinner from the cafeteria and I was left alone with Mattie in another hospital room, but this time the happy baby haze was missing. I wasn’t busy falling in love with a little person I’d just met. No, instead I was trying to think of any way I could help heal the little person I’d already fallen madly in love with.

I stood next to her crib, watching her breathe, obsessively making sure she took her next breath. I’m not sure exactly what I’d do if she stopped breathing, but I knew I’d be the first person to notice and find someone to help her. I had a contingency plan for almost any scenario I could think of. I would fix her if it was the last thing I did. I had to.

Slowly I watched as she started stretching, a normal baby thing to do. Only, she couldn’t lift her right arm because it was wrapped so heavily with the gauzy fabric that kept her I.V. from coming out. It didn’t seem to bother her that she was restrained—she’d spent nine months in a cramped belly, so I assumed she was used to it by now. Her little mouth opened in a toothless yawn and she was all gums. I gave a small laugh and a smile to see her be so babyish while experiencing something no baby should have to endure.

“Hi, Sweetie,” I cooed at her, brushing the hair on her head with my hand, relishing in the feeling of her silky baby locks on my skin. “This is a pretty silly way to get my attention.” I sniffled when I realized I had started to cry softly. I reached into her crib and started to unwrap her from her blanket, finding the diapers and wipes the nurse had supplied us with. “If you wanted some alone time, I could have sent Daddy to work on his boat.” I continued to talk to her as I mindlessly changed her diaper, something that had become second nature to me now. When she was all changed and wrapped back up, I carefully picked her up, minding all her wires, and sat down in the one chair in the room to feed her.

“The problem with Daddy, though, is that he never takes no for an answer. You can try to send him away but he never really leaves. Once he’s made up his mind, once he’s decided to hang around and help you get your car started even though you tried to tell him time and again that you had it under control, well, Sweetie, he just never seems to give up.” Her little fist was wrapped around my finger and I brought her sweet little hand to my mouth and pressed a kiss against her fingers. “If there’s one thing I learned from your daddy, Mattie, it’s that he always fights. Always. He sets his mind on something and he is persistent. He winds his way into your life and makes himself so vitally important to you that you forget that you ever were happy without him. That’s exactly what you’ve done to me, Mattie. You’ve wiggled your cute little, tiny, baby butt right into my heart, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give you up without a fight.”

I used her soft, pink blanket to wipe an errant tear that escaped. “So, you promise you’re going to put up a fight and I promise I’m going to fight for you too. Okay?”

“Can I get in on this?” I turned to see Porter standing in the doorway, a tray full of cafeteria food in his hands. He put the tray down on the counter and walked over to us, kneeling next to our chair, and I watched in wonder as he bent down and kissed Mattie’s head gently while I nursed her. The image took my breath away and had we not been in a hospital room, surrounded by beeping monitors and crib-cages, I might have thought it a wonderful moment. It was still memorable, but more so because it was sad, not the beautifully moving moment it would have been had it been experienced in our warm bed or in the rocking chair I purchased with exactly this moment in mind.

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with everything, pushed over the edge by the polarity of the moments I was getting versus the moments I was promised.

“I can’t lose her, Porter. I just can’t.”

“Shhh.” He said, pulling my head down to rest on his shoulder. “We’re not going to lose her, Baby. Like you said, we’re going to fight with her and for her. She’s going to get through this.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He didn’t answer me; he just kissed my forehead and kept us close to him. It didn’t matter that he didn’t answer my question, because I knew what he was thinking—It was the same answer I had running through my head all day.

She would get through this simply because she had to, because without her we both would simply fall to pieces.