Unbreakable (38 page)

“Everything’s looking good so far,” Folkerson said while he stood at Kate’s bedside and examined her abdominal wounds, which were extensive. “CT was clear and her vitals are stable so I’d say she can go down to the surgical ward as soon as she wakes up, if everything remains the same.”

He extended his hand and we shook. I was really thankful that Kate had been in such good hands. Like my father, Folkerson had been a trauma surgeon in a war zone before returning to America and was used to dealing with significant trauma.

We spent the rest of the day taking alternating shifts at Kate’s side or visiting with Sophia in the NICU. Soon after supper, the nurse in charge of Sophia’s care came to me and said that I could pick her up if I wanted. Of course, I was ecstatic that she was stable enough to do so, and was happy to oblige. I sat down on a chair beside the incubator and the nurse brought Sophia over to me, easing her into my arms, careful with all the leads and tubes. She was so tiny as I cradled her in my arms, and I thought how different she was from newborns I had seen and held in the past. They had been longer and plumper, their skin thicker, and their body tone better, but Sophia was alive and doing as well as could be considered – even better, given that she was only twenty-nine weeks.

She was well-swaddled in a pink blanket and had a tiny pink knitted cap on her head. Eyes closed and limbs pulled up tightly, she looked like a doll. There was a feeding tube leading into her nose and down into her stomach, for she was still too young to be bottle fed, but that would come soon enough and I looked forward to being able to feed her.

I felt bad for Kate – she had looked so forward to nursing Sophia, and had been reading up on how to pump breast milk so that I could take turns feeding Sophia as well and wouldn’t miss out. Now, it was doubtful whether Kate could breastfeed at all. It would depend on how quickly she recovered and whether she could re-establish her milk supply, but that issue paled in comparison to her recovery.

I wanted her alive and well. Breastfeeding would be the icing on the cake and we weren’t there yet. I knew enough about complications post-surgery to think too far ahead. Kate would have weeks of recover ahead of her, although the first two weeks would be the most intense. She’d be extremely fatigued at first, getting over the anesthetic and the concussion, plus her wounds and incisions healing.

I was staring at Sophia when a nurse came up to me and touched me on the shoulder.

“Your father-in-law wanted to let you know that your wife is waking up.”

A surge of adrenaline coursed through me at that news. “I should go to her,” I said.

The nurse bent down to take Sophia back to the incubator. I watched while the nurse lifted her back into the interior of the incubator, and got her settled, and then I left the NICU and made my way back to the ICU to see Kate, my heart in my throat to see how she was doing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Kate

I couldn’t understand where I was at first.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a tiled white ceiling that wasn’t our ceiling in the apartment on 8
^th
Avenue. It wasn’t the ceiling in the Park Avenue apartment my father owned.

Where
was
I?

I blinked, and Drake’s face came into focus, a smile on his face, his eyes red as if he’d been crying.

“
Katie
,” he whispered, and then he leaned down and kissed my cheek.

I tried to speak, but my mouth was incredibly dry. “Where am I?” I managed to say through parched lips. I moved my head to look around and saw a bank of telemetry and realized that I was in a hospital. Glancing down, I saw I was in a bed on a very busy ward, monitors bleeping, a hiss of oxygen, and the murmur of voices in other rooms. I could smell the scent of antiseptic or rubbing alcohol. An IV ran into my arm from a bag hung on a pole by the bed. One of those automatic infusion machines controlled the drip rate, and I saw several smaller bags, which I assumed were medication.

Most alarmingly, my belly was gone…

“My baby!”

I reached down, my arms feeling like lead, and felt my stomach, but there was a huge bandage covering it. I tried to sit up but was hit by a wave of discomfort and realized I’d had some kind of operation.

“Sophia’s fine,” Drake said and took hold of my shoulders, leaning down to look in my eyes. “You’re fine. You're in NYU hospital ICU. You were hit by a car and they had to do a crash C-section to get Sophia out. You were unconscious for a few days with a pretty severe concussion, but you’re better now.”

“Where is she? Is she okay? She’s only twenty-nine weeks…”

Drake nodded, an expression bordering on tears on his face. “Yes, she’s okay,” he said, his voice breaking. “She’s
beautiful
.”

I relaxed back into the bed and closed my eyes. Sophia was alive.

“When can I see her?” I said, too tired to open my eyes again. I felt my breasts, and they felt hard as rock. “When can I feed her?”

“As soon as you can sit up,” Drake said. “They’ll get you up today, but don’t worry about breastfeeding. We have to get you better first.”

All I could think about was feeding Sophia. I wanted to nurse her, no matter what. I’d purchased a breast pump weeks ago so I could express milk and let Drake feed her to give me a break now and then.

“My breast pump,” I said, my eyes still closed. “I should be expressing…”

“Shh,” Drake said and brushing the hair off my cheek. “Don’t worry about anything. Just get better.”

“I don’t want to lose my milk,” I said, panic rising in me. “How long have I been out?”

“Don’t worry about it, Kate. You have time. You had a head injury,” he said, his voice soft. “You just woke up. If you can’t nurse, they’ve made amazing advances in formula.”

“How many days?”

Drake seemed to hesitate. “This is day three,” he said.

“Will my milk dry up?”

“You have time to recover and get your breast milk flowing so
please
,” he said and kissed me on the cheek. “Relax. Get better. We’ll get you started soon enough.”

I could tell he was frustrated with his uncooperative patient. I sighed and tried not to worry, but I felt completely out of control.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just want to be able to nurse her…”

“I know,” he said tenderly. “I love you, Kate. Just let me be the doctor, okay?”

“Okay, doctor.” I tried to smile, but all of a sudden, tears came to my eyes. “Am I all right?” I asked, my voice breaking, wondering for the first time about the actual accident. “Did I break or damage anything?” I opened my eyes and looked in his, but he only smiled and stroked my cheek, wiping away my tears.

“You’re
fine
,” he said softly. “You had to have abdominal surgery and a C-section, so you’ll have an amazing scar, but you’re fine.”

“Good,” I said and closed my eyes once more, finding it hard to keep them open.

Then he kissed me on my forehead. “Your father and Elaine are here and want to see you. The nurses will want to come in and check you over but then they’ll come in for a brief visit, okay?”

I nodded, my eyes opening. “Okay, but can you raise the head of the bed?”

“Of course,” he said and raised the bed so I could see the room better.

He kissed me once more and then left me alone. After a few moments, a woman in a brightly colored nursing tunic entered and went through her paces, checking my vitals, my pulse, my oxygen, my surgical wound, which I was shocked to see looked like a huge Frankenstein-like scar.

“Good
God
,” I said when I saw it, the edges held together by staples. “How many stitches?”

“Just the right number,” she said and adjusted my pillow.

“I guess my bikini days are over,” I said with a rueful laugh.

“Don’t be silly,” she said and smiled. “The scars will fade and will be a faint white in a year or so. They’ll be a great conversation starter.” She winked at me. “They saved your life and your baby’s life, so wear them like a badge of honor.”

“You’re right,” I said and sighed. “I prefer one pieces anyway.” I smiled at her, liking the way her mind worked.

When the nurse was done, my father entered the room and I could see that he was tired and pale. The whole business must have been very hard on him, given his own issues.

“Katie,” he said and stood by my bed, the cane in one hand. He leaned over and kissed my forehead and then he sat by the bedside and took my hand in his good one. “We’re so glad you’re okay. Elaine and I have been frantic for you to wake up, but Drake told us it was to give your brain a chance to recover from the concussion.”

I smiled at him. “I’ve been out of it so this is all news to me. How’s Elaine?”

“She’s fine and will be in when I’m done. We’ve all seen Sophia and she’s tiny but she’s a trooper, like her mother. Heath and Christie are in Haiti still, but they’ll be back soon and send their love.”

“Tell him thanks, and I hope he’s happy to be an uncle.”

“I will.” My father sat and stroked my hand for a moment. “I’m sure he’s ecstatic, just like we are.”

We sat like that, with him holding my hand, for a while, talking about what happened and I learned that the police were tracking down the car, which had been rented the day of the accident.

“It was a hit and run?” I asked.

“Yes,” my father said and nodded. “You don’t worry about any of that. You concentrate on getting better, okay? No talk about the accident. You need good thoughts only.”

I sighed. “It seems so strange to me. Like a story that happened to someone else. I have no memory of anything from lunch until I woke up.”

“Drake said there’s often amnesia surrounding a trauma like that. I’m told you were briefly conscious, but you probably won’t remember anything from that day.”

“I’m glad everything’s okay,” I said. “I can’t wait to see Sophia.” Then I turned to face him, frowning. “Are you sure she’s all right and you aren’t just keeping the truth from me?”

“Not at all,” he said and smiled. “She’s fine. She’s beautiful, just like you were. Tiny like a doll, but of good hardy Irish stock like us McDermotts.” He made a fist and tried to look fierce, but he only looked comedic. The he burst into laughter and I was so glad that he was there to allay my fears.

“I was afraid she might have died and you didn’t want to tell me,” I said, tears springing to my eyes again, despite laughing only a moment earlier. I wiped the tears away and tried to get control over myself.

“Don’t worry, dear,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll bring you to see her soon. Maybe tomorrow, depending on how you do when they try to get you up. You might be a bit dizzy at first. I know I was when I first woke up after my stroke, but they’re slave drivers around here so they’ll have you up and walking the halls in no time.”

I smiled. “Good,” I said. “I want to get better. I want to go home and get Sophia into her new room. We haven’t even finished decorating it.”

“Don’t worry about any of that,” my father said. He stood and squeezed my hand and then kissed me once more. “I’ll let Elaine come in and then we’ll get out of your hair.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said.

He nodded, patting my hand once more.

Elaine came in and we had another round of kissing and hugging and hand-holding. She told me about Sophia and how small and hardy she was, how the nurses were pleased with her progress and how I’d be up and walking soon and could start nursing Sophia as long as everything else was okay.

By the time she left, I was exhausted and fell back asleep before Drake could come back in.

The next time I woke up was when the nurse came in to take my vitals again, and she smiled when I opened my eyes.

“How are you feeling, Mrs. Morgan?”

“Good,” I said. “Just a little sleepy. When can I see my baby?”

“We’ll get you to sit up tonight and dangle your legs. If you’re up to it, we can take you to see Sophia in the morning, in a wheelchair.”

“What about nursing her? Could I start expressing milk now?”

“She’s been getting breast milk from our bank. Once you’re well enough, you can start feeding her.”

So I lay back and relaxed, glad that things would be okay and I could still nurse Sophia.

Drake came back in after the nurse left and kissed me, then sat by the bed and held my hand.

“Everyone’s holding my hand,” I said with a laugh. “I must have been really out of it.”

“We were all worried about you,” he said.

“Did I almost die?”

Drake shook his head. “No, but you were critical for a while until they did the C-section and for a while after, until you stabilized.”

Then he covered his eyes with a hand and struggled for a moment, fighting tears.

“Oh, Drake,” I said and squeezed his hand. “I’m okay.”

“I know,” he said and wiped his eyes. “It’s so hard for me to see you as a patient and for me not to be in control of everything.” He forced a smile. “I’m just so damn glad you’re okay. I couldn’t imagine life without you…”

“I’m on the mend now, so soon we’ll all go home. I guess you better finish painting the nursery,” I said, smiling at the thought of going home and fixing it up. “When will Sophia be able to come home?”

“As soon as she’s stable and feeding well. Every baby’s different and Sophia is pretty resilient despite how premature she is. We’re lucky.”

At that, the nurse came in and Drake stood up.

“We’re going to move you to the ward now, Mrs. Morgan,” she said and came over to check my IV. “Dr. Morgan, you can meet us down there. We’ll just do a few checks before we take her.”

Drake leaned down and kissed me, stroking my forehead. “See you in a bit.”

I smiled at him and then watched as he left the tiny room so that the nurse and attendants could get me ready for transport.

Once I was situated in my room on the ward, my new nurse came in and checked me over, getting me settled in my bed. “We might as well get you sitting up now that you’re already moving around,” she said and helped me sit up, placing a pillow over my abdominal wounds for protection. I slowly swung my legs over the side and held onto the side rail with one hand and the pillow with the other. I felt fine for the most part, although I was a bit woozy from the pain killers.