So went the night with the three of us taking turns at Kate’s bedside or visiting Sophia. Little Sophie was still doing well, and in fact, seemed to have improved as the hours passed.
Ethan and Elaine went home at my insistence, and I lay on the couch in the waiting room and caught a few hours of sleep. I could have used one of the on-call rooms but I didn’t want to be too far from the ICU so I could keep tabs on her vitals. I woke up early, the noise of the shift change waking me as the staff made their way off or onto the ward.
After I washed my face and brushed my teeth with the extra toothbrush I kept in my office, I went to check on Kate. I read over her chart and saw that she was stable, her vitals all fine. They were going to do another CT to check and see if anything had c
hanged and then would let her wake up.
I grabbed a cup of coffee and muffin from the cafeteria, feeling very strange to be a family member of a patient instead of a physician looking after patients. The role did not sit well with me. I liked to be in charge and it was hard for me to let go of control and allow my colleagues to do their jobs.
Ethan and Elaine arrived early, and I could see the fatigue on their faces. The few hours of sleep they had were not enough, but like me, they could not sit at home and wait for news.
Ethan went back in and spent some time with Kate and once more, I saw him speaking with her. I would have liked to hear what he was saying, but knew that whatever it was, it would be loving and supportive and encouraging.
Then, the orderly arrived to take Kate for her second CT. I went into the room and helped Ethan up and out the door.
“You can go back in later, when she returns from the CT scan,” I said, knowing that he was probably reluctant to leave Kate. I was doing my best to hold it together, but was running on adrenaline and caffeine at that point.
While we waited for Kate to return from her CT, the three of us went to the NICU and took turns visiting with Sophia. She was doing well, considering her gestational age and the fact she had been born after a trauma to her mother. I felt bad that she hadn’t been held yet by anyone in her family, but the nurse said that we could pick her up and hold her soon. In fact, they encouraged it once the baby was stable and was not at risk of destabilizing their blood pressure or oxygen levels. Until then, we had to get by with touching Sophia and holding her tiny hand, speaking with her. I heard Elaine singing a soft lullaby to Sophia while she sat with her for a few moments, and it made my heart swell with gratitude that Sophia had such a loving family.
On my part, I talked to Sophia, telling her all about her mother and her family, about her grandfather Liam, and about her half-brother who had been named after him. I wondered whether Liam and Sophia would ever get to know each other and what kind of relationship they would have. Most of all, I told her about how happy I was that she had been born, and how I couldn’t wait to get her home with her mother and me so that we could start our new life together.
I caught the eye of one of the nurses who had been listening to me, and saw her smile as I wiped my cheeks. Usually fairly reserved in public, I didn’t care at that moment who heard me or saw my emotions.
I checked my watch and saw that Kate should be back from her CT and so I joined Ethan and Elaine in the waiting room outside Kate’s ICU room and waited for her to return. The three of us sat in silence, waiting for Kate, hoping that soon, she would wake up and we could feel assured that she would be the same Kate we knew and loved.
Finally, about fifteen minutes later, the orderlies brought Kate back and slid her into the bay. She was still unconscious, but looked as well as could be anticipated. I went to her side first and checked her stitches, felt her pulse and respirations, and did my neurological check to see if she was still there inside, flashing my penlight into her pupils to check her response. Everything looked normal for a post-op trauma patient. I knew they’d be letting her wake up soon, as long as the CT showed no new bleeds in her brain or significant swelling. I kissed her, and held her hand, telling her how well she was doing, and how beautiful little Sophia was.
“I heard Elaine singing a lullaby in the NICU,” I said to her, my throat choking up with emotion as I remembered. “She’s going to be such a great grandma. And Ethan has been like a rock, talking to her, telling her all about her mother, when you were a child.”
Kate’s physician, Dr. Rick Folkerson, a trauma surgeon who did her surgery, came to see us soon after, bearing good news. Kate had no bleeds to her brain and besides a significant concussion from hitting the pavement, she would be fine. They would start to reduce her meds and she would wake up on her own over the course of the day.
“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 8th Avenue. It wasn’t the ceiling in the Park Avenue apartment my father owned.