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…”
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“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?”