Our Life Together

Last Time

"You need to get the doctor, Brad." I grab onto the bed handle, giving his hand a break, "I need to push." He quickly runs out to the nurses station panicking, knowing that I am serious.

I breathe through the pain, trying to ignore the fact that I'm literally about to push a 5th human out of me and start to relax a little.  It only lasts a few minutes though, until the next excruciating contraction.  I have to keep reminding myself that this is almost over to stay even a little sane.

"She's on her way," Brad walks back into the room, grabbing my hand.  He can see how much pain I'm in and I know that he hates it, "It's going to be over soon.  You'll never have to do this again.  I promise."

A team of nurses follows the doctor into my room a few seconds later. They take their positions scattered around the room, most of them huddled around the doctor.

I immediately start to push the second they tell me I can start.  I need to get this pain over with.

"Dr. Miller, I think you need to look at this." A nurse hands her the results of the babies heart rate, "The lung function is low." she whispers, hoping I won't hear.

I take a much needed break from pushing and look from Brad to them "What's wrong with my baby? Why aren't the lungs working?"

"I'm sorry, Jen, but I cannot tell you what is wrong until the baby is born and I can look further into everything.  We need you to keep pushing."

"Are they okay?" Brad looks worried "Jen and the baby?"

"I won't know anything until the baby is out.  There's nothing I can do until we can do some testing on the baby." She says something to a nurse quickly and I start to feel the urge to push again, "Okay, I need you to push harder. The faster the baby is out, the better."

I grab Brad's hand and push. I push harder than I ever remember pushing before.  The fear that something could be wrong with my baby makes me want this over with even more.

"This fucking hurts!" I sigh, taking a little break "Why isn't it out yet?"

"You have to push harder, babe." Brad looks me in the eyes, on the verge of tears "It's just a few more."

"Jen, you need to push. The baby needs out.  Now." I start to push again, but it's still not hard enough.

"The heart beat is slowing." A nurse announces.

"Shit!" The doctor listens quickly before looking at Brad and I "If you don't have this baby in the next 5 minutes, we're going to need to do a C-section to help the baby. You need to push harder, Jen. I know you can do this."

I pull all the strength that I have left in me and push. The baby finally starts to move and I finally have some relief.  I can't wait for this to be over.

"Keep going, babe." Brad looks over me smiling, "It's almost out."

I grab his hand and push one last time.  I can feel them pulling on the baby, trying to help, and finally feel it come out completely.

"It's a girl!" Brad looks up at me crying.  I look from him to the baby, but can see right away that something is wrong.  She isn't crying much and is more blue than the normal pink.

"It sounds like fluid in the lungs," the nurse looks up to the doctor, handing her a stethoscope, "We need to help her."

The doctor nods her head after listening and walks around to Brad and I. I pull my baby closer to me to get a better look at her. She's so perfect.

"I'm sorry, but we're going to need to take her to make sure that this is not anything too serious." She watches as I stare at my beautiful newborn, who I already wish I could switch places with, just to take away her pain, "Brad, could you please come with? We'll need to go over some things with you."

He looks back at me unsure if he should go or not.

"Go, Brad. Just, make sure you watch her. I'll be fine."

"I'm so sorry we have to do this, we just want to make sure that it isn't anything serious." She hands Brad scissors so that he can cut the cord, and then picks up the baby, "I promise we will let you know right away."

"She'll be fine," Brad leans down to kiss me before taking her from the doctor, "I won't let anything happen."

They start to walk away as the nurses take over caring for me. All I can think of right now is if my baby is going to be okay.

"Brad, tell my mom to come in here. Please."

A few minutes later, after the nurses leave with the promise that they will tell me what happens, my mom walks in on the verge of tears.

"I'm so sorry," She sits in the chair next to my bed "how are you? Is everything with you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm a little sore, but that's all. I'm more worried about her," I can feel myself getting ready to cry, "What if it's something serious, mom? What if she dies?"

"Hey, you don't think like that, okay?" She grabs my hand for emphasis, "You know that Brad is not going to let anyone walk away from her if anything is even the slightest bit wrong. That baby already has so many people looking out for her. There's no way this is going to turn into anything too bad. None of us are going to let it."

A while later, after what seems like the longest time in my life, another doctor walks in.

"Mrs. Pitt?" He asks rhetorically "How are you feeling?"

"I'm good." I lie, covering my feelings "How is the baby?"

"Do you want me to leave?" My mom asks "I can go back to the waiting room." I shake my head no and she sits back down.

"You baby swallowed some amniotic fluid and needed to be resuscitated a few minutes after she was brought to us in the NICU.  Since then, everything seems to be going well with her.  She was on an incubator for a little, but she continued to have improved lung function, so we took her off.  As of now, she's having no breathing problems at all.  This is fairly common, and most of the time, the baby just needs to cough up the fluid to relieve their lungs."

"So she'll be okay?" I try to retain all of the information "Where's my husband?"

"He's filling out some paper work now so that we are able to move her over here to be with you.  She's a very strong baby, Jennifer.  I have no doubt that she will overcome this."

"Thank you." I start to feel a little better knowing that she is doing well. He leaves my room, going back to check on everything and promises that Brad will be back with the baby any minute.  My mom leaves shortly after to get us some food and give Brad and I some time alone.

Brad walks into my room with the biggest smile ever on his face.  I can tell that he's been crying, but is now obviously beyond happy that she is doing okay again.

"You okay?" I ask as he walks over "You had to watch everything."

"I will be." He smiles, leaning down to kiss me "She's perfect, Jen. She never stopped fighting through all of that. Reminds me of you."

"I wanna see her again." I take his phone to look through the few pictures that he already has of her "She looks so much like Olivia.  I can't believe she's been through so much already."

The nurses wheel her into my room in her little crib.  I look over at her to see that she is smiling up at me, almost like she was waiting for this.  Brad picks her up and hands her to me so that I can finally hold her for real.

"She's so beautiful." I start to cry as I look down at her "You can't even tell that she's been through all that."

"She's a fighter." He leans over my shoulder, holding her tiny hand "What are we naming her?  Should be still use what we picked out?"

"Yeah, I still think that's the best one. Much better than our other crazy ideas."

"Okay." He calls the nurse in to fill our all of the birth certificate information.  She takes all of our insurance papers and looks over everything to make sure that it is correct.

"So what are you naming her?"

Brad and I look to each other, making sure we're still in agreement.

"Scarlett Marie Pitt."