That Baby (44 page)

I hope it looks the way I envisioned it.

“Crap,” I say, hitting the brakes as the left turn arrow changes to red.
 

I sit patiently and wait for the cars to cross in the other direction.

When the green arrow lights up, I make my turn.
 

I’m just out into the intersection when I see a car coming toward me. My brain quickly processes our impending crash. I hit the gas hard, hoping to avoid the unavoidable.

The collision is loud and violent.
 

Brakes screaming.
 

Metal bending and twisting.
 

Tires screeching.
 

Glass breaking.
 

A motor hissing.
 

Airbags exploding toward me.
 

The smell of smoke.

It seems like the noise lasts forever.

But, then, there’s an eerie silence.

I slowly open my eyes and assess myself, wondering if I’m injured, but feeling an overwhelming sense of urgency to get out of the car. I remember the salesman telling me that there is a smokey smell when an airbag goes off, but my brain is overriding that knowledge and urging me to get out of the car.

I try to undo my seatbelt, but it won’t budge.

I grab the tool Phillip bought me, cut my seatbelt, pop the airbag, and escape from the car.

I’m stumbling, dazed, my mind trying to comprehend it all.
 

There are metal pieces tossed across the street.
 

Teeny squares of broken glass.
 

The sweet smell of radiator fluid.
 

A car’s hood buried into my passenger side, it’s motor steaming.
 

Its driver motionless.

I’m a little woozy and feel off balance as I stagger away from the vehicle.

A big arm slides around my waist. “Jadyn!” Marcus says. “Are you okay?”

“What are you doing here?” I ask him.
 

“I was heading home. Saw the crash.” He grabs my arm. “Jadyn, look at me. Try to focus.”

I try to do as he asks, but my brain is on sensory overload.
 

“Your pupils are huge,” he assesses, grabbing my face and holding it still. “Were you wearing your seatbelt? Did you hit your head? Does anything hurt?”

“Uh, I’m not really sure,” I reply, still looking at the wreckage of the other car and wondering if this is what it was like when my parents crashed. “The other driver isn’t moving.”

“I’m going to check on him. Are
you
okay?”

“I forgot you studied to be an EMT,” I say, wiping the sweat from my face. “And, yes, I think I’m okay.”

“What about the baby? Have you felt it kick?”

“Oh my god! No!” I’m suddenly panicked.
 

Marcus puts his hands on my shoulders. “Take a deep breath, Jadyn. I’m going to check on the driver. Yell if you need me.”

He runs over to the other vehicle.
 

There’s a lot of commotion now.
 

A siren in the distance.
 

People trying to help the other driver.
 

Yelling.
 

Lots of yelling.

People on cell phones taking photos.
 

Others gawking as they slowly drive by.
 

In the midst of the mayhem, the baby kicks me in the ribs, which makes me start crying in relief.

More sirens.

Police cars.
 

Fire trucks.

Ambulances.
 

Lots of questions.

Questions I don’t know the answers to
.

 
How fast were you going?
 

 
Did you see him coming?
 

Then pain ripping through me.

“Ahhhh!!” I yell out, clutching my abdomen as a sharp, piercing pain brings me to my knees.

Marcus runs over. “What’s wrong?”

“I just had this horrible pain. Could I be in labor?”
 

“An event like this could most definitely trigger labor,” he tells me.

I suddenly feel wet.
 

My first thought is that I’ve had some kind of peeing incident, but then I realize what it is. “Um, Marcus. I think my water just broke.”

“Let’s get you over to the ambulance.”
 

He speaks to the paramedics at a rapid pace. “Female caucasian. Twenty-three years old.” He turns to me. “How far along are you?”

“Um, thirty-six weeks.”

He continues. “She’s thirty-six weeks pregnant. Water just broke and experiencing severe pain. Let’s get her to the hospital.”

The paramedic hooks me up to a blood pressure machine.

“Your blood pressure is a little lower than I would expect after an accident. But you’re doing great. Just keep breathing through the contractions. On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?”

“Ten, maybe eleven. Can’t you stop it? Give me a shot or something? I can’t have the baby now. It’s too soon.”

“Once your water breaks, you need to deliver within twenty-four hours, so get ready. You’re going to have a baby today.”

“Did the wreck hurt the baby and that caused me to go into labor?” I’m trying not to panic.

“It’s not unusual for emotional or physical trauma to cause a woman to go into labor. Everything will be fine,” he says reassuringly.

“Marcus, will you call Phillip and have him meet us at the hospital?”

“Of course I will. It’s a little sooner than anticipated, but are you excited?” Phillip must answer because Marcus stops talking to me and goes, “Hey, Phillip. Um, I’m with Jadyn. She was in a car accident.” Pause. “Yes, calm down. She’s okay, but her water broke and she’s gone into labor.”
 

Another contraction rips through me and I cry out in pain again.
 

“Yes,” Marcus says to Phillip. “The labor pains are strong and pretty close together. The paramedics are checking her vitals and then we’ll be headed to the hospital. You’ll probably get there before we will, so just meet us in Emergency.”

“Is he freaking out?” I ask Marcus as the paramedic checks my oxygen levels.
 

“Every father freaks out a little when his wife goes into labor.”

“Would you?”

“I’d like to say that with my training, probably not as much, but I’m sure I will.”

“At our class, we were told that giving birth is the most natural thing in the world. This doesn’t feel natural. It hurts.”

“Is it just the contractions that hurt?” the paramedic asks. “Or do you hurt anywhere else?”

I point to a spot on my lower right side, near where my leg attaches. “This is where the sharp pain is. I’m having contractions too, but they hurt all the way across my stomach like really hellacious cramps.”

“You were hit hard from the side. Does your back hurt? Your shoulder? Your neck?”

I shrug my shoulders then move my neck in a circular motion. “Shoulder and neck seem stiff, but not painful.”

He puts his hand across my ribcage. “How about here?”

“A little.”

He makes a note of it as another piercing pain rips through me.

Phillip

My mom and I are disassembling my old crib when I get a call from Marcus.
 

I listen in disbelief then run to the garage door, grabbing my wallet off the kitchen counter.
 

“Phillip, what’s wrong?” Mom asks, following me to my car.

“JJ. Wreck. Labor. Hospital.” I say something to that effect.
 

Mom grabs my shoulders. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine but the wreck caused her water to break and she’s in labor. I don’t know much else.”

“Okay, you go. I’ll wait here for your father, put Angel away, and lock up. We’ll be right behind you.”

I nod as I open the car door and peel out of the garage.

Upon arrival at the hospital, I give them my name and Jadyn’s and tell them she’s on her way in an ambulance.
 

“I’m not sure if she’ll give birth naturally or if they will want to do a C-section,” the maternity nurse says, “but let’s go ahead and get you scrubbed in.”

Jadyn

The ambulance takes off, sirens blaring.
 

It reminds me of being in the police car the night my parents died. But that night, the siren’s rhythmic sound was sort of soothing. Today it’s not.

The contractions hurt way more than I imagined they would. I thought they were supposed to come in waves. Every few minutes. That you breathed through them, rested, then breathed through them again until they got closer and closer together. Then it meant you were ready to have the baby.
 

But in between these contractions, I still feel a deep pain coming from my side. I know I’ve never been in labor before, but something feels off.
 

I look down and notice blood on the sheet.

“I’m bleeding . . . ” I say, mostly to myself, coming to the realization that my bad dreams are playing out in front of me.

The paramedic doesn’t respond to me.
 

He yells to the driver, “We have a possible placental abruption. Let the hospital know.”
 

 
Placental abruption
. That’s one of those worst-case scenarios. But I can’t remember what it meant. Common sense tells me the placenta abrupts.
 

As in stops working?
 

I have another searing pain.
 

All I know is this.
 

Bleeding is not good.
 

I yell out again as I try to focus on the words and phrases floating around me and not on the pain.
 

 
Bleeding.

Possible placental abruption.

Baby’s possible lack of oxygen.

Blood pressure dropping.

ETA.

Blood loss.

 
Emergency C-section.

“Marcus, is the baby going to be okay?” I ask, squeezing his hand as another contraction rips through me. “And tell me the truth—the worst-case scenario.”

“There are a lot of factors. You’re obviously bleeding but we can’t know the extent of the abruption. In a full abruption, both the mother and baby are at risk. In a partial abruption, time is of the essence. The placenta feeds your baby oxygen and food and takes away the waste. Those things are key to the baby’s viability.”

“
Viability
?” I repeat, the word settling in.
 

 
Similar words scroll through my head from the night my parents died.
Your father suffered severe brain trauma, and his body is shutting down. We’ve revived him once, but we need to discuss what you want done when it happens again. Did he have a living will?

I grab the front of Marcus’s shirt and pull him close. “Marcus, this is important. I need to tell the hospital my wishes,” I say as another contraction causes me to cry out in pain.
 

“What wishes?” he asks.

I close my eyes, not wanting to say the words I’ve been thinking. But there’s something inside me that innately knows this is going to end badly.
 

“If there’s a choice to be made, I want the baby saved. Do you understand?” I look at the paramedic. “Do you
both
understand?”

The paramedic nods but Marcus squeezes my hand. “Jadyn, I don’t think—”

I cut him off. “This is important, Marcus. These are my instructions. Please, tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” he says.

“We need it in writing. We’ll have the paramedics give it to the staff as soon as we get there. Do you have some paper?”

Phillip

Although it feels like forever, a few minutes later, Jadyn is being wheeled in on a gurney.

All I see is blood.
 

Why is there blood?

And whose blood is it?
 

Hers?
 

The baby’s?
 

Marcus said everything was fine. That her water just broke.
 

There shouldn’t be blood.

She sees me and reaches out for my hand.
 

“I’m sorry, Phillip,” she says, crying, before a contraction causes her to groan and clutch her stomach.