The Price of Fame: A Price Novel (The Price Novels Book 2) (18 page)

He was definitely stressed. I could hear it in his tone of voice, and he was pacing and tapping away on his phone. He was even a little short with Julie, which was totally not like him.

“Baby, what’s going on?” I asked.

He looked up at me and smiled a fake smile. “Nothing, I’m just trying to get this all straight. Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, I am worried about it. I don’t think you need to be here. Go back to New York and work. I promise I’m fine.”

After discussing it at length, and after Lexi promised she wasn’t going to leave me, he finally decided to go back. They didn’t take any breaks at all for the next ten days. They worked every day for between fourteen and sixteen hours straight.

Lexi was a trooper. She stayed up there with me at all times, unless a friend or coworker was my nurse. Then she would nap or shower, but like any good mother, she wouldn’t hear of leaving me, and I loved her even more for that. I had Lexi and Milly and all my friends from the hospital doing everything that they could to keep me occupied.

I was fine until the eleventh day.

I woke up that morning feeling terrible. I wasn’t sure what was wrong, but I had a bad feeling. However, I wasn’t ready to call Slayde yet. Not until after I saw Dr. Wells.

After examining me, she said, “Arden, you need to go ahead and call Slayde. I think you’re going to have these babies today.” She told her nurse something, but I wasn’t listening.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Not 100 percent, but about 99. You are dilated five centimeters. I really think you should call him.”

After she left the room, I looked at Lexi for some advice. “What do I do?”

“You call Slayde. To hell with his work. Call him,” she said.

I hated to mess up his work, but I knew he would be upset if I didn’t call him. It took him five hours to get there, and I was glad that I had called when I did, because I was eight centimeters when he got there. I stayed eight centimeters for the next six hours, and Dr. Wells finally decided to do an emergency C-section because one of the babies’ heart rate kept dropping

I was exhausted and scared, but Slayde seemed to be holding it together—or hiding it well if he wasn’t. At first they said he wouldn’t be able to go back in the operating room with me. I was freaking out at the thought of him not being there, and Dr. Wells knew it. She asked them to make an exception for me since I was a doctor at this hospital.

When it was all over, I was completely out of it. I didn’t even lay eyes on the babies before they rushed them off to the NICU to check them out. He weighed five pounds, six ounces, and she was four pounds, eight ounces. Someone said they were just doing that as a precaution because they were still considered preemies, since they were a few days shy of thirty-seven weeks. I didn’t remember anything else that happened that day.

It wasn’t until early the next morning when the nurse woke me up that I really knew what was going on. The nurse, Grace, told me that both babies had turned out to be fine, and they had moved them to the regular nursery.

Grace wanted me to try to breast-feed the babies. “We will bring them to you one at a time,” Grace said, smiling.

Grace was a short little lady in her early sixties with wavy gray hair not much past her ears. She wore those reading glasses that you find at the checkout counter of the drug stores, the ones that are square and usually some wild color or print. Hers were leopard print with a tiny gold chain around the back. They sat on the end of her nose, and she looked over them as she talked to me. I was fascinated by those glasses. Her light-blue eyes were intent on my every expression.

Another nurse came in with a plastic baby bed and a tiny little baby all wrapped up in a striped blanket, with a blue ridiculously large knit cap on his head. The tag taped to the end of the bed said,
BOY Price
. Poor thing didn’t even have a name yet.

Grace picked him up and walked him over to me. Slayde stood out of the way but positioned himself so he could see the baby. This was the first time I’d held him, but I knew Slayde had already held them both.

I didn’t know what to do. I could feel my chest tightening as she handed him to me. I was holding my breath and didn’t realize it until she put her hand on mine and smiled at me kindly. She was trying to help me, but I really didn’t want to do this. It didn’t feel natural to me at all. I was freaking out inside about my own reluctance, but tried to put on a brave front for Slayde. He seemed to be completely comfortable.

Grace must have been able to tell I was uneasy, because she said that maybe it would be a good time for Slayde to go have some breakfast. As soon as he left the room, I started bawling. I put my free hand over my face. I didn’t know this woman, and here I was hysterical. But she put her hand on my arm and said, “You’re going to be OK. This is very normal. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

I finally moved my hand to look at her. “I have no idea what I am doing, and this all feels so unnatural to me. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a mom.”

She smiled at me. Something about her made me feel like I could tell her anything. I didn’t feel like she was judging me for my inadequacy as a mother. “Sweetie, I can promise you most women feel the same way that you’re feeling right now, but only a handful of them will admit it. The ones who say how easy and natural it was in the very beginning, well, they’re lying. This isn’t hard, but it is new, and that can make it scary. I don’t think you should breast-feed if you don’t want to. Some of these nurses will try and push it on you, and tell you it’s what’s best for the baby. I’m here to tell you a healthy, happy momma is way more important to a baby than breast milk is. So you decide, and don’t you do anything for any reason other than it’s what you want to do.”

I really didn’t know what to do. But I knew it was best for babies to get their mothers’ breast milk, and I wanted to at least try. And her words made me feel like the stakes were lower. “I guess it won’t hurt to try.”

She smiled at me and said, “OK, then let’s try, but you need to make sure he gets a good latch on, or you will be miserable tomorrow.” She got up and brought over a partition and then helped me get him to latch on correctly.

This was the first time I had really looked at him. He was beautiful. I usually didn’t think babies looked like anybody, but he did look like his daddy. I choked up, which I totally didn’t expect.

“He’s a pretty baby, isn’t he?” she said.

“Yeah, he really is, and I think most babies look like shrunken old men. Maybe I’m just biased.”

She laughed. “Nope, he’s pretty. I usually just say they’re sweet.” She winked at me.

Grace was very patient and helpful. She let me get comfortable and only gave me advice when she thought I wanted it. I liked her. I knew she was somebody’s mother.

After a few minutes, someone knocked on the partition. Grace peeked around it. It was another nurse, and she had our little girl with her.

The younger nurse brought her over where I could see her. She was her daddy’s child too, absolutely beautiful. I didn’t know if there was any of me in either of them, but that was OK with me.

Grace looked at me. “I’d say their daddy marked them for sure.”

I laughed. “I think you’re right.”

After a few minutes, the boy baby stopped nursing. I looked at Grace for guidance. “That’s probably all you’ll get him to do. Let’s swap. I’ll get him changed and swaddled back up, and you can keep him in here if you’d like.”

We swapped babies, and I couldn’t believe how much better I felt than I had only forty-five minutes before. Grace stayed with me, and I was calm the whole time.

When the baby girl finished, I handed her to Grace as Slayde came into the room.

“Do you want me to leave them for a few minutes?” Grace asked me, laying the baby back in her bed.

“Yes,” I said.

“OK, just holler if you need something, but I’ll come back.”

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it with every fiber of my being.

She read that in my pleading stare, winked, and smiled at me before she walked away.

“Are you OK?” Slayde asked.

“For now.” That was the most honest answer I could give him at the moment.

“You feeling OK?”

“I guess. I’m not comfortable, but I’m not in a lot of pain at the moment. So, yeah.”

“Have they brought you anything to eat?”

“No, some chicken broth earlier, but I’m still a little woozy. I’m not hungry right now.”

He walked over to the plastic bassinets and looked up at me with a ridiculous smile. “You want to hold them?” he asked. “Because I do.” He looked as happy as I had ever seen him, and I fell in love with him a little more.

“Sure,” I said.

He handed me our little boy, and he picked up our little girl and sat by me in the bed. “You know, we do have to name them, or they won’t let us keep them.” He was only teasing me, but I knew he was right.

“Any suggestions?” I wasn’t one of those people who’d had my baby names picked out since I was five. It felt like a lot of pressure—picking a name was a big deal because a person had to live with it forever.

“Maybe we can figure it out tomorrow. I can’t believe they are really here. What are we gonna do now?” he asked.

My smile faded. I hadn’t thought of that. There would be no Grace at our house. “I don’t know. Do you think your mom will go home with us?”

“Absolutely, she said she would be there for whatever we needed her to do. Don’t you think you should call your mom?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I looked down at the baby, who had grabbed hold of my finger. His eyes were still closed, and he looked as peaceful as could be. “I guess, maybe. Will you do it?” I really didn’t want to call her, but I knew I should.

“If you want me to. I’ll call her later this morning.” I nodded, and he looked at me. “Casey was here earlier when you were sleeping. She went home a few hours ago to sleep. I told her to rest up because I didn’t know if she’d be getting any sleep when we got home.”

At least we’d have Casey.

A few minutes later, Grace came back for the babies and told me to try and rest, and she would see me in a few hours. She wasn’t kidding, either. It felt like I had only just gotten to sleep when she was back to help them feed them again.

Around lunchtime, Lexi came and let Slayde go take a shower. I was happy to see her, and she brought me her famous chicken and dumplings. I was starving, and I knew what she’d brought the moment she walked in. They were fresh and still hot, and my mouth began to water immediately. I was so glad because I hated hospital food. I had to eat it more than I wanted to, as it was. “How was your night?” she asked, stroking my hair. I kind of gave her a funny look, and she knew what I was thinking. “That bad, huh?”

“Long, I guess. I was up really early to feed them.”

“Well, this part only lasts for a little while, and eventually you forget how horrible it was.”

“You thought it was horrible too?”

“Hell yes, honey! I like my sleep. I thought I wasn’t going to make it. Slayde wasn’t too bad. He started sleeping through the night after three weeks, but those were a long three weeks. I remember those first few nights after I got home. I thought I was going to die, and Zac was absolutely no help. I finally got smart and went to my parents’. I thought that was rough, but Taylor was a nightmare. She didn’t sleep until she was two. I guess that was a good indication of what she was going to be like later. Slayde was easy and sweet and happy. Taylor, well, let’s just say she’s no Slayde, bless her heart.”

I laughed and said, “She’s like her daddy, and Slayde’s like you.”

“You said it, sister. What can I do to make it easier for you?”

I looked up at her. “Come home with us. Please don’t tell Slayde, but I am scared to death.”

She smiled. “That’s normal, and you’re way more honest than most people. I will come stay with you as long as you need me to.”

“How about two years, just in case they’re anything like Taylor.” We both laughed. A nurse came in to check on me and said they would be bringing the babies to me in a few minutes. My stomach got a little nervous thinking about breast-feeding, but I was going to try not to panic.

When Slayde got back, I had already fed the babies without as much difficulty as the last time, and Lexi had unwrapped them out of their swaddling blankets to check them out. She changed both their diapers and clothes and swaddled them all back up.

A few hours later, they made me get up and go to the bathroom, another thing I wished I didn’t have to do. I was very sore, and that just made it worse. I knew I needed to get up and move around, but I had been scared to. Slayde helped me change and get back in the bed.

We spent a lot of the day with the babies in the room. We were sitting there trying to decide what we should name them when my mom showed up. I had forgotten I told Slayde to call her. She came in with flowers. She set them on my windowsill and set her purse down. She tucked her hands into her pockets and smiled. It was awkward.

Lexi got up and put the boy baby back in the bed and said she would come back with Zac later. She kissed my cheek and said she loved me and left. It was strange, because I knew she did love me, but I had doubts about how my own mother felt. Slayde followed her out of the room.

“They are beautiful, Arden,” Mom said, standing over them. “They look like their daddy. What did you name them?”

“We haven’t yet,” I admitted.

I was expecting a smart comment from her, but she didn’t have one. “I guess it’s smart to think about it for a while. Get to know them and see what names fit them. It’s kind of silly to pick a name out of a book before you even meet your child,” she said.

“Maybe so. I don’t know. I didn’t have names for my kids picked out at thirteen like most girls did.”

She laughed. “When I was little, I said I was going to name my little girl Pepper Anne. So be glad I thought about it for a while.”

“I really dodged a bullet there, didn’t I? I don’t know how many people could have taken me seriously as a surgeon if my name was Pepper Anne. That’s horrible, Mom.”