Because of Them (Because of Love #2)

Chapter Thirty

AUDREY

T he afternoon passes in a blur, time counting not with the hours but with each new contraction.

Trying to hide my panic while Maisie complained because she only just got to see Michael again and it was supposed to be her weekend with mummy, not daddy. Callum’s large hand on my shoulder, his calm smile and a promise it’ll be okay—even though he can’t possibly know that—before he whisked her into the back seat.

Michael pacing the living room, calling the hospital as soon as they left, and again when the contractions started getting longer, instead of shorter. And again when I started to bleed. Only a little, but enough. Packing a rushed bag for the hospital and crouching over the bed as I tried to catch my breath. A particularly painful contraction in the car, and another in the carpark. Michael standing behind me to hold me up when I couldn’t stand from the pain.

I find myself disassociating as I’m led to a consultation room. As though I’m watching the nightmare unfold on a TV screen. It’s not happening to me. Only it is, and I’m terrified. My hand clutches Michael’s and I refuse to let go as a polite midwife talks through preterm birth and how the babies will have to go to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Michael, guiding me to the bed as I break down at the news, only to have another contraction tear me apart from the inside out. I make him stay as I’m strapped to the monitor, and he wipes my tears after each new wave of terror and pain.

Two panicked midwives huddle over the read out from the machine, whispering. One races off, returning with an obstetrician. The ultrasound gel is cool on my stomach, but the pressure from the wand brings a new kind of pain, this one in my chest. My heart is breaking because I know things are going terribly wrong, they don’t need to tell me.

I’m rushed into a delivery room despite my protests that it’s too early, and I can’t shake the feeling that no one is listening. Not the doctor, not the midwives, not Michael, not my body.

Not yet, I try to tell them all. Not yet.

And then, time starts to drag and rush by somehow all at once. And everything is a million times worse. Worse than it was before, worse than it should be—I’m certain. Contraction after contraction feeling like daggers in my stomach, my back. Until now, I have no idea how long it’s been, what day it is, when it will end. There’s a drip of antibiotics in my wrist. A dose of something that should have stopped the contractions and then a dose of steroids when it didn’t work. A thick, painful needle in my butt that stings and aches but is nothing like the searing pain of the contractions. And all the while, the pain that rushes through my body every few minutes.

Michael stands, sits, paces. He lays his head on my shoulder, he stands behind me while I bounce on the ball, he carries me around the room when the pain is too much and I can’t move for myself. He ties my hair back, lets his hair down, runs his hands through its lengths and pulls at the ends. I doze and wake in searing pain, over and over until I can’t take it anymore.

Wires are spread across my stomach, pads are changed, hands are shoved inside me to check progress. My water breaks in a gush of liquid and Michael holds me on the armchair while the sheets are changed in a rush. A deep stain forms on Michael’s pants and he pretends not to notice even though the dark red stands out against his pale jeans.

Every moment comes and goes but everything stays the same. The same pressure, the same pain, the same feeling like I could die, and nothing at all like my memories of Maisie’s birth.

Was it easier because she was full term, or because it was only her? Had I just forgotten all of this because then she was here and it all seemed worth it?

No.

I would have remembered if it was this bad, I would have decided one was enough. But then, I had, hadn’t I?

I should have done another birthing class. Everything I learnt six years ago is gone and I have no idea if I should stand or sit or rock or try to walk. Should I scream or breathe or clench my jaw or just give up. Maybe I should have accepted the epidural and I want to ask if I can have one but the room is suddenly spinning.

Two midwives check me again—is one a student?—and whisper to each other. “… bleeding … placenta … delivery … doctor …” I have no idea what any of it means, but I’m scared.

“I can’t do this,” I moan as another contraction ends. Everything hurts, and there’s no such thing as relief as the wave crashes into an endless pain filled with pressure and exhaustion and worry.

“You are,” Michael strokes my hair and whispers in my ear. His voice shakes. “You are doing this and I am so proud of you.”

But I can’t. I can’t.

I can barely keep my eyes open.

A machine beeps erratically and Michael is no longer resting beside me on the bed. I squeeze his hand as a contraction threatens to tear me in two. I cling to him like it’s my final chance.

The fire in my abdomen eases, but my world begins to blur, blackened around the edges like I’m staring up at my life from somewhere far below the floor. My grip on Michael’s hand falls away.

“BP has dropped to one hundred over sixty.” The voice floats through the room as one of the midwives pushes past Michael. His face drops, mouth hanging open as his gaze darts back and forth around the room.

Blinding lights take over the room, the silhouettes of too many people casting shadows across my face.

This is not the plan, I try to say.

The plan was dim lights and no extra people and as little intervention as possible.

But the plan was also a full-term birth, so maybe we threw the plan away hours ago. The words are stuck in my throat as I fight to stay awake. My eyes blink slowly, all on their own and each time I have to open them it gets a little harder.

The bed drops until I am lying almost flat on my back. I didn’t want this. We wanted to let gravity help. We needed to let gravity help me get two babies out.

Michael. I want Michael. But in the sea of bodies still rushing around the room he is lost. Until there he is, halfway out the door. His eyes are wide and his face is whiter than the walls and he wrings his hands together while his whole body shakes. A face I don’t recognise leans close to talk to him, but he doesn’t take his eyes of me. Even as they guide him out the door, he walks backwards in tiny, hesitant steps.

And all the while I can’t keep my own eyes open. I’m fading.

This was not the plan.

“Audrey.” The voice is right in my ear. I can feel how close she is, but the words are so very far away.

I’m rolled to my side, my arm goes cool as something flows through the drip, a mask is slipped over my face and I can’t breathe through the panic.

“We need to move you now, okay?”

They don’t wait for me to answer, maybe they know that I can’t. The door stretches closer somehow even though I’m still lying flat on this bed. People in scrubs surround me as the bed is wheeled out the door and down the hall.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

Despite the chaos, despite how distant everything feels, I know where they are taking me.

“No.” I try to protest but the word simply falls out of my mouth with a laboured breath, too quiet for anyone to hear.

In the hallway, I search for Michael, desperate to fight the deepest sleep that’s calling me until I know he is by my side. But a ding sounds, and metal walls surround us, and Michael is still missing.

And the world fades away into nothing.

And Michael is gone.