I used her soft, pink blanket to wipe an errant tear that escaped. “So, you promise you’re going to put up a fight and I promise I’m going to fight for you too. Okay?”
“Can I get in on this?” I turned to see Porter standing in the doorway, a tray full of cafeteria food in his hands. He put the tray down on the counter and walked over to us, kneeling next to our chair, and I watched in wonder as he bent down and kissed Mattie’s head gently while I nursed her. The image took my breath away and had we not been in a hospital room, surrounded by beeping monitors and crib-cages, I might have thought it a wonderful moment. It was still memorable, but more so because it was sad, not the beautifully moving moment it would have been had it been experienced in our warm bed or in the rocking chair I purchased with exactly this moment in mind.
Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with everything, pushed over the edge by the polarity of the moments I was getting versus the moments I was promised.
“I can’t lose her, Porter. I just can’t.”
“Shhh.” He said, pulling my head down to rest on his shoulder. “We’re not going to lose her, Baby. Like you said, we’re going to fight with her and for her. She’s going to get through this.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He didn’t answer me; he just kissed my forehead and kept us close to him. It didn’t matter that he didn’t answer my question, because I knew what he was thinking—It was the same answer I had running through my head all day.
She would get through this simply because she had to, because without her we both would simply fall to pieces.
The next twenty-four hours were filled with tension and aggravation. We woke up to find that Mattie’s I.V. had come out, something that apparently happened with children a lot. I was, again, faced with watching people in white lab coats poke and prod her tiny hands and arms trying to find a vein. During the ordeal, our nurse came into the room and saw me crying into Porter’s chest while Mattie lay crying in her crib.
“Hello, Ladies,” our nurse, whose name tag read Melody, said to the lab assistants torturing my baby. “I think Wendy is on shift right now. Why don’t I have her try?” Melody efficiently shooed the white-coated women out of the room and then wrapped Mattie back up in her blanket, picking her up. “Would you like to come with me?” She asked, looking at me.
“Where are you taking her?”
“We’ve got a nurse on the floor who use to work in the NICU. She’s really good at finding tiny veins. She would be much better at this than the vascular access people. They don’t often get to work on such small patients.”
I nodded and wiped my tears, following her down the hallway. She found the nurse she was looking for and I followed them into a room that looked like it was used for storage more than anything else, but it had a bed in it and a very bright light. They chatted amongst themselves and I stood near Mattie’s head, trying to just be there. I steeled myself, getting ready for more heartbreak as Wendy went near my baby. She spent what felt like forever inspecting Mattie’s arms, something the other white-coated women had never done.
“I think the left arm is the best bet,” Wendy said, getting out the needle. I cringed as she went for Mattie, waiting for the crying to start, but I watched as she got it in with one poke and Mattie never made a peep. My eyes shot up to Wendy and Melody, shock filling them.
“I told you she was good,” Melody said with a smile.
“I never want the people in the white coats to come near her again,” I said, sounding more forceful than I had intended. It wasn’t a request; it was a demand. Melody just smiled brightly at me.
“Not a problem,” she said as she wrapped Mattie back up, placing her in my arms. “Let’s get back to her room so we can get some more meds in her.” As we walked back, I learned that Melody was a nursing student in her final year of nursing school.
For the rest of the day Melody was around, checking up on us and taking care of Mattie. Every time she came into the room, she was smiling and something about her made me feel better about our situation. She was so sweet to Mattie and that went a long way with me.
As the day wore on, Mattie napped and Porter and I wound up sharing the God-awful bench in the room, both trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable.
“I hate to say this,” I sighed as I sat up, “but maybe you should go home and get some sleep.” As much as I wanted him here with me, we needed to be realistic about this room. “We can’t both sleep here tonight.”
“How about we take shifts? I’ll stay here tonight and tomorrow we can trade.”
I looked over at him and I’m sure I had a wicked look on my face. “I’m not going anywhere, Porter.”
“Babe, you have to go home at some point.”