The Cramps (2)

To read from the beginning:

The Collapse (1)  (E) A mother's grief begins. #1906964 by MrsDesjardins2012

The Cramps

Cross-legged and waiting on visitors, she sat in Labor and Delivery at Maine Medical Center. Her son had just passed away, after 99 minutes on Earth. Grief was sitting in the red armchair next to her bed, just holding her hand. Her skin was soft from years of moisturizing lotion but her strong nails were all broken from grasping the bedsides during labor. It was a quick and fierce birth.

He recalled her writhing from side to side, as she experienced contraction after contraction. The look on the doctors' faces when she referred to her contractions as cramps. . . it made him smile as he envisioned that look of disbelief, her strength impressed even the medical professionals. But it wasn’t just her physical strength that had been so incredible.

She sat in a hospital bed two weeks earlier when her amniotic fluid levels skyrocketed. The doctors warned her, they had no idea how to save her son. They didn’t know what was causing his development issues. If he were born now, he would likely die. Grief stood in the corner and watched the same conversation occur three separate times over that two-week period with three different doctors.

When the “cramps” started in the early evening on September 21st, doctors began pouring in around her. She was three centimeters dilated and having contractions. Almost instantly, an IV was pumping in magnesium sulfate in the highest doses possible as they tried desperately to stop her contractions.

Dr. Blackwell, a particularly interesting woman donning short blonde hair and wearing black knee high boots, black leggings, a hunter green sweater dress, and a lab coat, seemed confident that these contractions could be stopped. Grief remembered thinking to himself that she was eccentric but exceptionally organizing the chaos that was the attempt to stop premature labor. On the IV, the doctors placed large saline bags to prevent dehydration. As the doctors and nurses filed out one by one, Katy focused on the feeling of cold magnesium pumping through her veins. Her skin flushed as she calmed herself from the panic that had surrounded her.

Grief thought how instinctual the experience was for Katy. He sat on the cushioned green bench near the over-sized window in the room. He was waiting, as was she. Katy looked up at her husband, clenching his hand in hers, his skin turning white around her grasp, “I don’t want to do this yet.” Twisting from side to side trying to get comfortable between contractions, liquid-grieving began streaming down her bare face and traced her chin before falling on her hospital Johnny. They both knew the odds if Bennett was born today. She relaxed her grasp as a contraction came to a sudden halt, he regained the blood in his hand, and then it started all over again.

Suddenly, like a tornado, the contractions became violent. Barely enough time between contractions to take a breath, she whispered in the brief seconds between pains, “press the call button, press it, press it please”. Her husband pressed the button; the nurse responded over the intercom, “How can we help you?” He looked into her eyes, saw the fear and the immense pain, and he said, “Come now. Hurry.”

To read the next story:

The Funeral Home (3)  (E) Grief recalls the morning Katy arrived at the funeral home to arrange her son's cremation. #1907171 by MrsDesjardins2012