Baby Girl Read online

  ~ ~ ~

  I was nineteen weeks when Doctor Peters, my obstetrician, scheduled an ultrasound. Seeing a picture of the baby growing inside of you is kind of like witnessing a miracle, and I thought perhaps if Ryan saw it he’d better understand what I was feeling.

  “Today I’ll get to see whether we’ve created a boy or girl,” I said. “You want to come with me?”

  He didn’t stop to think before he shook his head. “We’re short a man in the Grant Street store. You can tell me tonight.”

  At that moment I can’t say if I was angrier with him for not caring or myself for being foolish enough to think he would.

  That day is still vivid in my mind. It was the third Thursday of September and cooler than usual. Dark clouds scuttled across the sky, and I could feel rain in the air. It hadn’t yet started when I left the house. I had three customers to see that morning and my ultrasound appointment at two o’clock. If I finished up early I was planning to stop in Cooper’s Appliances and talk to them about increasing their ad budget.

  Shortly after eleven the rain began. It started with a light mist, but by the time I’d finished my third call it was coming down in torrents. I remember walking into the doctor’s waiting room with my shoes squishing.

  The rain slowed everything that day, so the sonographer was running behind. There was one other woman ahead of me, and in an obstetrician’s office pregnant women tend to talk to each other.

  “When are you due?” she asked.

  “January fifteenth,” I answered. For the moment I allowed myself to pretend I was like her, a woman carrying a baby that would forever be hers. I stuck out my hand and said, “Cheryl Ann Ferguson.”

  “Alicia Martin,” she replied.

  We chatted for about five minutes, and she confided in me that she was hoping for a boy.

  “We’ve already got two girls,” she said, “so a boy would be nice.”

  “I’d be happy with either,” I said, echoing LeAnn’s words.

  “Actually I would be too,” she replied. “As long as the baby’s healthy.”

  Moments later her name was called, and for the next twenty minutes I sat there leafing through a Parents magazine. During that time I pictured my own baby and imagined it to be a girl.

  Just as she came from the back office smiling, my name was called. As I walked toward the waiting nurse, I looked over and mouthed the words, “A boy?”

  She gave a happy nod and disappeared out the door.

  I climbed onto the table and leaned back. After running around in the rain all morning, these few moments of doing nothing felt rather relaxing.

  “I’m going to squirt a little bit of gel on you,” the technician said; then a blob of warm jelly landed on my stomach.

  That’s how it was; he announced each thing as he went through the motions. At first he sat back, smoothly sliding the wand through the gel, moving from one spot to the next.

  “It looks like you’re having a girl,” he said. Then he leaned forward and frowned at the monitor.

  At first I thought that was the end of the ultrasound, but it wasn’t. He squirted another glob of gel on my stomach and this time he moved the wand slower, sometimes less than a millimeter in one direction then back again in the other. Minutes ticked by, and I noticed how he watched the screen with ever increasing intensity.

  Alicia had been in and out in twenty minutes. I glanced at the clock on his desk. I had been on the table for more than an hour.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “No, no,” he replied nervously. “I just need to have Doctor Peters take a look at this.” He left me on the table and scurried out of the room.

  Moments later the doctor followed him back and waited as the technician slid the wand across my stomach. The two of them had that same worried frown as they eyed the image on the screen.

  By then I was starting to worry. “What’s wrong?”

  “It may be nothing,” Doctor Peters said, “but…”

  The tone of his voice caused my heart to start banging against my chest.

  “Just to be on the safe side,” he said, “I’m going to refer you to a perinatologist. That’s a maternal-fetal medicine specialist.”

  I gasped. “Oh, my God, what’s wrong with my baby?”

  “Right now there’s nothing to worry about,” he said, but it was too late. I’d already seen the look on his face.

  I didn’t call on any other customers that afternoon. I left the doctor’s office, walked back to my car and sat there watching the rain splash against the window as I cried my heart out.

  Baby Girl

  Fear of the unknown is the biggest, meanest and ugliest fear of all. The unknown leaves it up to your imagination to think of the absolute worst that can happen. You don’t even consider there might be something between ideal and horrific; you just go straight to worrying about the horrific. By the time I arrived home I was already imagining the worst.

  Thursday was Ryan’s bowling night, and in an odd way I was glad to be alone. I sat in the lounge chair, pushed back and cradled my tummy with my right hand.

  “Baby girl,” I whispered, “I am so sorry. So very, very sorry.”

  I remained there for more than an hour, talking to my baby, holding her in my arms and making tiny circles with my fingers on spots I thought were the cap of her head and the heel of her foot.

  Then it was eight o’clock, and I could wait no longer. The Stuarts knew I was scheduled for the ultrasound today, and I had promised to call and tell them the sex of their baby. I dialed their number, and LeAnn answered on the first ring.

  I’d barely said hello when she asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said, “but I think there might be something wrong with the baby.”

  Dean picked up the extension. “Cheryl?”

  Once they were both on the line, I told them the baby was a girl then explained my experience with the ultrasound.

  “I’ve been referred to a specialist but the earliest appointment I could get was Tuesday morning, so I won’t know anything more until then.”

  I heard a sniffle on the other end of the line and knew it was LeAnn.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “If something is wrong with the baby, I’m not going to hold you to your commitment.”

  “This is our baby,” LeAnn said firmly. “She’s ours, and we want her regardless of what’s wrong.”

  Dean echoed that sentiment.

  We all cried that night. We tried to reassure one another that it could be something small, something not worthy of worry. That’s what we told one another, but none of us believed it. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had indeed picked the right parents for my baby girl.

  They say adversity draws people together, and I believe it’s true. Right from the start I’d had a good relationship with Dean and LeAnn, but when this new threat showed itself they became my staunchest supporters. They gave me what Ryan did not: a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen, a heart to care.

  After four days of living in what can only be described as a hell of unknown fears, Tuesday morning finally arrived. This time I didn’t go alone. I had people who cared about my baby and me.

  Dean and LeAnn drove over from Lawton, which with morning traffic is a ninety-minute trip, and they picked me up shortly before nine. Doctor Greenberg’s office was another forty-five minutes back toward Lawton. The round trip of coming to pick me up, driving back to the doctor’s office, then bringing me home and returning home themselves entailed almost five hours of driving.

  “I could have just driven over and met you,” I told them.

  “Nonsense,” LeAnn said. “You shouldn’t have to face something like this alone.” As we climbed from the car and started into the doctor’s office she took my hand in hers. “This is our baby, and whatever there is to face we’ll deal with it together.”

  We barely had time to sit before we were called in to see Doctor Greenberg. Instead of a
n examination room, we were ushered into a conference room with a mahogany table and black leather chairs.

  Doctor Greenberg sat on one side of the table with a spread of notes in front of him. We sat on the opposite side. After a few brief introductions, he opened the folder and said, “I’ve already studied the ultrasound report, and unfortunately it appears that the baby has gastroschisis.”

  “Gastro—”

  Before I could ask the question, he pulled out a medical illustration and placed it in front of us.

  “Gastroschisis is a birth defect that takes place early in the pregnancy. The baby’s abdominal wall has a hole in it, and the intestines grow on the outside of the baby’s body rather than on the inside.” He pointed to the specifics of the illustration. “The hole is most often here, to the right of the baby’s belly button.”

  I looked at the illustration and felt like the floor of the room was being pulled from beneath me.

  “Why?” I asked, my voice no more than a whisper. “Did I do something to—”

  Doctor Greenberg shook his head. “It’s nothing you did. It’s not a genetic or chromosomal syndrome, it’s a birth defect. It happens maybe once in every ten thousand births; more with teenaged mothers, but still a one in ten thousand shot.”

  “Can we do something to fix it?” Dean asked.

  “Yes, there is a corrective procedure,” Doctor Greenberg said, “but we can’t do it as a fetal surgery; we’ll have to wait until after the baby is born.”

  “Will she be okay then?” I asked.

  Doctor Greenberg fingered his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe, maybe not. There’s a ten percent mortality rate for babies born with gastroschisis. And even if the surgery is successful, there’s still the possibility she’ll have problems with digestion and the absorption of nutrients.”

  For a brief moment I let my mind linger on the thought of that unfortunate ten percent. Then I asked, “Is there something I can do to better her odds?”

  “Take care of yourself. Don’t get overtired or stressed. Eat healthy. I’ve seen this before, and I know what we’re dealing with here. So don’t worry, we’ll be well prepared.”

  He spoke at length about what we could expect going forward. The likelihood was that they would deliver the baby sometime between 35 and 38 weeks rather than allowing me to go the full 40. And the probability was it would be a Cesarean delivery.

  “Why would you take the baby early?” LeAnn asked.

  “So we can schedule the date and have a pediatric team standing by,” he said. “The baby will go straight from the delivery room into surgery.”

  He began to gather up his papers, then turned to me and said, “Oh, and I want to see you in here every two weeks.”

  Suddenly I had become a high-risk pregnancy that warranted a specialist. From here on in he would monitor the baby’s progress, and we would make each decision as we went along. This was only the first step in what would be a long and rocky road.

  That night I prayed harder than I had since I’d asked God not to take Daddy.

  “Please,” I begged, “let Doctor Greenberg be mistaken. Let my baby girl be born with every tiny little part in just the right place.”

  I knew the baby was not destined to be mine, but I loved her all the same. It was a strange feeling; I was her mother, but only for a short while. Another four months. Maybe less.

  Even if it was only for that little bit of time, I wanted her to know I loved her. I wanted her to feel my arms around her and hear my voice. I had no right to name her, but in the strange way that only a mother can understand I did. I knew if I gave her a real name I would never be able to let her go, so I called her Baby Girl.

  I prayed with her, sang to her and held her in my arms as together we began our sad and treacherous journey.

  Too Soon

  In the weeks that followed the appointment with Doctor Greenberg, my lifestyle changed dramatically. It started with a cut back in the number of hours I worked and carried over into everything else. For the first time in years I began making room in my day for good things: relaxation, visiting with friends and meals on a regular schedule.

  In the morning when I felt fresh and rested I’d drive around, visit a few customers, then return home and have lunch at our old oak table. I’d fix a fresh green salad and bowl of soup, then eat leisurely as I browsed through magazines like Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal.

  In the afternoon, I worked from home. Instead of traveling from place to place, I called customers on the telephone. I sat in the big lounge chair with a few folders and a notepad in my lap, reclined the back and conducted business as easily as I did in face-to-face meetings. If I finished my calls early, I’d drive over to the apothecary and stay for a cup of dandelion tea.

  Ophelia knew Baby Girl was scheduled for adoption, and on days when I needed to pour my heart out she was there to listen. No matter how much sorrow I spilled out, she had a way of making me feel better. Not patronizing, just listening and caring. There was nothing I didn’t share with Ophelia, and she in turn shared the stories of her life with me. As we sat at the kitchen table with honeyed cups of tea, she spoke of Edward, the husband she’d lost some thirty years earlier, and I talked of Ryan, not as we were a year ago but as we were now.

  Her stories were filled with thoughts of love and longing. I can’t say exactly what mine were filled with. Anger, maybe, or perhaps disappointment.

  “He pretends this baby doesn’t exist,” I explained. “If he really loves me, he’d take more of an interest.”

  Ophelia reached across the table and placed her hand on my arm. “I doubt this is about you. More likely it’s about Ryan himself.”

  “Ryan? But why—”

  “I imagine he feels guilty about making you give up the baby.”

  “Him, guilty?” I scoffed. “I doubt—”

  “You never know what’s inside a person’s head,” she said. “Indifference is often a cover for guilt.”

  I thought about Ophelia’s words for a long time and decided there could be a grain of truth to them. So Ryan and I continued, with each day folding into the next and nothing changing. He never mentioned the baby, and I stopped expecting him to care. Maybe we both thought that once she was no longer a part of our life, we’d go back to the way we were.

  Unfortunately such a thought is never realistic. Once a link is broken, the chain no longer has strength. You can try to glue the pieces together and sometimes it holds for a while, but sooner or later it falls apart again.

  There were good days and bad days. On a good day I lived in the moment, wrapping my arms around Baby Girl, talking to her and lovingly running my fingers across the swell of my stomach. When I felt her move I could tell which spot was a foot and which was the crown of her head. On afternoons when she seemed restless I sang to her and we danced. With my stomach cradled in my hands I waltzed across the room to the tune of I Will Always Love You. Over and over again I played that song, praying someday it would strike a familiar chord in her ear and she’d remember.

  ~ ~ ~

  Twice a month I had an appointment with Doctor Greenberg, and LeAnn almost always came with me. Together we’d look at the sonogram and see the baby getting bigger and stronger, the mass of her intestines still on the outside of that tiny body and growing ever more obvious. The good thing was that the doctor had determined a vaginal birth would be better, barring any complications.

  In early December the pains in my lower abdomen began. Fearful I might be going into pre-term labor, Doctor Greenberg put me on strict bed rest.

  “You mean no driving?” I asked.

  He wrinkled his brow and gave me a frown that resembled Mama’s. “Bed rest means total bed rest! You’re not to get out of bed for anything other than to use the toilet or take a shower. A very quick shower!”

  “But…”

  “There are no buts,” he said. “Start jumping in and out of bed, and you’re liable to go into labor. It’s too early. The baby�
�s not strong enough yet. We’ve got to keep you stable until we’re ready with a pediatric team on hand and know she’s strong enough to handle the surgery.”

  Doctor Greenberg’s words left nothing to doubt. All of a sudden I was responsible for more than just Baby Girl’s care and nourishment. I was responsible for her life. The thought scared me to death, and I think LeAnn was almost as frightened as I was.

  In all the years we’d been together, this was the most challenging situation Ryan and I had ever faced. Bed rest might sound simple, but for us it wasn’t. I had to take a leave of absence, so without my salary Ryan worked overtime and Saturdays to pay for the house, the boat and the investment property he was fixing up. It was up to our friends and neighbors to come and care for me.

  Each morning he brought me breakfast before he left and made certain the telephone was on the table beside the bed.

  “If you need anything call me,” he’d say, then kiss me goodbye and be gone until seven or eight o’clock that evening.

  Thank God for Emma Murphy, our next-door neighbor. She never left me alone for more than an hour or two. All day long she was in and out.

  “Do you want a drink of water?” she’d ask. “Or a cup of tea?” When she wasn’t offering something to drink, she tried to feed me or place a heating pad over my constantly cold feet.

  All I could do was sit in bed and worry.

  Emma would wait until she looked out the window and saw a car in our driveway; then she’d know I had company and dash off to do her own errands.

  Most every day someone was there. Monday through Friday Nicole came straight from work and stayed until Ryan got home. LeAnn came four or five times a week, and more often than not she brought the banana split I craved. When LeAnn didn’t come, she called.