Two Kisses for Maddy_ A Memoir of Loss & Love - Matthew Logelin [8]
Finally he spoke: “Liz, your amniotic fluid level is low, your baby is very underweight for the gestational age, and the umbilical cord is wrapped around its neck. You’re going to have to go on bed rest for the next three weeks, beginning by lying on your right side. When you can no longer handle lying on your right side, then switch to your left side. When you can no longer handle that, switch back to your right side. You’ll come back in three weeks so I can check you out again.”
And with that, he was out the door. Liz immediately started crying, and I felt as though I’d been punched in the stomach.
“What the fuck?” I said to Liz.
The nurse tried to calm us down with an explanation of what the doctor had said so tersely. “It’s just a precaution. The low amniotic fluid is a concern, because a normal amniotic fluid level is like a shock absorber. It offers the fetus some protection from being jostled around as you carry on your normal daily activities. If you spend the next three weeks lying on your side, there’s a much lower risk of causing damage to the fetus, and the hope is that all of the calories you’d normally expend walking through your office or around your house will go directly to the baby, which will help her gain weight.”
It made perfect sense, but we were both thinking the same thing: how was Liz going to lie still for three straight weeks?
“What about the umbilical cord around her neck?” Liz asked.
“That oftentimes corrects itself,” answered the nurse.
There were a few more questions from Liz and a few more answers from the nurse, but I really wasn’t paying attention. I was too distracted wondering if our child was going to become a statistic.
And so just like that, Liz stopped working and followed the doctor’s orders. No more constant trips to public restrooms to vomit or lunch hours spent catching up on sleep in the car. Liz completed her three weeks of bed rest, complaining far less than I thought she might. I did everything I could to make her life easier when I was around, and when I had to leave the house, I only wished I could be at home with her.
When we found ourselves back in Dr. DeVore’s office, he said, “Things don’t look any better. You need to go to the hospital immediately. You’ll be there until your baby is born.” Fuck.
Liz was devastated. For some reason we had both been under the clearly mistaken impression that the three weeks of strict bed rest would be the magic cure for all of the problems Dr. DeVore had previously diagnosed. Obviously not. Then I realized our daughter wasn’t due for another nine weeks, and I had a physical reaction to my fear. I’ve never been so scared in my life—my entire body was shaking. I tried my best to suppress it in an attempt to be strong for Liz, but I was holding her hand and she could feel it.
“Immediately?” Did this mean that our baby was in some sort of grave danger? Now it was me who had a thousand questions, but I sensed that there wasn’t time for any of them; we needed to get to the hospital. Luckily, the nearest one was less than half a mile from Dr. DeVore’s office. We jumped in my car, and a few minutes later Liz was filling out admission papers. While we were checking in, a group of expectant parents and a hospital staff member walked past us on a tour of the maternity ward. We never got the chance to take that tour. Nor did we take any birthing classes. I realized then just how useless I’d be to Liz when it finally came time for her to give birth.
This new hospital setup required us both to adjust, and neither of us found it that easy. There were all sorts of medical machinery, scheduled tests,