32 #2
Did Nash have super sperm or something? Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me. Everything about him was extraordinary.
I swallowed hard, trying to avoid thinking about him and the fact that we had created a life . . . a little baby. My chest ached so fiercely it nearly buckled me, and I forced myself to focus on the doctor instead of the picture in my head.
“Unfortunately, it’s not always one hundred percent effective,” he said gently.
I knew that. I’d heard it before. I’d just never thought it would happen to me.
“How long?” I asked as Dr. Lieberman typed something into his device.
“About ten weeks. I take it you didn’t know about the pregnancy?”
I shook my head. No.
Pregnancy.
Ten weeks.
Baby.
Miscarriage.
The words echoed in my skull, crashing into one another until they barely made sense.
The doctor kept talking, but it was like hearing him underwater.
Fragments drifted through: “Ms. Miller . . . you need to rest . . . let your body recover from this loss . . . monitor your blood pressure . . . dehydrated . . . at only 102 pounds . . . slow down the hectic schedule. . . wait a couple of months to try again . . .”
I was only 102 pounds?
That was less than I’d ever weighed, and I had been ten weeks pregnant. Ten weeks. That was when women were supposed to glow, eat whatever they wanted, and laugh about cravings. I sure as hell hadn’t. I hadn’t even realized I was pregnant.
What kind of horrible person doesn’t realize they’ve missed a period or recognize the fact that they may be pregnant?
What the hell was wrong with me?
I was so ashamed.
But it explained why I’d been so tired all the time, the nausea and occasional vomiting. But still . . . 102 pounds.
What the hell had I done to myself and to my baby? My baby that no longer existed.
The baby that would never be because I’d worked too much, stressed too much, let my blood pressure spike, let myself get dehydrated. Because I’d avoided Nash. Because I’d shoved my head in the sand and pretended everything was fine.
I had lost a baby. Nash’s baby. Mine and Nash’s.
The tears came hard and fast. No amount of willpower could hold them back. It was like opening the floodgates, and it felt like the heartbreak was swallowing me whole. If I’d thought I’d been broken before, it was nothing compared to this.
I was all alone, sitting in that narrow hospital bed, the steady beeping of the machine tracking my blood pressure my only companion. My tears turned into ugly crying, and I sobbed until I shook.
“Wait to try again,” the doctor had said. What a joke. Nash and I weren’t even together. I didn’t even know if we were still friends.
The door swung open again, and the nurse came back in. I hadn’t even noticed the doctor leave. She handed me a box of tissues, then she added something to the drip. Whatever it was must’ve been a sedative because it didn’t take long before I drifted under again.
The next thing I knew, I was jolted awake by the rapid beeping of the monitor and a hand shaking my arm. Another nurse hovered over me, her voice cutting through the fog. “Take a deep breath. You’re okay.”
My heart was racing so fast it felt like the world was caving in on me.
“You’re having a panic attack, sweetheart,” she said gently but firmly. “Focus your eyes on me. Slow breath in. Good. Again.”
She kept talking to me in a firm but calming voice, her soft brown eyes never leaving mine. Not even for a second. The steadiness in her voice anchored me, and she stayed with me until the buzzing in my chest began to ease and I was able to breathe normally again.
“I’ll bring you something to drink,” she said before leaving the room. She returned a few minutes later with a small plastic cup then typed notes into her tablet and added something else to the drip. I only managed a couple of sips of juice before my eyelids grew too heavy.
The next time I woke, the room was dark and empty.
It had to be the middle of the night. The hospital was quiet, almost eerily so.
I had to call for help to go to the bathroom, which turned into a project.
The wires from the heart monitor had to be disconnected and the IV transferred to a rolling stand.
By the time I got back to bed, the clock read 4:03 a.m.
Sleep didn’t come, but the spiraling thoughts sure did.
I couldn’t believe I’d been pregnant. Had being the cruel key word.
I’d always wanted a family, and I’d always dreamed that it would be with Nash, but not until I had a stable career and was married.
Well, I definitely had some kind of career, but then that was all I had.
The monitor picked up again, beeping louder, and I tried to steady it by taking slow breaths.
I felt so incredibly guilty. I’d stressed so much and worked so hard that my body had given out.
I’d been ignoring Nash because I was scared, worried that he and Amy were actually seeing each other. So I’d drowned myself in work because that was easier than dealing with the truth.
But now . . . now he needed to know. As much as I dreaded it, as much as I wanted to pretend none of this had happened, especially since he’d told me about that woman trying to trap him by saying she was pregnant, he had a right to know. He would’ve been a father.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until I felt tears dripping onto my arms, which I’d wrapped tightly around myself.
It took until the evening for me to work up the courage to dial his number. Three times I hung up before it even rang. On the fourth try, I forced myself to wait, only to have it go straight to voicemail. It felt like an omen. We were definitely over.
And maybe . . . maybe it was better that way.