Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
SHELBY
June, 2013
“So, I take it this is an unplanned pregnancy?” Dr. Bronner asked.
What could have possibly tipped you off? I looked at my ashen complexion in the mirror across from me in the clinic room. The fact that I look like I’ve seen a ghost or the fact that my breakfast is now in your waste basket? I snarked in my head. She wasn’t my regular OB/GYN, but I had no choice but to see the associate. My regular doctor, Dr. Lindsay was spending a month in New Zealand with his wife.
I had fainted at work the day before. Luckily it was in the break room and not in front of a client. I had dragged myself into work the last few days unable to shake off this nagging exhaustion. Randall sent me home and I called for the appointment. Today I woke up with some cramping on my right side.
“But I have an IUD, this isn’t supposed to happen.”
“No birth control is one hundred percent with the exception of sterilization. We do worry with an IUD though. I want to do an exam.”
She had me lie down and I grimaced. “What’s wrong?” She asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just some shoulder pain…I’ve had a lot of stress lately.”
“Are you having any other pain?”
“A little,” I told her. “Some cramping this morning.”
“Hmm.”
She had me put my feet up in the stirrups and lubricated her gloved fingers to do a pelvic exam. “I am going to feel your uterus now. When did you have your last period?”
I winced as another sharper cramp gripped me. “I don’t really get periods with this last IUD. But I guess I had unprotected sex around six weeks ago. I wonder if you’d be able to give me a referral…”
“You want to terminate. No problem, I’ll give you a list of options before you leave.” She put two fingers inside and I felt the pinch as she hit my cervix. “I’m not feeling your IUD threads. It has definitely either migrated or it fell out at some point.” She pressed her fingers in above my pubic bone, and I flinched with another cramp. “I don’t want to lie to you, Shelby. This does not feel right to me, and I think we need to do a pelvic ultrasound right away. I think we might have an ectopic pregnancy here.”
She was still poking and prodding when she pressed on the source of my cramping. A pain ripped through me like she’d stabbed me with a broad sword. I screamed and rolled up like a pill bug, vaguely aware that my foot had connected solidly with some part of Dr. Bronner’s head.
“Oh, dear… Shelby, I am going to need to try and relax and stay calm. You are bleeding. A lot. I am afraid that you might have a rupture.”
“A rupture? Of what?” I growled through gritted teeth as I clutched my stomach. I could feel wetness in between my legs like the most intense period I’d ever had. I began to whimper and rock my body back and forth trying to wish it all away.
“Likely your fallopian tube. I know it sounds strange, but it explains your shoulder pain. The nerves are all connected. Hang on just a second, okay, I’ll be right back.”
Dr. Bronner stuck her head out of the door. “Jane, can you come here a minute?” A pause. “Call for an ambulance and then call over to Froedtert and tell them we’ve got a possible ruptured ectopic pregnancy patient on the way.”
“What?” I started to shake.
“Yes, Shelby. You’re going to need to have surgery. And if this bleeding continues, maybe even a transfusion.”
I was grateful for her calm, measured tone even if I hated all the horrifying things she was saying.
Surgery.
A transfusion.
Shit .
“Who can we call?” she asked.
I panicked knowing I never changed my first emergency contact after Ari died. And I was quite certain my mother was my second. My mother. No, no, no. No one can know about this.
“My phone…” I was starting to panic. I was also starting to feel dizzy. No, no you can’t pass out now. “I need to call my friend, Kendra. She’s the only one who can know. No one else can know about this pregnancy. Please.”
Dr. Bronner fished my phone out of my purse and handed it to me. I was fading fast. I opened it, clicked on ‘favorites’ in my phone app. Everything was blurry.
Then everything was dark.
I woke up some time later in a hospital bed. I was groggy and my abdomen was sore. Bits and pieces of the afternoon were starting to come back to me. A gurney. An ambulance. Bright lights and people in masks with kind eyes and calm voices.
There was a Styrofoam cup with a straw on the table positioned near my bed. Grateful it was within my reach without having to strain, I gingerly grabbed it and took a sip.
“Hiiiii.” I heard a gentle cooing voice.
I turned to see Kendra sitting on the chair on the other side of the room. As soon as my brain registered her presence, the floodgates opened. I knew I was okay. That everything was okay. And soon I would be able to unburden myself with everything I’d been feeling over the last few weeks to my most loyal friend in the whole world.
“You gave us quite a scare, lady,” she said. “Surgery went well, but you needed a few liters of blood.”
“Us?” A little panic.
“Yes, your parents are outside. Brody is on his way. I didn’t want to worry him too much, so I called him after you were out of surgery.”
“But what do they…do they know?” More panic.
“As far as anyone else is concerned, you had a ruptured ovarian cyst. I made sure the doctors were not to speak to anyone but me. I’m the only one who knows about the pregnancy.”
She held my hand as round two of the emotional tsunami was unleashed. I knew she would know what to do. In that moment I doubted that anyone on earth was as blessed as I was to have a best friend like Kendra.
Two days later as I was waiting to be released from the hospital, Kendra asked the question I’d been expecting.
“Are you going to tell Jake?”
I had been thinking about this nonstop. When you are trapped in a hospital bed with nothing to do, no one to talk to, bored with reading choices, and annoyed by TV, all you can do is think.
“Yes.”
I was going to have to tell him about the pregnancy and what happened as a result. I was going to have to tell him a lot of things.
And then I was going to have to tell Jake Ford goodbye.