Chapter 38 #2
I was worried, but I couldn’t let Devyn see that. I didn’t want her to worry about me when she just needed to focus on herself.
That was a woman thing, and definitely a mom thing. She could be in the middle of a stroke, but if she saw that you were worried then she would want to stop everything to make sure that you were okay.
My phone rang and I sighed with relief when it was Dr. Natalie. Apparently she was on call for deliveries that night, or so she said. The relief flew right out the fucking window as I explained about Dev’s blood pressure and she told me to bring her to the hospital.
It didn’t take Dev long to come downstairs with a bag.
“What did she say?” she asked.
“She wants us to go to labor and delivery,” I told her.
She stared at me for a minute, then looked down at her bag. “Do you think I’ll need this?” she asked.
“No.” I have no idea. “I’m sure they’ll just take your blood pressure, tell us to watch it overnight, and send us home.
” Fuck, I hope that’s true. We were both in completely new territory here.
Neither her mom, nor mine—I’d asked—had ever had any of these kinds of problems during their pregnancies, a combined eight between them.
I was taking this one day at a time with no experience or play book to go off.
I took the bag and grabbed the one I had sitting in the downstairs closet—I liked to be prepared, so I’d packed it a couple weeks ago just in case—and walked her out to the car. We were both quiet on the ride to the hospital.
It was a whirlwind as we got there and were checked in. The nurses were incredibly nice, but I frowned as they took her blood pressure and it was even higher than it was at home. The nurse took one look at the number, smiled at Devyn, and said, “Do you mind if I start an IV line on you?”
Devyn’s brows shot up, but she nodded. “Yeah, okay. W-why?”
“Oh, well, your blood pressure is a little high and the doctor may want to give you some IV medications to help lower it. They work a lot faster, and better, than oral pills.”
“Okay,” Devyn said with a nod. “Thank you for explaining that.”
I reached over and took her hand. The nurse smiled at us as she prepped Devyn’s other arm for the port. Devyn squeezed as the nurse placed the catheter.
I watched, wishing I could do something, as the nurse came in and out, asked questions, and then as Dr. Natalie came in.
“Hi, Devyn. Bolo. Good to see you two, though maybe not under these circumstances.”
Devyn gave her a little wave. “Hi.”
“So that blood pressure is creeping up a bit more. How long has it been this high?”
“Well, it’s been starting to do this randomly,” Devyn explained. “And I took more medication like you told me to. But it hasn’t been this high before.”
We both looked over at the monitor. One seventy-two over one hundred and five.
“It’s a little high,” Dr. Natalie said in a calm voice. Little high. That’s like when I say I’m a ‘little’ hungry. “I’m going to have them give you some medications through your IV line and see how you respond. Then we’ll go from there.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I told her as she backed out of the room.
The next two hours were filled with meds, nurses, blood pressure readings, and more meds. Every fucking time that blood pressure monitor started beeping—a warning that her BP was too high—my own ratcheted up another notch.
I watched silently as Dr. Natalie came back into the room. I let Devyn do most of the talking. It was easy to see that it helped her feel more in control of the situation to take charge. Besides, it was her body this was happening to. I’d only ask something if she didn’t remember to.
“Okay. We’re having a little trouble getting your blood pressure under control,” Dr. Natalie said. She was still talking in a tone that said this wasn’t an emergency yet.
Though I wasn’t sure what her emergency tone would sound like. Probably still this soothing calming sound. I doubted she got worked up over much. And if she did, she probably didn’t let her patients know it, because who needed panicking parents on top of whatever was going on?
I wasn’t prone to panic. I don’t think I’d ever panicked in my life. But I could imagine what it would look like if a man my size did panic. I had to suppress a chuckle at that image.
“I’m going to admit you for the night. I want to make sure we get that BP down and keep it down for a good twenty-four hours. If we can get it to stay that way, then I’ll send you home. Sound good?”
Devyn nodded at her. “Sounds good.”
“I’m also going to put you on external fetal monitoring tonight.
We’ll put these two straps with these monitors on there around your belly.
This is going to let us listen to your baby’s heartbeat and make sure he’s doing okay in there while we work on you.
For now, we’ll do it continuously, but if he’s doing well, I’ll have them do it every couple of hours overnight so that you can get some sleep. ”
“Thank you,” we both told her as she left the room again.
The nurse went over the explanation again as she strapped two circular machines to Devyn’s stomach. The rest of the night we listened to the whooshing of our son’s heartbeat, the constant beeping of that blood pressure machine, and the nurses’ chatter as they came in and checked on her.
We barely slept and Dev kept tossing and turning in the bed.
“You okay?” I asked her. It was eight in the morning now.
Her blood pressure was still too high for her to go home, though it wasn’t as bad as last night.
Anything over one-fifty on the top number, or ninety on the bottom number meant we were staying here though, according to Dr. Natalie.
They were treating Dev with both IV and her oral meds throughout the day.
It was evening now—the time was passing both quickly and slow as hell at the same time—and we knew we were going to be staying here a second night.
Sometimes she was getting normal readings, but by the time they came around to check later, it was back up again.
Dr. Natalie wanted twenty-four hours of normal readings before she was going to let us go.
“I’m so uncomfortable in this bed,” she told me.
Thankfully our son’s heartbeat was strong and steady, so they were doing fetal monitoring four times a day for around fifteen minutes a pop. Though, sometimes the monitoring could last longer if there were any dips in his heartbeat.
“What can I do for you?”
She gave me a sheepish smile. “Would you be okay sitting in the bed for a while? I want to see if that recliner is any more comfortable for me.”
“Okay.” I smelled a trap. Father in the bed with the pregnant wife with high blood pressure in the chair? That wasn’t going to earn me any dirty looks from the nurses at all. Father of the year award right here. But I would literally do anything for Devyn at this point.
The last place I wanted to be was in the damn bed. She should be in the bed, but she kept saying it was hurting her back, so I gave her the recliner. I settled a blanket over her that I’d brought from home and gave her the little stuffed animal I’d picked up from the gift shop earlier in the day.
She cuddled it close with a smile and was asleep within minutes.
I kicked off my boots and sat down on the bed, wishing there was a second chair in here. When the nurse came in, she looked at me in surprise, then over at the chair where Devyn was fast asleep. “She says the bed hurts her back,” I explained desperately.
“Oh, well, wherever she’s comfortable,” she replied, but still gave me a side eye. Was she messing with me? She moved all the machines over and gently woke Devyn so she could take her blood pressure.
I sighed with relief as it came back normal. Dev was asleep again before the nurse even left the room. Pulling out a book, I started reading to pass the time. It was a book about general engineering. Light reading for my time away from work.
The door opened an hour later and I set the book down as Dr. Natalie came in. “Hey.”
“Oh, she’s exhausted,” Dr. Natalie said with an empathetic look on her face.
“She can’t sleep very well in the bed,” I explained.
I was just hoping all these women working here weren’t thinking I was a piece of shit for taking the bed while my pregnant, sick wife—fine girlfriend, but to me she was my wife—slept in the damn chair.
I was pretty much fixated on it at this point.
“That’s okay,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just talk with you so we don’t wake her.”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
She explained that we’d be staying the night again—I’d already figured that out—and reiterated what she was looking for. I asked her a few questions, then said goodbye as she left for the night. One of her other doctors would be watching over us.
Tomorrow Devyn’s mom and Sophie were going to come for a visit if we were going to be here another day.
I wanted her to be here as long as she needed to, but I also wanted to be able to take her home because that meant she was doing better. Twenty-four weeks was still way too early to have this baby. Dr. Natalie said she was confident we’d be going home in a few days.
It took a week. A week of her sleeping in the recliner and a week of me realizing how awful that bed truly was. The CIA should stock up on those things for their interrogations. If they made a spy sleep on one of those for a few nights they’d turn to our side for sure.
Despite my internal whining about the bed, Dev’s blood pressure finally started dropping back into normal ranges and I was able to take her home. To a real bed, and real food.