by Rachel Lawrence Godfrey
*This story contains sensitive content.*
As twenty-five-year-old Nancy Godfrey headed into her first pregnancy’s twenty-three-week embryonic scan, she was giddy with excitement while apprehensive about the procedure. The ten-week ultrasound image looked like a Jelly-Belly candy. Her husband Patrick had nicknamed it Jelly-Baby. This scan though, would show them so much more. They would see their baby.
Wanting to look her best for the big day, Nancy wore her favorite short-sleeve checkered blue maternity dress and flat-ironed her curly brunette bob. Walking past their wall calendar on the way to the garage, Nancy kissed her pointer finger and placed it on May 28, 1995. Nancy saw the symmetry of joyous events in the month of May as she and Patrick had met on May 15, eight years earlier, and had married on May 1, 1991. Now, they would add meeting Jelly-Baby to the great things in May.
Getting into the car, Nancy remembered the elation when her pee-on-the-stick pregnancy test turned positive. They had reveled in their joy, catching each other walking around with constant smiles on their faces. Smiles which they refused to explain until they had passed the danger milestone of twelve weeks.
An hour later, Patrick held Nancy’s hand as she lay down on the white paper sheet that covered the gray examination bed. Shivering, Nancy pulled a crinkling paper blanket up over her cold legs and abdomen.
“Love you,” Patrick said with a kiss.
“Ten times back.”
Patrick bent over and kissed Nancy’s tummy. “Love you too, Jelly-Baby.”
While waiting for the ultrasound technician, they both perused the adorable baby pictures lining the walls. After a few minutes, Patrick combatted his boredom by reading technical posters. Nancy thought Patrick, dressed for the occasion in gray slacks and a button-down shirt, looked very debonaire. His red hair was slicked back with gel, and his freckles stood out contrasting against his pale skin. As spring turned into summer those freckles would multiply when the sun played against his face. Nancy loved those freckles and hoped the baby would be a redhead as well.
“I’m Michelle, the ultrasound tech,” a young lady introduced herself as she came into the room. “You ready to see your munchkin? This test takes about thirty minutes. There is a lot of clicking and typing which is normal.” Michelle angled the machine towards Nancy. “We just measure and record every tiny finger and toe, every part of its tiny brain, bladder and heart. Nothing to worry about.”
Patrick returned to his seat next to the gray examination bed and angled the chair so he could see the ultrasound screen.
Michelle spread cold ultrasound gel on Nancy’s stomach, “Sorry. We have a gel warmer, but it’s not working right now,” she said.
“I’m so excited to see my baby, cold gel won’t hurt me,” Nancy said, her face beaming. “But we don’t want to know the gender.”
“Not to worry. I do this a hundred times a week. I won’t say a thing.”
Fifteen minutes later Michelle stopped the ultrasound. “I’m sorry. You might be excited but the baby is fast asleep. I need you to go and have some ice cream or chocolate to give the baby a nudge and get it moving.”
Twenty minutes and one vanilla milkshake later the couple were back in the examination room. Nancy lay down again on the gray bed, milkshake strumming through her blood, feet back up in the stirrups, fresh ultrasound goop spread on her tummy, while the baby kicked ferociously. Patrick kissed Nancy’s hand as he held it.
After ten minutes Michelle stopped the process again. “I’m really, really, sorry,” she twisted her hands together. “I can’t get a good look at the baby’s heart. Let me get someone who might be able to see better. Lovely meeting you two,” she said as she left the room.
A few minutes later, after a quick knock on the door, a tall dark-skinned woman whose hair was pulled away from her face in a tight bun, walked in. “I’m Dr. Kim and I’ll be taking over. Michelle said she had a hard time reading the heart. It happens on occasion. Nothing to worry about,” she added as Nancy’s stomach was exposed to yet another spread of cold gel.
Dr. Kim jiggled the ultrasound wand over Nancy’s abdomen for ten minutes. Stopping, she turned to the couple. “I think there is something wrong with the heart. Nothing really concerning but it needs a better scan. I am having a hard time reading all four chambers. I’ll send you to a fetal cardiologist at Columbia Hospital,” she added with a confident air, her white coat billowing as she sped out of the room.
Nancy’s hold on Patrick’s hand tightened. He slowly eased his hand out of her grip, and taking a surreptitious breath, passed Nancy her checkered blue maternity dress. “She said it’s nothing,” he said, voice shaking.
Nancy slowly pulled her feet out of the stirrups wiping the ultrasound gel off her large baby bump with the white paper blanket. She balled it up and threw it in the bio-hazmat trashcan. “Hang in there, Jelly-Baby. I’m sure it’s nothing. You just need more than a milkshake, right?” Nancy patted her stomach as she got dressed, refusing to meet the fear in Patrick’s eyes. The baby kicked in reply.
Minutes later they left the office, the appointment for the specialist booked for the following morning.
After a sleepless night they arrived at Columbia Hospital an hour early. Patrick’s feet jiggled of their own volition and Nancy’s left hand tapped her cup as they drank their coffee and waited. Holding hands, they whispered kisses, and rubbed Nancy’s tummy for luck. “Dr. Kim said it’s nothing,” Nancy repeated for the hundredth time.
Dr. Frish, the fetal cardiologist, was in his late forties, with kind eyes and thick overlong black curly hair. “I’m sorry to meet you in such trying times, but hopefully we will have an answer soon,” he said as he smeared gel on Nancy’s stomach while she lay on another gray examination bed. “Ah, I see you don’t want to know the gender. No problem.”
The ultrasound wand roamed over Nancy’s stomach in agonizing slowness as Dr. Frish took his measurements. The baby’s blood flowed red and blue in streaking squiggles across the ultrasound screen.
“Look, the baby’s waving at us,” Nancy said happily staring at the crisp images. “Such a better machine than yesterday’s. I can see its toes,” she beamed. “Jelly-Baby looks happy. I knew it was nothing. We can see its smile! Can we have a picture to take home?”
“This machine is a quite bit more expensive. It shows us clearer images which are needed when there is an issue,” Dr. Frish said softly.
The couple’s elation faded. Nancy gripped the gray bed. Deep in her mind Nancy had known this. Known, but refused to know.
“Dr. Kim thought it was not a biggie,” Patrick said hesitantly.
“I know her. I think she did a disservice not warning you,” Dr. Frish shook his head. “I’m sorry to break your hearts. I hate doing this. Your baby has something called Ebstein’s syndrome. Nothing you did. Just a bad mix of genetics.” Dr. Frish retrieved a plastic model heart from a cabinet. “In essence, the walls between the baby’s bottom and top heart chambers are in the wrong place. In some cases, this will heal by birth and in others the baby can live a long and healthy life. Sometimes a small surgery is enough. Unfortunately, your baby’s wall is so misplaced it’s as if the two top chambers are missing.” he indicated its placement on the model.
Dr. Frish took a deep breath and continued, “There is also a hole called a septal defect between the left and the right chambers, right here,” he showed them on the plastic heart. “Normally these seal up by birth, but your baby’s hole is too large. It won’t be able to close.”
“What does that mean?” Patrick asked quietly for the two of them.
“It means that your baby will not survive moments past birth without a heart transplant. If,” he emphasized, “if it survives till birth. I have rarely seen a case this bad. Most likely it will die in–”
“Can we get on the heart replacement list?” Patrick interrupted, handing Nancy a box of tissues to wipe her flowing tears.
“Not preemptively, no. And given the time it would take to get a heart, your baby won’t get enough oxygen to its brain, causing severe disabilities. I’m sorry these are not the results anybody wants to hear, nor to give. As I was saying, if it dies in utero, you’re likely to get septic and die as well,” he said looking at Nancy.
“So what do we do?” Nancy whispered, as Patrick sat in silent shock.
“I’m sorry, but I’d suggest a termination. There really isn’t anything else you can do.”
“I’m not killing my baby. We have names chosen, Samantha or Ian. We’ve planned the baby’s future. We…” Nancy said through her tears, her earlier coffee returning as bile to her mouth. “…we planned the nursery. We… we’ve told everyone.”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Frish repeated softly. “I’ll give you a copy of everything and forward it to your doctor as well. You can get a second opinion, of course. I would insist on it. But it won’t change the results and the clock is ticking on a termination. We can backdate your pregnancy a week, claim you are only twenty-two-weeks along so it’s legal, but we can’t do much more than that. I am sorry,” he said for the fifth time. “One more thing, because you’re so far along I would go to an abortion clinic. They do many more terminations than a hospital, and you’ll need the extra experience. It will be harder, but you’ll get better care.
“I’ll give you some time alone now. I’ll be in my office if you want to ask more questions, but I’ll leave the paperwork up front if you want to run away from here. I know I would.” Dr. Frish’s voice cracked as he added, “So sorry.”
Nancy and Patrick returned home heartbroken, clinging to each other in silent support.
“Do you think he’s right? I am scared he is, but I think he must be.” Nancy said with a broken heart.
Patrick, tears streaming down his wan face, refused to answer.
Once they had checked with their regular obstetrician, the termination was set for the next day.
After another sleepless night, wearing the same blue checkered maternity dress, Patrick and Nancy approached the clinic, ducking to avoid the twenty screaming protestors. White-faced, Nancy lay on another identical gray bed her legs in stirrups, with another paper blanket covering her. Mockingly, the baby kicked without pause. The clinic’s unnamed doctor did a quick pre-termination ultrasound.
“I’m sorry,” he said using that horrible word again, “but your baby’s too big for the procedure. The head is five centimeters. We need to dilate you. I’ll put some dilators in and I’m afraid you’ll have to go home and come back tomorrow. Hopefully you’ll widen enough and we won’t have to do this twice. I’m so sorry for your loss,” he added putting the dilators into Nancy’s cervix.
Nancy and Patrick clung to each other through another restless day full of tears, horror, and contractions. The baby’s constant kicking was a mocking reminder of their despair. At four a.m., Nancy stood up from her middle-of-the-night pee and her waters broke. She padded back to bed sobbing.
“The waters were black. Jelly-Baby knows we’re killing it,” she said to Patrick.
“I’m so sorry Jelly-Baby,” he said to Nancy’s stomach. “We love you. We will always love you.” Weeping he got up to clean the mess on the floor.
On the fourth morning of awfulness, wearing the dress that had become the symbol of their nightmare, Patrick and Nancy returned to the clinic, entering from a back door to avoid the protestors. Nancy lay down on the gray bed and waited. Both were sobbing loudly.
“I’ll be right outside,” Patrick kissed Nancy, and then kissed her stomach goodbye, tears flowing down his face as she was wheeled away.
Briefly, Nancy woke and saw two gray hazmat bags sitting on counter, before falling back unconscious, seemingly to wake moments later in the recovery room. Patrick sat near her bed, eyes red from crying, hands clutching wads of dirty tissues.
“Take me home,” she begged.
Standing up after allowing Patrick to dress her in the checkered dress, blood gushed from between her legs, spilling onto the floor and missing Patrick’s shoes by inches.
“Don’t worry about it. Happens all the time,” a nurse said as she grabbed a mop.
“I love you,” Patrick whispered as he half-carried his broken wife to their car.
“Still?”
“Always and forever.”
“What if it happens again?”
“It won’t. Dr. Frish said it was a bad genetic mix.”
“What if it does?”
“It won’t. I know it won’t. The world can’t break twice,” Patrick answered handing her gingerly into their car.
Nancy woke in the middle of that first night of tears, her chest wet with her milk. Patrick fetched a bra and she crammed it full of tissues.
“I’m sorry,” said the doctor who answered the clinic’s emergency line. “We usually don’t see this. You can buy nursing pads or cut up a menstrual pad. Tell your wife not to express the milk. It will dry up in a few days.”
“No. I don’t want nursing pads. I’ve no baby to nurse. I’ll use tissues. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does,” she wailed, folding herself back down into their queen-sized bed.
Hugging her to his chest, Patrick sobbed along with her.
The milk dried up after four days of leaking shirts and padded bras. At night, Nancy would wake convinced she could hear a baby crying in the nursery, only to have to face reality again and again.
But time works its mysterious ways and their hourly tears slowed until Patrick and Nancy noticed they had gone a whole morning without crying. After a month, they both returned to work and life, and started very slowly to heal. Nancy’s nightly waking to the imagined baby’s cries, slowed to weekly and monthly, and then slowed even more.
Time progressed and their love for each other remained strong, unbroken, and unfaltering. After four years of trying, Nancy gave birth to healthy twins after a poster-perfect pregnancy. Eighteen months later, following a complicated third pregnancy with thirteen weeks of pre-term labor, came a sister with a small, survivable, hole in her heart. Nancy’s doctor insisted on no more children.
Nancy loved her children with every fiber of her being. Despite knowing they were missing a sibling, they grew up aware they were the center of her world. None of their events, no matter how trivial, had been missed nor met with anything other than encouragement and delight. Twenty-five years later, she and Patrick became the Nana and Papa they had always dreamt they would be.
And yet, every May 31st, on the anniversary of Jelly-Baby’s death, Nancy woke to the imagined sound of a baby crying somewhere in the house.
Category: Featured, Fiction, SNHU Student