Never Giving Up (Never #3)(56)

When the door opened again, a woman wearing a white doctor’s coat walked in and gave me a sympathetic smile.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Bailey. How is little miss Mattie doing today? Let’s take a look.” She reached for Mattie and took her from me, unwrapping the blanket from around her tiny body. I saw her press her fingers onto her skin and then pull them away. She did this a few times and then listened to her breathe just as the nurse had. After what seemed like a lifetime, she handed Mattie back to me.

“So, Mrs. Masters, here’s what I’d like to see happen: We’re going to have an ambulance take Mattie to the children’s hospital at OHSU up in Portland. She has some sort of infection and it’s important that we get her to the hospital as soon as possible.”

My world stopped spinning.

“An ambulance?”

“Yes.” She gestured towards the baby again and unwrapped the blanket from her. “You see how when I press on her skin, it turns white, but then when I pull away it takes a long time for the color to come back? That’s not good. And with a baby her size and age, any fever is cause for concern.”

“Will she be ok?”

“We need to get her to the hospital.” Her refusal to answer my question only made me worry more. “There is a special pediatric ambulance service and I am going to give them a call. While we wait, I think we should try to draw some blood from Mattie to start investigating where the infection is.”

“Take her blood?” My mind raced and even though I tried to keep up with everything happening around me, I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t register what was happening. All I heard was infection and ambulance and Mattie. I squeezed her closer to me, afraid to let her go, afraid that once I handed her to someone else I might not get the chance to hold her again.

“We’ll take good care of her. I promise you that.” Dr. Bailey held her hands out, waiting for me to hand Mattie over, but I was frozen. “The ambulance will be here shortly. We don’t have much time. I’m so sorry, but this is important.” I looked up at her again, then back down to Mattie. I brought her tiny little body close to me again, pressed a kiss against her head, and then gave her to the doctor.

Dr. Bailey quickly took her and left the room, leaving the door open. I watched her leave and felt all the air leave my body. My hand came to my mouth and I felt a cry trying to escape, but nothing came—mouth open, tears welling in my eyes, lungs burning, but no sound.

How was any of this happening? She was perfectly healthy; we’d had no issues. My head started shaking and finally air seeped into my lungs. I gasped, panicking. I reached for my phone in my purse and called Porter.

“Hey,” he answered on the first ring. “I’m almost there. The traffic from the beach was ridiculous.”

I tried to answer him, to respond in some way, but nothing came from me aside from gasps of air.

“Ella, are you there?”

I let out a strangled sob.

“Oh, God, Ella what’s wrong?”

“Porter,” I whispered.

“Damn it, Ella! What’s going on? Is Mattie all right?” He sounded just as afraid and broken as I felt.

“They took her from me.”

“What do you mean?”

“They said they’re taking her by ambulance to OHSU and that they needed to take some blood from her. They took her from me.” Just then, I heard my baby cry from down the hall. It wasn’t a hungry cry or a sleepy cry—both of which I was familiar with. This cry was something else entirely. It was painful. Something inside of me snapped and I ran out of the room towards the sound of her screams. When I reached the room she was in, I stopped outside of it, looking through the window, allowing me to see something I would never wish on another mother.

My baby was lying on a table, surrounded by nurses and doctors, some of which were holding down her arms and her legs. One woman was holding what looked like a warm compress on her hands, while another woman was trying to find a vein in Mattie’s foot.

My mouth gaped open again, but this time the sobs came from me uninhibited, as I watched Mattie struggle against them. “Porter,” I cried. “Our baby.”

“I’m coming to you, just hang on.”

“No,” I said shaking my head. They’re taking her to OHSU. Meet us there.”

“Ella,” he said angrily, but I knew he wasn’t angry with me, he was angry because he wasn’t with me, wasn’t with Mattie.

“Porter, by the time you get here we’ll be gone. I need you to be at the hospital. Please.” I heard him sigh and then I heard what I thought was him hitting his hand against his steering wheel.

“I hate that hospital,” he said quietly. My heart broke a little for him then too.

“I know, Babe. I know. Please though, meet us there?”

“I’m on my way.”

“I love you.”

“I love you both. Keep me updated if anything happens.”

“I will. Drive safely.”

I hung up the phone and returned my attention to Mattie, still crying, still struggling against the nurses. She was a tiny little fighter at nearly three weeks old. One of the nurses looked up and saw me through the window. She said something to another nurse and then came out into the hallway.

“Are you the mother?”