Surprise Delivery(57)

I cock my head and look at him. Something seems off with Duncan and I’m not sure what it is. His words are short. Clipped. And his tone is distant – maybe even a little cold. He’s not looking at me and in fact, seems to be actively refusing to meet my eyes. Instead, he’s checking the machines that surround my bed and consulting the clipboard in his hand almost obsessively, as if something on those pages is going to suddenly change somehow.

“Are you okay, Duncan?”

He nods but still doesn’t look at me. “I’m fine,” he clips out.

I look at him curiously, not sure what’s going through his mind or why he’s suddenly being so frosty with me. I tell myself that it’s because he’s at work and has to maintain a professional distance from his patients. But I don’t know that I entirely buy it. I see something in his face, hear it in his voice – he’s intentionally putting up a wall between us.

“What happened?” I ask. “I mean, I remember some things, but other details are a little hazy.”

He moves to the foot of my bed and consults his clipboard again. I want to rip it out of his hands and throw it across the room, just to force him to look at me.

“When you went into labor – I’m assuming it was from the stress that night – your baby was in the breech position,” he explains. “I performed an external cephalic version or ECV. What that means is that by applying pressure to your body, I was able to manipulate your baby into the proper birthing position.”

He finally looks at me, but I see nothing in his eyes. No spark, no sense of that connection, nothing. When he looks at me, all I see is emptiness. His face is a mask of cool neutrality and it’s suddenly all business with him. There is definitely more going on than just keeping a professional distance. A lot more.

“When you first went into labor, you suffered what’s called a perineal tear, which caused a tremendous amount of blood loss. Once we got the baby turned, you were able to give birth normally,” he said. “By that time, the paramedics showed up and we were able to get you to the hospital where you underwent emergency surgery to repair the perineal tear. It was touch and go for a while and you were in and out of consciousness for a few days, but you are going to be fine. You should be back on your feet and at full strength again very soon.”

I nod, but don’t say anything. I’ve got enough of a working understanding of medicine to understand what he’s saying and know how lucky I am to be alive. If not for Duncan, I very well might have died out there on the street.

“How is my baby?” I finally ask.

“She’s fine,” he replies. “Or, she will be. The doctors want to keep her in the neonatal ICU for a few more days just for observation, but they don’t foresee any problems and think she’ll be good to go home with you soon.”

His entire demeanor is so clinical and cold. So detached. It’s the polar opposite of what his usual demeanor with me is and it’s leaving me confused.

“If you have any questions, I’m sure your regular doctor – Doctor Larson, I believe – will be able to answer them for you,” he says. “I just wanted to stop by to check up on you.”

I give him a tight smile but before I can open my mouth to say anything, he turns and walks out of my room, his strides quickly efficient, carrying him down the hallway. I’m left there wondering what in the hell just happened and not having the first clue.

I sit there puzzling it over for a few minutes when Sabrina walks into the room, a wide, warm smile on her face. She runs to the side of the bed and is careful when she leans down to hug me, making sure to not squeeze me to tight, or move me too suddenly.

“Hey girl,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

“Like garbage,” I grumble. “Everything on me hurts.”

“Well, that’s not shocking, given what you’ve been through,” she says. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“To be honest, I don’t recall most of it,” I confide. “Bits and flashes, but it’s almost like it wasn’t real. More like a really vivid, bad dream more than anything.”

“Well, you’ve got a beautiful baby girl that proves it wasn’t just a dream.”

A baby girl. I have a baby girl. The thought still doesn’t feel real to me. And yet, at the same time, the thought fills me with an array of profound emotions I can’t really describe – all of them good.

It’s strange. When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. I didn’t know what I was going to do and even gave serious thought to putting the baby up for adoption when it was born. But now, everything’s changed, and I can’t picture my life without my baby girl. The mere thought of her makes my heart swell with a fierce sense of love and pride I would have never predicted I’d feel – and I haven’t even met her properly yet.

“It’s a good thing Duncan happened to be there,” she says. “I really don’t know what would have happened if he wasn’t.”

“Neither do I,” I say softly.

My stomach churns as I think about Duncan. Specifically, about how cold and aloof he was just minutes ago. I don’t know what I did or what changed. Something obviously had, though. It was like he didn’t even want to be in the room with me all of a sudden.