After a Complicated Labor, a Nurse Handed Me My Baby and Whispered, ‘Watch the Video I Sent You Before You Trust Your Husband’
I heard Ryan’s footsteps behind me, then his voice on the phone after dialing 911.
The pain came without warning.
“Yes, I need an ambulance.”
My husband gave the address slowly. His voice didn’t shake.
“My wife is pregnant with twins, and she’s collapsed.”
I remember thinking, through the white noise of pain, that he sounded as if he were ordering takeout.
Within minutes, I was in an ambulance.
Then everything went dark.
“I need an ambulance.”
I woke up three days later to a ceiling I didn’t recognize and a pain that lived in every bone I had. Even breathing felt impossible. My mouth tasted of metal. Somewhere to my right, a monitor beeped in a slow, patient rhythm.
Ryan was in the chair beside my bed, holding my hand as if it were the last thing tethering him to the ground.
When he noticed my eyes open, his face crumpled.
“Eve… Oh God, Eve!”
“What happened?” My voice came out hoarse.
I woke up three days later.
My husband pressed his forehead against my knuckles.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “They couldn’t save one of the boys.”
The room tilted. I stared at him, tried to speak, and couldn’t find the words.
“What…?”
He squeezed my hand tighter.
“The doctors tried everything, honey. We should focus on the son we still have.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Then he cried into my shoulder, and I cried with him because I didn’t know what else a person was supposed to do when half of what she’d been carrying for nine months was suddenly gone.
We named the surviving baby Caleb, the way I’d always wanted. Ryan agreed easily, almost too easily, as if he’d already decided.
***
For the next two days, Ryan barely left.
