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I pick up my phone with shaky fingers, and it takes me two tries to hit the side button to illuminate the screen. It’s barely six a.m. I have no idea what time they settled me into a permanent room. All I know is that every time I started to doze off, the blood pressure cuff would squeeze my arm, or a nurse would walk in, or one time, someone came in to take my blood.
I thought hospitals were supposed to be someplace you came to rest.
I do not feel restful.
I can’t be going home yet, can I? I haven’t heard from the boys since they rolled me into this room last night. This morning? I know I’m going home today. Appendicitis isn’t a big deal. It’s not something they keep you in the hospital for days on end. I expected them to let me go last night, but they didn’t because—
“My name is Angie. I’m from imaging,” the woman informs me. She’s got on a hospital shirt and a pair of hot pink scrub bottoms with Crocs that have a truly obscene amount of charms on them.
She pushes the wheelchair up to the foot of the bed, relocates the rolling table with the water jug the hospital provided and the remote for the tv to the other side of the room, then begins the tedious process of unhooking me from the machines. “Usually, when a prenatal patient is admitted to the hospital, we check the fetus’s heartbeat once a day with the doppler. Is this your first pregnancy?”
She looks at me expectantly and—I think I nod, but I can’t be sure because I’ve suddenly lost all the feeling in my body.
“A doppler is like an ultrasound, but it’s a handheld device that only admits sound. No picture. Only we won’t be able to find the baby’s heartbeat without an ultrasound for a couple of months yet. So just to be safe, since you did have surgery yesterday, we’re going to pop on down to ultrasound to have a quick look at the baby.”
Baby.
I’m pregnant.
Butterflies masquerading as elephants start to tap dance in my stomach, and a wave of adrenaline surges through my bloodstream, bringing with it a crash of nausea.
“I—”
I shake my head to clear it, my vision going fuzzy at the sides. The heart monitor starts to beep with the new rapid pace of my runaway pulse, but the nurse just smiles and yanks the plastic off my finger.
“Exciting, I know,” Angela says, mistaking the shock on my face as anticipation.
I’d forgotten.
I have no idea how, but I did. I’m pregnant, and Remi and Justin found out and then they were promptly kicked out of the room. I don’t remember either of them mentioning it when I saw them right after the surgery, but then, I don’t really remember that visit. I know I saw them, but more because IknowI did and not because I remember it.
I try to push myself to a sitting position, but—-
“Owe,” I whimper as a lightning-fast shot of pain whips through my stomach.
“Ohhohohoho. No, here. Let me help. Even with laparoscopic surgery, you’re going to be sore for the next few days.”
The nurse lunges for me, pressing me back into the mattress until she’s ready for me to be moved.
I feel terrible. Like I’ve swallowed a handful of Benadryl, and there’s a swarm of bees buzzing around my head. I’ve never had surgery before. I’ve never had so much as a cavity. I can only assume this is what you feel like after anesthesia.
I wish Remi or J were here. They’ve both had surgery multiple times. They could tell me if what I’m feeling is normal or if it’s a side effect of not enough sleep and life-altering information.
“Is—” I swallow thickly and point to the water jug. “Could I have a sip before we go?”
Nurse Angie jumps and skitters to the other side.
“Sure thing!” she says with a painful amount of energy. “You don’t need an empty stomach for this, and you aren’t on any restrictions. Just drink slowly,” she advises, bringing the straw to my mouth and holding the cup without passing it over to me. “It’s not the surgery so much that’s making you feel so icky. Anesthesia hangovers are the worst. Plus, in order to make sure they can see everything in your belly with that tiny little cut, they fill your stomach with gas to make you all round and bloated. All the air that’s trapped after they pull out the scope and glue you up is going to spend the next few days attempting to find it’s way back out of your body. So you can expect an upset stomach and some shoulder pain too.”
I give her a curious glance as she gently takes the water away and thumbs the side buttons to lift the head of the bed.
“Gas rises,” she says with a painful grimace. “When I had my gall-bladder out after my third kid, the shoulder pain hurt worse than childbirth.”
Now there’s a terrifying thought.
She bundles the blankets to the foot of the bed and helps me slide my legs over before stopping me with her hand on my shoulder.
“Wait! Socks!”
