Yet the hope was there, and I was improving every day. The doctors were encouraged by my progress, which made Nicholas even more diligent in his endeavors to get me to answer him.
The first time I was able to see him almost broke my heart again. Despite his smile, the toll this had taken on him was obvious: the dark circles under his eyes, his pale skin, his sloppy, wrinkled clothes. His face even looked thinner. It made me wonder how long I had been in this condition, and if he had slept even a moment in the meantime.
There was never a single second I was awake when he was not right there beside me. At some point, I was taken off the ventilator, and I was eager to talk and ask about our baby. I didn’t care about my injuries, only whether he was okay. One thing I knew, he was alive.
As my senses cleared, and my ability to respond strengthened, so did his movement. Or at least my awareness of it. He was there with me, of that I was sure. It restored my faith that there was good in the world. Surely after taking both my parents, God wouldn’t have taken my baby too. I didn’t know if I could have survived it.
And the thought of Nicholas losing a second child was just as difficult to imagine.
The problem with determining my baby’s injuries was that I couldn’t quite get the right words to come out. I tried to communicate but wasn’t doing a very good job. The doctors and Nicholas kept telling me it would take a little more time and to not get discouraged, but to me, it was another form of being trapped. When talking didn’t work, I tried writing down my questions, but I couldn’t even draw a straight line, let alone form words on the paper.
It was more frustrating than anything I’d ever experienced.
Aside from all the regular doctors and nurses, it seemed like I had different therapists coming in at all hours, working with me on my movement and speech recovery. It was like I had to learn how to do the most basic things all over again.
I was told the fact my memory seemed mostly intact was a great sign, but it didn’t help me in figuring out how to express my need to know about our child. After a few minutes of one of the therapists coercing me through a puzzle, I pushed it away in anger.
Nicholas was at my side immediately, brushing away my tears. “What’s wrong?”
I took his hand and placed it on my belly and pleaded with my eyes. Understanding crossed his face, and he leaned down to kiss me. “You want to know about the baby?”
I nodded and he smiled.
“Of course. He’s okay, Willow.” He reached across the bed and pointed at the screen of a machine. “This is the fetal monitor. Dr. Whitney has been here to see you many times, but you’ve usually been asleep … or maybe just out of it.” Grief flashed in his eyes before he brought my hand to his lips. “There were a few scary moments when they thought they’d have to take him out early, but you both pulled through. In fact, Dr. Whitney seems to think he was spared almost completely. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I was stupid to assume you heard her at some point. You must have been so worried.”
I took in everything he said but clung to the most important part. Our baby was okay.
The tears which fell from my eyes now were entirely due to relief. Nicholas’ assurance that he was healthy was all I needed. I could breathe again. From that point on, I pushed myself as hard as I could to recover, heeding every word of medical advice, every suggestion, and every therapeutic exercise with renewed vigor.
Within a few days, I was speaking almost normally, and able to hold full conversations with the doctors and Nicholas. In fact, I had progressed so much I was moved out of the ICU into a regular room. Well regular in the sense that I was no longer deemed critical or hooked up to a thousand machines, and I was allowed to have more than one visitor at a time.
The room itself was massive, comfortable, almost hotel-like. Large flat-screen TV, wide windows, a couch and chairs, a more comfortable bed, along with vases of flowers stashed everywhere. I wondered if Nicholas promised them he’d build a new hospital wing or something to net me this room.
Once I was talking again, I wanted all the details of my injuries. Every time I tried to get Nicholas to talk about it all, he got evasive and tried to distract me and urge me to focus on getting better. The doctors were more helpful, telling me I had been out for almost three weeks. My concussion had been so severe they had to put me into a medically-induced coma to reduce the swelling of my brain.
Bottom line was that I had been lucky. And my baby was even luckier.
The physical part of my recovery took a bit longer. The first time I was helped to stand on my feet, I would have fallen on my butt if they hadn’t been holding me up. It was somewhat disheartening to feel helpless and so unsteady, especially when I had been doing so well with my leg exercises while lying down. It was as if I’d never walked before. Like there was a disconnect between my brain and my legs.
But I worked as hard as I could, eager to get out of the hospital. I wanted my things around me. The familiar sights, smells, just the feeling of being home. I especially missed being able to sleep next to Nicholas.
He never left my side, helping me through every single moment of my recovery. They brought in a makeshift bed to put alongside mine every night, where he slept close enough to hold my hand.
If he slept at all.