An imperfect plan a nove.., p.6
An Imperfect Plan: A Novel, page 6
The doctor ordered X-rays, Colette gasping when he examined her knee. It was swollen and already badly discolored. The wait for her results took forever. The pain was unrelenting, and she worried about how long she’d be out of commission.
“It looks like you have fractured your patella,” the doctor grimly reported hours after she’d arrived at the ER. “You’ll need surgery to repair the break, and we’ll likely use some pins or screws to put it all back together. You’ll be in a cast afterward, and you’ll have to rest for around six weeks. After physical therapy, you’ll get back to normal, though. The wrist is just mildly sprained.”
The news was devastating to Colette, her life turned upside down in a few snowy seconds. She contemplated not even calling Rob but had the fleeting worry that something terrible could happen during surgery. He’s going to be so annoyed with me.
But she had to call and tell him she was in the hospital and staying overnight for surgery. She was so nervous her fingers shook as she dialed the number. When Rob’s voice came on the line, her stomach lurched and she started to feel dizzy.
“Hey, doll, I have some bad news.”
Colette found relief only when the anesthesiologist came into the OR to knock her out. Counting backward from ten, she got to eight before the ache switched off—along with her worries, temporarily.
Colette struggled to make out the fuzzy image in front of her as she struggled to remember where she was.
“Colette? Hey, how are you feeling?”
“Like shit,” she managed to say before closing her lids again, hungry to return to that deep, languorous sleep. When she next opened them, sunlight was piercing through the half-opened blinds, and someone was pulling at her arm.
“Good morning, chica!” Chelsea’s high-pitched voice was singing as she wrapped Colette’s bicep with a blood-pressure cuff. Colette stayed still and squinted against the harsh daylight while Chelsea pumped the bulb attached to the cuff.
“Vitals are great!” Chelsea said a few moments later, removing the cuff and pulse clip from her finger and jotting down notes into a chart. When Colette attempted to shift herself up so she could properly face her friend, a searing pain shot through her entire right side, and she slumped against it.
“Oh no, don’t try to move too much,” Chelsea instructed as she grabbed Colette under her arm and helped to comfortably settle her into the bed.
“Fuck,” Colette mumbled. She was in bad shape. It all started flooding back to her, and the first thing she stressed about, once again, was the income she’d miss. Rob.
“Do you know if my husband called?” she asked.
Chelsea’s face flushed slightly, and she busied herself jotting notes down on Colette’s chart. “Um, yeah, he actually stopped in this morning, but he said he didn’t want to wake you . . . He had something important at work to get to.”
Colette changed the subject. “Did Dr. Neil say how long my recovery would be?” she asked, barely able to get out the words.
“Only three to six weeks.” Chelsea’s wide smile and peppy tone made clear that she thought she was delivering good news. She adjusted Colette’s pillows. “You’ll be back up and running in no time!”
Colette tried to run numbers in her foggy brain but couldn’t add or subtract due to the worst pain she had ever felt in her life.
“Oh my God, I can’t think straight; my whole right side hurts,” she moaned.
“Well, we have a morphine drip for you today; that will help while you’re here,” Chelsea said, peering at Colette’s chart. “You’ll get oral pain meds when you go home.” Chelsea went over to the morphine pump, which she unlocked with a key. She handed Colette the button to press whenever she felt pain, reviewing the instructions and explaining that the machine would not allow her to get more than what was medically allowed and safe, all things Colette understood as a nurse but all things Chelsea was required to tell patients. Colette pressed the release button a few times, hoping for quick relief. Though she was aware that pressing repeatedly wouldn’t dispense a higher dosage, like obsessively pushing the button to call an elevator when in a hurry, she couldn’t help herself. “You should feel much better soon,” Chelsea reassured as Colette’s vision started to blur. For which she was thankful.
The day passed foggily in morphine-induced sleep. Waking every few hours, at first Colette couldn’t remember where she was and why. The next morning, more clearheaded, she tried to sit up without jostling her casted leg. Even though Rob had said he would try to come to the hospital last night, he was coming in from a conference in DC and probably wouldn’t make it until morning. Should I call him again? No. He’s probably tired; he will be here soon.
She was focusing on a tray of breakfast on her bedside table when Nellie, a nursing intern who had shadowed her for the past six months, opened the door.
Colette smiled for the first time since falling. “Hi, Nellie.”
“Great news! You’re going home.” Nellie grabbed Colette’s file from the rack at the foot of the bed. “I’m here to go over your discharge instructions. I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she said sympathetically as she rushed to Colette’s side. “I literally don’t know what I am going to do without you here.”
“You’ll be fine,” Colette replied. “You’ve learned a lot since you started here; you don’t need me to hold your hand anymore.”
“Ugh, I feel like I really do. Hurry up and get better.” Nellie smiled as she poured water into a cup and held it out to her. “You’re my work mom.”
Colette smiled back before taking a sip. She knew most patients would be thrilled to be getting out of the hospital, but she couldn’t ignore her nagging anxiety. How would she get by without the use of her leg for six weeks? If only she had a normal parent to come help her, she thought, allowing herself a moment of self-pity. Rob would never take off work to stay with her. Not even a single day. He had too much at stake at work.
Nellie began reading through the doctor’s orders and went over cast-care details, but Colette was distracted. “Okay,” she interrupted, “what time will I be released? I should call my husband.”
“Oh, probably not until the afternoon. I can wheel you out if he just wants to meet you in front.”
Resentment, which she’d been feeling far too frequently lately, enveloped her.
With tears threatening to spill from her eyes now, she told herself she was being dramatic. Get it together and don’t dare cry in front of Nellie. She looks up to me.
She was down all day, waiting for Rob to call her cell. Though she knew the other patients had loved ones checking on them or anxiously waiting for visiting hours, Colette had no one pacing and checking the clock every five minutes. When it became glaringly obvious that he wasn’t going to call, she had to pick up the phone. He apologized for not being with her—he’d had an important meeting, blah, blah, blah. He promised to be there by 4:00 p.m. to get her. She put the phone down, then grabbed it again, her fingers ready to dial her father, but she lost her nerve. Nellie returned and helped her to gather her things and get dressed with the bulky cast before getting her into the wheelchair.
“So, you have oxycodone for five days,” she informed Colette as she wheeled her into the elevator and handed her the scrip. “It’s three 5-milligram pills per day, once every eight hours as needed. By then your pain should be much better, but if you feel like you need more, I can hook you up.” She winked at Colette, who awkwardly shrugged, thinking that Nellie was crossing a line.
Rob was out front, as promised, and he helped her get up to their apartment and snuggled into bed before running out to fill her prescription. Under her own covers, she pressed the blinking light on the answering machine by her bed to hear a message from Aunt Lisa. Her mother’s sister had moved to Connecticut shortly after her mother had been sent away for the last time. Aunt Lisa had always made a point of keeping in close contact with Colette, from early on in her childhood. Colette remembered yearning for that day each summer when her father would drop her off in Old Lyme, where she’d spend the next two weeks in a rental home enjoying the sun and surf. Aunt Lisa shared normal, if not always happy, stories about her mother, which contrasted sharply with the ones her father always told. Even if it was just to sometimes jog her memory of times before her mother was really bad.
“Remember when your mom would read you your favorite book over and over again?” she would ask.
Colette would rarely recall these memories, and she would have to dig deep to remember a time before her mother was too sick to care for her with love or affection.
“Corduroy!” Aunt Lisa would remind her when she could see on her face that she couldn’t find the memory. “You used to love that story! And your mother would read it to you over and over and over!” she would say with a smile.
An unfamiliar pleasant memory fluttered on the outskirts of her brain. She could see the picture of the little bear in the bed inside the department store. And she remembered loving the idea of the bear getting taken home by a loving family. And she also loved it because the girl in the book who loved Corduroy was named Lisa.
“Yes . . . I remember,” she would say with a tight smile.
In her new message, Lisa said she was worried about Colette (she’d called the apartment and Rob had filled her in on the state of things) and asked her niece to please call her soon and let her know if she could help. Colette called her back to thank her for her offer but assured her aunt that she was fine. In truth, she desperately wanted Lisa, who’d always been so warm and caring, so normal, to come stay with her, but it would be selfish to ask her to leave her two boys.
Rob arrived back sooner than Colette expected with a cheap bouquet of flowers, likely from the stand on the corner, Chinese food, and the pain pills that by now she desperately needed. She swallowed one and watched as he filled a vase with water for her flowers, his hair perfectly gelled and combed back, his arm muscles tensing as he held the heavy vase. It may have been the oxy, but she suddenly felt an old rush of attraction for this man she had run away with as a teen. Sure, they had gone off track lately, but maybe she’d been at fault, feeling sorry for herself and slacking while he was such a workaholic, doing it all for them. She needed to make a greater effort, to see to it that he looked forward to coming home to her. She had to cut it out with all the self-pity and frustration, she thought as she sipped on the wonton soup he’d brought her. She needed to pick up her game. After a few spoonfuls, she got cozy and gazed at the flowers on her nightstand.
“He loves me . . . he loves me not,” Colette whispered as she began to feel woozy. “He loves me.” She smiled before closing her eyes, enjoying the warm calm that came over her body like a much-needed hug.
Chapter Six
GRETA
2005
The windshield wipers pushed away the snow as Greta breezed through three yellow lights on the way to her doctor’s office. Parking as close to the front door as she could, she rushed through the slush in her work heels, glancing left and right, hoping she wouldn’t be spotted seeing an infertility specialist. She managed to make it to the front desk with one minute to spare, and after checking in and finding a seat, she pretended to read an issue of Vanity Fair with Jennifer Aniston on the cover, avoiding eye contact with the other women in the waiting room by flipping pages.
Greta hoped that her pregnancy was viable, but with her recent history of infertility, she knew better than to trust an at-home test. Feeling jittery, she took deep breaths to try to settle her nerves. Her thoughts returned to Jack as she realized she’d forgotten that they had reservations at L’Escale with potential clients. While she loved that she’d convinced her boss to hire Jack, and saw eye to eye with him on everything that was work related, that was where the friendship ended. She wasn’t about to share her private infertility journey with him, or anyone in the workplace. She considered calling Jack to say she’d gone home sick but hoped he wouldn’t ask her what was wrong when she returned to the office. Privacy was important to her.
“Greta O’Brien,” the receptionist called.
She was led down the hall and into an ultrasound room. She lay down, and her heart sank into the examination table. They’d struggled for years, and she blamed their seven-year itch on the fact that infertility had taken a huge toll on the marriage. But she had matured, and remaining childless was no longer part of her plan. She had decided that she could become a more hands-on parent than her parents. She needed it to work this time.
Greta felt terribly alone and hadn’t even been able to tell Patrick where she was going today; she couldn’t let him know the lengths to which she was going to make their dream of having a family a reality. He knew about the IVF shots and, of course, had to make his own contribution by going and giving a sperm sample, but he didn’t know the details, and she planned to keep it that way. Each year she excelled in the workplace yet failed to become a mother. She deserved the same American dream that every other woman in Greenwich had. Not having at least one child felt completely unfair to Greta.
She grasped the sides of the examination table to steady herself as dizziness hit. The ultrasound technician dimmed the lights, which helped, and Greta looked around at the blurry walls adorned with posters highlighting various aspects of women’s reproductive health—she was worried about every topic mentioned. She focused on them to avoid small talk as the technician administered a transvaginal ultrasound. Feeling the cold gel below her gown, she closed her eyes and prayed for a positive outcome.
“Everything looks good. The babies are in there and look to be measuring perfectly with your dates,” the technician said.
Babies.
She let out a sigh of relief and felt her lips curving into a triumphant smile, but the technician looked concerned. She angled the monitor away from Greta, who had a flashback of other times during her infertility journey when bad news was delivered. She prepared herself for the worst. She was pissed because the doctor had convinced her to use a donor egg and said it would exponentially increase her odds of having a live birth. She wished there were a way that didn’t include more lies.
“What’s wrong?” Greta asked, the hint of desperation in her voice plain to her own ears as she tried to read the technician’s body language.
“Hold on just a minute. I’m going to have the doctor come in.”
She was alone again. Her pulse quickened and her fists clenched as panic set in. If she was already tightly wound, she felt like she could fly through the ceiling when her doctor walked into the room and peered at the monitor.
“Greta, everything’s okay,” the doctor said warmly. “You’re pregnant with multiples, measuring seven weeks. Why don’t you finish up in here and then stop by my office to talk.”
The doctor was sitting behind his desk, but he pulled his chair closer and leaned in to make eye contact with Greta as she sat down. “So, as you know, we fertilized a dozen eggs and implanted the best four embryos, and because it’s resulted in a multiple pregnancy, it’s also caused a little pregnancy-induced hypertension. It’s nothing to worry about. This is very common when using egg implantation.”
She stared at the familiar mahogany desk as he continued. “You are pregnant with three embryos, which is great news. We can’t determine the sexes until around week eleven. However, because of your advanced maternal age and your high blood pressure, this is a risk.”
Greta remained silent, as she thought he was making this out to be her fault.
The doctor paused and then asked, “Are you religious?”
“I’m Catholic, but not super religious. Why?”
“Carrying three fetuses to term at forty-one isn’t ideal.” He took a deep breath and said, “I think you should consider selective reduction.”
Greta bristled at his second mention of her age. “Selective what?”
“Selective reduction. We can make you an appointment right now, and because all three embryos look good, we will just insert a needle in embryo C, the one farthest from your cervix, and eliminate it.”
“You want me to abort one of the babies that you just put in my body?”
“I realize there is a bit of a moral dilemma for some. I just don’t want you to risk them all. Your odds of success will be greatly increased if you carry two babies instead of three.”
“Well, if I’m going to be honest, one baby seems like enough.” Her gut clenched a little at having to admit it so baldly out loud, but it was true—while one baby felt like enough, she was grateful to potentially have two.
“I don’t think we need to eliminate two,” her doctor said. “One should be okay, and as I said, I will just do the embryo farthest away, instead of having you choose.”
Why was her doctor so comfortable “reducing” by one embryo but not two? She was confused and scared, and it seemed like she had very little time to process all this.
“I know it’s hard and that you’ll want to discuss it with your husband, but the procedure needs to be done as soon as possible. If you decide to try to keep all three embryos, we’ll need to discuss the potential health risks in more detail.” He looked down at his notes. “I think it makes sense to have the procedure. We can schedule it later today.”
Greta wished Patrick would understand that using expensive donor eggs and selective reduction were necessary evils in getting what they wanted, but he wouldn’t.
“Let’s do it.” She couldn’t afford any added risk.
Her doctor hid his surprise well, but she still caught it before he said, “Well, do you want to talk with your husband?”
“I’ll call him,” she lied, then added, “but I want to do it now, today.”
“Very good. Go take a break, talk to Patrick, and come back in an hour.”
Greta wanted to go home, change clothes. “How long will the procedure take?”
“It’s quick, maybe fifteen minutes, but you won’t be able to drive home after. Is your husband available?”
