Chapter 244: A Plan
So, when they made the appointment for 1:30, two days after
she was born, they didn’t know that Kelly would want to eat at 1:00.
Which means, in addition to getting Abby calmed down,
there’s still the fact that Kelly will wake up soon and want to eat, and it
takes her about an hour to eat.
And, if he’s understanding the bits of words he’s getting between
sobs, suggesting formula for the next feed is unlikely to go over well.
If it was any other appointment, he’d say fuck it,
reschedule, and just let Kelly wake up and Abby feed her.
But there is absolutely no shot, at all, of them missing
this appointment. Come Hell or high water, Abby’s getting to the doctor.
So, when Abby inhaled between sobs, he turned her face
toward him, and said, “You haven’t failed her, at all. She’s fine, and right
now, we’ve got to get moving on feeding her again. She’s gonna want to eat when
we need to be heading to the doc’s, so if you could pump now, then you could be
feeding her when we’re in the car.”
He stopped after that, hoping he’d not just set off another
wave of massive emotional flailing, but… nope… That seemed to go well. A plan
of action seemed to be working for Abby. So he hopped up, found the breast pump
and a bottle, and she got to it.
He sat next to her, watching her do it, and, since
previously, Kelly had always been on her breast when she’s done this, he hadn’t
seen how it looks from the outside and… Wow. She doesn’t even need to pump at
first, just petting the breast a little and holding the bottle over her nipple
sends milk squirting.
It’s really impressive, and he’s awfully glad that nothing
of his is that full or swollen, because that’s some highly pressurized milk.
Abby’s not talking again, but at least she’s not crying
either.
So… Maybe… Worst it can do is fall flat. Probably won’t make
her cry.
“You taste it, yet?” he asked with a little smile, hoping it
might lighten the mood.
That startled her a little, and he can’t tell if the you’re insane look she’s aiming at him
is because he didn’t just assume she’d tried it, or that he’d even ask if she
would.
But after a few seconds of that, she nodded at him and said,
“Yes, first day.”
“What’s it like?”
“Sweet. Doesn’t taste like much of anything really.” She’d
hit the point where it wasn’t squirting right out, so she took the bottle away,
snagged a drop on her finger and held it out to him.
Tim smiled at that and licked it off her finger. “Yep.
Sweet. Not much beyond that. Kelly really likes it, though. When I give her
formula, she just looks at me like, ‘Nope. Not Mom’s. I’ll consent to eat this
‘cause I’m hungry, but it’s not the real stuff.’”
That got a little hint of a smile out of Abby. He kissed
her, arm around her shoulders, cuddling close to her.
“You taste the formula?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t smell good to me.”
Mood swings.
That’s what the little voice is saying. On one level hearing it again is
something of a relief. On another level, she’s not feeling much in the way of a
need for an extra narrator to tell her she’s being irrational.
She knows she’s being irrational.
Or maybe not. Five minutes ago…
Well, she knows it now. And, the wasted, despondent, the
whole world’s awful feeling has passed, so that’s good. And at least right now
she can also feel that Tim asking about breast milk is kind of funny, maybe, if
you squint a little. It doesn’t feel funny. She’s not wanting to laugh or
anything. But at least she’s a bit aware of the fact that someone else might
consider that funny.
She wipes her eyes again, while Tim screws the bottle into
the breast pump.
“I hate this.”
He looks back up at her. “I know. We’re gonna get you
fixed.”
She rose an eyebrow at him and said, “Last I checked, I
wasn’t a puppy.”
He almost spilled the milk he hugged her so fast and hard at
that. Then he looked sheepish about it, made sure it was secure, and far enough
away that he wouldn’t spill it, and hugged her more carefully. When he pulled
back he said, “It’s been a long time since you made a joke.”
Abby nodded at that.
As per standard NCIS operating procedure, they are in the
doctor’s office five minutes earlier than need be.
Trying to feed a baby in the car while getting to said
appointment was interesting.
All Tim can say on that is that he’s glad he wasn’t the one
who was doing it.
Kelly found the whole driving, moving, noise, thing
unsettling. Add in hungry on top of that, and she was in a less than wildly
pleasant mood. Then Abby got the bottle out, and Kelly was under the impression
that bottles are a Dad, or maybe Pop, thing and having Mom, giver of milk, offer
her one threw her for a loop. A loop she did not appreciate.
But eventually she did get a little of the milk on her
tongue, and decided it was the real thing, and went to work on her bottle.
Thus ending up with her madly sucking away, enjoying her
meal quite a bit, right when they got to the doctor’s office, so there was
quite a bit more complaining about having said bottle removed from her mouth
while transitioning from car seat to stroller.
So, yes, they did get to the appointment five minutes early.
They were also pretty frazzled.
And Kelly wasn’t exactly thrilled with them, either. (Though
when Mom picked her up as they were walking through the parking lot and let her
finish up her lunch while they headed in improved her mood.)
Janice, the receptionist, took one look at them as they
headed in, smiled kindly, and then cooed appreciatively over Kelly, doing a
very good job of sounding like Kelly was indeed the most beautiful baby girl in
the history of baby girls
Then she dropped the bombshell on them. “Dr. Draz called in
a few minutes ago. She’s in a delivery right now, so she’s going to be at least
an hour late. If you like we can resch—“
“No,” Tim said it flat and fast. “We’ll see whoever can see
us first, and if that’s Draz, that’s Draz, but Abby is getting seen today.”
“Okay. You can wait here, or head to the cafeteria where
there’s wifi and snacks. If you want to go, we’ll text you when someone can see
you.”
Tim looked at Abby, and she shrugged, very visibly not
caring where they ended up. “We’ll try down there, maybe head back up here if
it’s too loud for Kelly.”
An hour and twenty-seven minutes.
Okay, it’s not the end of the world, but that was a much
longer wait than they had been hoping for.
They went to the cafeteria, got some drinks, walked Kelly
around a bit (there’s a pretty nice garden area right outside of the cafeteria)
but by half an hour of that Kelly was asleep and Abby was looking pretty droopy
again.
So, back up to the Doc’s, and settling into the waiting
room. Abby rested. Kelly slept. Tim felt nervous. What if this isn’t something
with an easy fix? Worse, what if this isn’t something that has a hard fix? What
if she’s just… broken?
But eventually, the nurse called Abby’s name, and there was
more cooing about how darling Kelly is, which Tim certainly appreciates, but…
He knows she’s the cutest baby girl in the history of baby girls, what he
doesn’t know is what’s wrong with Abby and how to fix it, so he’s not exactly
focused on how cute Kelly is.
But the nurse gets them set, and they go through the
traditional motions of getting Abby’s weight and blood pressure (higher than
usual) and asking what’s going on, so Tim told her, and the nurse did seem to
think this was serious, writing everything down, telling Abby to get into a
gown, and that Dr. Draz would be there in a minute.
Getting into the gown was the first time Tim had seen Abby
mostly (she kept her bra on) naked since the day after Kelly was born. He’s not
a doctor. Beyond his first aid badge as a Wilderness Scout and the CPR/First
Aid training all NCIS Field Agents are required to have, he has no medical
training, but even with all of that, he really doesn’t like the way her
incision looks.
It’s a lot more red and puffy than he thinks it should be.
He touched it, very gently, and yes, it’s hot.
“Abby?”
She just shrugs a little.
“Has it been like this the whole time?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t looked. It’s been sore the whole time.”
He just nods at that. Part of him wants to yell at her for
not taking care of herself, scared and angry and tired all want to bubble up
and out at once, but he clamps down on it. First of all, that’ll be worse than
useless. Second of all, he saw she was sliding away, knew she was drugged, and
didn’t think to check, either.
“Okay.”
Dr. Draz knocked quickly and came in. Since Tim was already
looking at the incision, there didn’t seem to be much need for hollow
pleasantries, so she got right to it, which Tim appreciated.
She checked the incision, and when she gently palpated it,
Abby shrieked and almost levitated off the examination table. “I take it it’s
tender?”
The glare Tim sent her indicated that joking wasn’t going to
go over well.
She listened to Abby’s symptoms, made a lot of notes, nodded
a lot, and then said, “You’ve definitely got an infection. You might be anemic
as well. So, in a few minutes Amanda will be back, and she’ll get a blood
sample. We’ll run a full test on it, see how you’re doing. You’re going on antibiotics when you get home, but the CBC will give us a better idea
of what sort. We might give you an Iron booster while you’re here. Are you
still taking your pre-natal vitamins?”
Abby shook her head. “Don’t think so.”
Tim knows he hasn’t been giving them to her. “No. Should she
be?”
“Wouldn’t hurt. We’ll see how her red blood cell count is.”
Dr. Draz gently squeezed Abby’s knee. “We’re going to see what’s going on with
you, and hopefully some antibiotics and iron will have you feeling better.”
Abby didn’t smile at that. Tim did.
And then Dr. Draz turned to Kelly, cooed over how big she
was getting, how pretty she was, and thanked her for being such a good sleeper
so she could have that conversation with her parents without interruption.
By the time Dr. Draz was back with the results of the CBC,
Kelly was once again awake, and nursing away (which involved some interesting
contortions, because there are no pillows here, no arm supports, and Abby’s now
got a brand new sore spot on her left arm from the blood draw), because it had
been three full hours, and you can’t tell a seven day old, now’s really not a
convenient time to eat, how about in an hour?
So, soft suckling sounds went along with, “We’ve got the
results back, and yes, your white blood cells are high, red cells are low, and
your blood sugar is a bit off, too. We’re going to give you a shot of iron to
get your red cell count up, and for as long as you’re still bleeding I want you
taking iron supplements and eating high iron food.”
“Red meat; leafy, dark green veggies; milk…” Tim said,
making sure he’s remembering what to get correctly.
“Yeah, if it comes from a cow or Popeye sang it’s praises,
you’re good.” Draz fished out her prescription pad. “I’m also going to write
you a script for Cipro. If the heat and swelling on your incision hasn’t gone
down in two days, I want you back here.”
Nods from Tim and Abby.
“When was the last time you ate before seeing me?”
“Food, or anything?” Tim asked.
“Real food.”
He looked at Abby, she’d mentioned having breakfast, but he
knows she slept through when he ate lunch, and then there was crying, pumping,
and off to the Doc’s…
“Have you eaten anything since breakfast besides that shake?”
He’d gotten her a vanilla milkshake at the cafeteria.
“No.”
Draz made a note of that. “Okay, hopefully that explains the
low blood sugar. With any luck, the iron and antibiotics will have you feeling
better and you won’t need the reminder, but, you have to eat. Kelly eats every
three hours, and you should, too. Some sort of snack, and at least three real
meals. You’re down twenty pounds from the last time I weighed you, and yes, I
know you’re holding seven of them and that between the water weight and the
placenta, that’s most of that twenty pounds, but given how much bigger your
breasts are, that means you’ve probably lost seven pounds of fat. That’s too
much weight loss too fast.
“Keep eating. A lot. Even when you don’t feel like it.
Especially when you don’t feel like it. If you’re nursing and back to your pre-pregnancy
weight in a month, something is wrong. As long as you’re nursing you should be no
less than five pounds heavier than you were pre-pregnancy.”
Tim and Abby nodded at that, too.
“I want to see you back here in a week. If you’re not
feeling significantly better, we’re going to start talking about post-partum
depression and how to cope with that. I’m not a fan of medicate first and ask
questions later, mostly because anti-depressants are very serious medications,
so we’ll start with lifestyle changes, but if medication is where we need to go
to get you enjoying being yourself again, that’s what we’ll do. Yes, being
upset post-baby is normal. Yes, being exhausted is normal. But you’re supposed
to enjoy this, too. So let’s get you back to the point where you can enjoy
this.”
More nodding. Tim’s very much on board with this plan. Abby
doesn’t precisely look like she thinks enjoying anything ever again is on the
menu, but she’s also not looking like it’s impossible either.
“For now, as much rest as you can get. Your friend who came
up with the alternate nights plan, go give her a hug from me; that’s a really
good idea. Eat. Take the meds. This is a really hard job, and you’re doing it
sleep deprived, sick, and loopy from pain medication. That’ll make anyone feel
horrible.”
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