The Mitchell Family Series BoxSet 1-4.5 (94 page)

Then it all hit me like a ton of fucking bricks.

She was in here because of me.

She was hanging on by a thread to life because of me.

I did this.

My actions caused this.

I would never be able to forgive myself for causing this to her.

I had to open my eyes when I could hear a commotion coming from the operating room. A nurse was running toward Miranda with some big machine and I noticed the constant sound instead of a beeping.  My heart dropped when I realized what was happening.  “No!” I screamed. A heavyset nurse noticed me watching and walked toward the window. I figured she was going to point at me, but instead she lowered a separate mini-blind on her side of the glass. I smacked on the window one time and sank to the floor. I could hear them clear enough to know that Miranda’s heart had stopped.

A female voice yelled ‘clear’ and the beeping immediately started back up. I stood quickly hoping they would re-open the blinds, but nothing happened. I just stood there staring at the blinds, not knowing what the fuck was happening in the next room.

I needed her to fight. Our children needed her to make it through this. She had to live. She had to be okay.

The nurse came back into the room, followed by a man. I uncovered my hands from my face and looked at both of them with tears already in my eyes.

No! It can’t be. I can hear the monitor. Do not be in here to tell me you lost her.

“Mr. Mitchell, I’m Dr. Patel. I’m sorry we are meeting for such circumstances. Perhaps you would like to sit so we can talk about your wife’s situation.” He motioned for me to sit in a chair at the far side of the little room.

I sat down and stared at the window, even though I couldn’t see through it. “I’m listening.”

“I know the nurses have briefed you on your wife’s condition, but I’m not sure that you understand the severity of it. You see, Mrs. Mitchell’s accident caused her uterus to tear. This is a rare condition that usually results in some sort of trauma to the pregnant mother. Now in most cases, the mother and sometimes the fetus do not make it. In more common cases, the mother can be saved while the baby is stillborn.”

I finally looked at the doctor, unable to take his serious tone, without giving him my undivided attention. “They told me my boys were fine.”

He nodded. “It’s a miracle in itself for us to not only save one, but both of them. You see, while we were delivering your sons, both of their lungs filled with your wife’s blood. We were able to get them both breathing on their own with little effort and you should never worry about them having any long-term problems. Their lungs are functioning properly and in other cases, the children had never had a single problem with their lungs. The nurses have informed me that both boys are very healthy and are fully developed. Considering they were premature, it is good to hear.”

I held my hand up. “I love my children, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I need you to tell me about my wife right now. I can’t talk about the kids until I know about their mother. You beating around the bush right now is making me think the worst. If she’s gone, I deserve to know.” I buried my face into my hands. “She’s gone isn’t she?”

The room fell silent for what seemed like a whole minute. I wanted to vomit, to scream, to bust my body through the wall to get to her, but I felt a hand on my knee and slowly looked up. “She’s stable. She isn’t out of the woods, but your wife is alive. She is a fighter.”

I stood up and started pacing. “I need to see her. She needs to know I’m here.”

He held up his finger. “We need to wait a while for that. She is going to be transferred to the intensive care unit, the ICU, where she will have a nurse at her side for the next twenty-four hours. Visitors will be limited to immediate family and no children are permitted.”

“Is she going to make it?”
Say she is.

“Only time will tell, but we will do everything we can to see that she does.” The doctor seemed to be optimistic, which still didn’t sit right with me. I needed to touch her. I needed to see her for myself.

“Look Doc, I appreciate everything you are doing, but I need to see my wife. I won’t tell anyone, I won’t even touch her, but please let me see her. I just need five minutes. Please.”
If you don’t let me see her, I am going to beat down every door until I find her myself.

He looked at the nurse and whispered in her ear, while I stood there waiting for his response. “Let us get her moved and monitor her for an hour. We can get you in to see her, but everyone else will have to wait until she gets out of the ICU.”

“Whatever it takes. I will do whatever I have to do.”

“Go back and be with your children. We will come get you as soon as we can get you in there.”

The doctor started to walk away. “Wait! Please promise me that the next time we talk it will be for me to see my wife and not for you to tell me she’s gone. I need to hear it.”

He reached out his hand for me to shake. “I will do everything in my power to make sure you see your wife as soon as possible.”

It was enough for me to be hopeful. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was enough.

The next hour would be the longest of my life.

Chapter 22

Miranda

I remembered being brought in by ambulance and I even vaguely remember the nurses attending to me at first. Once the stabbing pain hit, it was hard to hold on. Nothing could have prepared me for that type of pain. One minute I was having a normal kind of contraction and the next I felt like I had fallen back first into a picket fence. I tried to hold on to consciousness, but it became too much to bear.

The last thing I thought of was Ty and how much I wished he was with me.

A bright light caused me to wake up and for a split second, I was sure that I’d died and was being forced into the light, but then faces came into my vision and soon I could hear their voices.

They were telling me to hold on; to fight. I needed to live; to see my children and love my husband. Suddenly, nothing mattered except for that. I needed to fight for them, because they needed me as much as I wanted them. I felt someone holding my hand and I just believed that he was there with me. I didn’t know how he got there, or how long it had been, I just knew he was holding my hand and saying my name.

In this brief part of my memory, I don’t remember feeling the pain and I am sure of that because when the pain did start to come back, it was even worse than before. The figure holding my hand wasn’t my husband, but a doctor in a white coat. He gave me a smile and a squeeze when he saw me looking at him.

“Keep holding on,” he whispered.

“Ty.” He was all I wanted to see.

I knew I was crying, not that it mattered. It was obvious I was having surgery. A bunch of nurses were surrounding me and suddenly I felt a tug and then saw a very bloody baby being pulled from my body. I could hear the people, but not one single cry. I instinctively tried to reach for my baby, but realized I was fastened to the table. “No please…why isn’t he crying? Someone help him!”

A nurse came up and steadied my head as I cried out for my baby. A second tug was felt and I watched my second son being pulled out of me, also covered in blood. “NO! NO! Why aren’t they crying? Why are they covered in blood? Someone help them.”

I tried to look behind me to see where they were taking my boys. This couldn’t be happening. They were just moving around and fine just hours ago. I couldn’t lose my boys, I just couldn’t.

The more I cried out for them, the less the medical staff would tell me. Finally, I heard the doors opening and closing and then nothing. No sounds of babies. Not one single sound.

I couldn’t lose them like this. They couldn’t be gone. As devastating as it was for me to think about, the next thing that came to mind was Ty. How was he going to handle losing his sons? This would kill him. It was killing me. 

The pain was becoming unbearable and I screamed out at the top of my lungs.

“I can’t give her anymore. It’s worn off already.” The doctor holding my hand announced to someone else in the room.

“Give her something else.” Someone else yelled.

“I can give her morphine, but she will still feel the pain, you know that.”

I was fading in and out from the severity of the pain. My mind fought to hold on while my body was giving up. Part of me didn’t want to live if I lost my boys, but I knew I couldn’t just leave Ty with Bella. It wasn’t because I thought he couldn’t do it, it was because I couldn’t imagine a life without them either.  Every single happy moment of my life was because of them. I couldn’t give up.

Time sort of stood still for me.

I didn’t think I’d fallen asleep, but when I woke up new people were in the room and the man that had been holding my hand was gone. I tried to move my arms again, just to fail when they didn’t budge. I tried to focus on the room, but the morphine must have been working because it was hard to focus clearly. I moved my head some more and saw that the doctor standing over my body was covered in my blood.

“My babies.”

“Try not to talk. You need to save your energy.”

“Please, tell me. Are they okay?”

I faded out again.

When I came to this time, my head was tilted to the side. For just a brief moment, I could have sworn I saw Ty looking at me through some kind of window. A doctor moved in front of my view and when he moved away again, Ty was gone.

Was he really here? How could he have gotten here so fast? How long had I been out of it? Does he know about our boys?

The more I started to worry, the more the monitor beeped. The faster it got, the harder it was for me to keep my eyes opened. I struggled to stay awake, hoping to get one more glimpse of Ty. I had to know if it was really him. I needed him to know that I didn’t hate him. He needed to know if something happened to me, I wanted him to move on. He had a big heart and I knew he would want more children. Bella deserved to live a happy life. She didn’t ever have to know what we’d done to keep her safe.

I let myself fade one last time, even though I was determined to stay awake, I had lost the battle.

The atmosphere was different when I opened my eyes.  All of the previous voices had disappeared. A mellow beeping was coming from behind me just as I remembered being strapped to the bed, my arm raised higher than I expected it to.  The ceiling was brighter with fluorescent lights instead of the ones in the last room I was in.

Before I could turn my head to look around, I heard someone sniffle to my right. I didn’t have to see his face to know who it was. Ty’s wedding ring, along with both of his hands covered my view of his face. He was obviously crying and just hearing it brought back everything that had happened.

I reached for him, even though he wasn’t close enough to touch. When I went to speak, my voice was nothing but air. “Ty….” He didn’t hear me through his own crying. “Ty,” I repeated.

Slowly, his hands moved away from his face. I was shocked to see how red the eyes were that looked back at me. “Miranda…baby, I can’t believe you’re awake. My God, I thought I lost you forever.” He reached his arms around me and pressed his lips to mine.

My mouth was so dry; it hurt to even try to talk. “Water. Please.”

Ty moved his face away from mine and looked around the room. “Nurse…she’s awake and she needs a drink.”

A female, who looked about our age, came walking up to my bedside. She was wearing scrubs with little teddy bears all over them. I don’t know what made me notice it, but I did. They reminded me of the Grateful Dead bears I’d seen on bumper stickers.

“Because of the medication, I can’t give her a drink yet, but I can offer her some ice chips to chew on. I’ll be right back.”

I watched her walk away and then turned my attention to Ty. My voice was an air-filled whisper, so he got up close to my face when I spoke. “I’m sorry.”

“Baby, try not to talk.” He wiped the hair from my face and kissed my cheek. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

It wasn’t okay. It was never going to be okay. Our boys were gone because of my accident. I’d taken his sons from him. No matter what happened between us, we could never get past this. Even if I forgave him for Heather, he would never forgive me.

“Please don’t hate me.” I was too weak to cry, but inside I was being torn apart. He had to know the truth by now. How could he be sitting here with me knowing what had happened.

He stroked my cheek and ran his fingers over my lips. “Shhh, I could never hate you. Even if you hate me.”

I reached for his face and stroked my hand over his stubble-filled cheeks. “I don’t hate you.” It hurt my throat to talk. I could feel it sticking together inside.

“I don’t blame you if you do. I deserve it.” He shook his head and looked down at the floor. “If I could take it back I would. Nothing means anything without you in my life, Miranda.”

“You don’t have to be nice to me after what happened, Ty. It’s okay if you can’t forgive me. I can’t forgive myself.” I started to really cry, even without the tears. My throat continued to stick together, pinching me from the insides.

“Miranda, you got into an accident. It wasn’t your fault. Everything is going to be okay. I thought I’d lost you forever. You have no idea how bad it was. They had to bring you back once. It was the worst thing I have ever experienced.” I could tell from his voice that he was truthfully scared. 

“But the babies. It’s all my fault. How can you even look at me? How could you ever love me?”

Ty froze and I truly believed he didn’t know what happened to our boys. Had nobody told him? “Baby, what are you talking about? The boys are small, but they are both fine. Iz and I held them several times.”

They’re alive? 
“But, I saw them, Ty. I saw them covered in my blood. They weren’t breathing.” I hadn’t noticed until Ty shushed me, that I was starting to hyperventilate. The nurse, who was already heading in my direction with my promised cup of ice chips, rushed to my side.

“Calm down, Mrs. Mitchell. You can’t get yourself upset. We need to keep you as comfortable as possible.”

I ignored the stupid nurse and looked at my husband. He pulled out his cell phone and scrolled to his pictures. “The one on the right is Jax and Jake is on the left. Izzy made the decision about who was who. She’s pretty concerned we are going to get them mixed up on account of them looking so much alike, even though Jake has a couple more ounces on his brother.”

I heard everything he said, but for some reason, I needed him to tell me again. “I don’t understand.”

“Miranda, baby, you had a placental abruption. You were bleeding internally. I don’t know how much you saw, but they were able to get the blood out of our boy’s lungs in time to save them. I promise you that they are fine, in fact, your mother is with them right now.”

“My mother? How long have I been out of it?” It wasn’t like the room had windows.

“About twenty-four hours. I’m not really sure exactly. You’ve been in this place for almost twenty hours. Nobody has been able to see you except me and your mother. Everyone else has to wait until you go into a stable condition.”

“Stable? My God, Ty, how bad is it?”

He shrugged his shoulders and leaned in close to me. I felt his fingers touching my face and I closed my eyes, appreciating his touch so much. “For a while, we were just playing it by ear. They never did figure out exactly where the bleeding was coming from. You’ve had seven separate units of blood transfused. We just didn’t know what would happen. They were concerned about kidney failure for a while. They come and prick you every hour and check your vitals. Your breathing has gotten better throughout the day, but until you said my name, I didn’t know if I’d ever see those pretty eyes again. You scared the shit out of us.”

I intertwined my hand with Ty’s. “I need to see our boys.”

“I know you do. You have to get better first, baby. Right now you have sixty staples from hip to hip.”

Holy shit is that why I feel so tight?

An itch that I hadn’t noticed before overwhelmed me. I began taking my nails and digging them into my arms. The nurse looked at what I was doing and handed Ty the cup of ice. “The itching is from the morphine. It’s one of the side effects. I know it is unbearable, but try as best as you can to avoid scratching. I will find some lotion your husband can put on you where it is itching.”

As soon as she walked away, I turned to Ty. He was looking in the cup and pulling out a small piece of ice to stick in my mouth. The way he was being so attentive to me was the Ty I knew and loved. The way he cared about me radiated through him. No matter what happened to bring us to this particular moment, I couldn’t imagine him not being there.

I couldn’t think about that situation, because my only focus needed to be on getting better so that I could see my babies. Bella must have been so frightened, even with my mother and Ty to keep her calm. How he kept a straight face around her was beyond my reach. That little girl was his kryptonite and I couldn’t see him holding it together for very long.

My mother must have been freaking out by now. I can’t imagine her getting that call. As Ty fed me another chip, it all hit me. “Oh my God, did you have to call and tell them?”

“You mean your mother? Well, of course I did. Actually, I called Colt, because calling your mother would have been too hard. None of this was very easy for me. In fact, at first, I didn’t know you made it. They wouldn’t tell me anything. They just kept taking me to the boys instead. I begged and pleaded and finally they let me see you while you were in surgery.”

I cut him off. “In the window?”

“You saw me? When I looked at you, you were so lifeless. You looked so horrible and they wouldn’t let me in there with you. I swear I tried, Miranda. I would have done anything to get in that room with you. I was so afraid. I can’t live without you, baby, not even for a second. You mean everything to me.”

I wanted to argue with him; to ask him why he would sleep with Heather, but I was just too weak to confront him about it. My life had just flashed in front of my eyes and I needed to focus on what was best for my family and our future. Maybe Ty and I would never work, but I needed to at least try.

I was so hurt and even after just waking up; I could still see those pictures flashing through my mind. On the other side of my angst, there was an overwhelming feeling of need. Maybe it was selfish, but I didn’t want to give up my family. Just moments ago, I’d thought that my twins were stillborn. What kind of mother would I be to take away their father that adored them? I had to find a way to make things work with Ty. I had to hope that in some way this terrible circumstance would make him want to be with only me.