Jodie was shocked awake by a scream that merged into a long low moan. She had no idea where she was. She slowly extended her hand in the direction of the moan and encountered first a puddle of warm liquid then a hand balled into a tight fist strangling the sheet and blanket. She followed that arm upwards to a shoulder and neck also in violent contraction and finally an open mouth—the source of that moan—and a cheek streaked with tears.
“It hurts!” that mouth shrieked around her hand.
Jodie leapt into action. She sat up in bed, found the bedside lamp and switched it on. Penni was on her back gripping the bedcovers with two balled fists, her mouth twisted in pain, her eyes terrified.
“What’s the matter?” Jodie asked in a voice that tried to find the middle ground between urgency and calm.
“I’ve lost it!” Penni screamed.
“Lost what?”
“The baby!”
Jodie remembered the wetness she’d felt on waking. She looked toward Penni’s torso. Her knees were raised under the sheets and her legs spread apart. Jodie did not want to look under the covers, but she knew she had to. She pulled the covers back to expose Penni’s humped abdomen peeking out between her pajama top and the stretched elastic of the bottoms. She lifted the bottoms at Penni’s waist.
The first thing she saw was that there was no newborn baby there, either gasping for breath or dead. Then she saw a large puddle of clear liquid soaking the sheets around Penni’s butt—clear, not red. She breathed a sigh of relief. Then she saw the red liquid soaking its way from Penni’s crotch into the pale yellow fabric.
Penni saw the red also. “No!” she screamed, then threw her head back and closed her eyes tight.
Jodie didn’t know what to do. She was paralyzed by her own fears and confusion. She had no training for this. Why was she here?
Then some switch was thrown inside her and she moved into action. She leaned over Penni and put her hands on either side of her face. “Penni, look at me.”
Penni opened her eyes.
Those eyes were so terrified Jodie was briefly frozen again—but this time in shock and concern for her sister. But those same eyes called her to continue, to do what she had to do. “I’ve got to pull down your pajama bottoms. Can you help me do that?”
Penni cringed and shook her head.
“Penni,” Jodie said firmly. “I need to check you out. You need to help me.”
Penni’s eyes began to steady. She nodded slowly then winced in pain as another spasm moved outward from her abdomen.
Jodie released her sister’s cheeks then swung her feet to the floor and stood. She went around to the foot of the bed and peeled back all the covers and threw them to one side. She was relieved to see that there wasn’t any more blood beyond that soaking through the crotch of the pajamas. She reached up to pull off the pajama bottoms. She took a chance and lifted her eyes to look at her sister’s. Those eyes were still frightened but they’d at least found a place of attachment—Jodie’s face.
Jodie offered a nod of assurance then said, “Can you lift your butt?”
Penni did so.
Jodie slid off the pajama bottoms and her sister’s panties. They were both soaked in blood but it wasn’t dripping from the cloth. That was a good sign. And Penni’s genitals and groin were surprisingly clean. A narrow line of blood was leaking from her vagina, but that looked like it had begun to coagulate. She looked up at Penni with a relief that was both genuine and purposeful. “The baby is still safely inside you. Your water broke. There is some blood but it has stopped.”
Penni nodded slowly, her eyes starting to lose their fear.
Jodie continued. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
Penni nodded and reached for the phone on the nightstand. She punched Randall’s name from the pop-up directory then handed the phone to Jodie as a new contraction claimed her body and her concentration.
Jodie listened to the ringing on the line as she watched her sister’s exposed and bulging abdomen convulse in a spasm that moved upward and downward simultaneously. So violent was the convulsion that she feared blood would again start pouring from Penni, the hemorrhage reopened. She reached up with her free hand and clutched Penni’s fist closed around the bottom sheet. She held her breath as Randall’s recorded voice came on the phone, requesting that she leave a message and promising a prompt response. Just as she started to leave her message, Penni’s animal scream echoed off the bedroom’s walls. She figured that would get Randall’s attention better than any words from her. After Penni’s scream faded to a series of groaning pants, she added her cellphone number to the message and closed with, “I’m calling an ambulance.”
She continued to hold Penni’s hand as she punched 9-1-1 into the phone. “Premature labor and internal bleeding,” she told the male dispatcher. “Thirty-four weeks, I think.”
Penni, whose face had slowly relaxed toward exhaustion, nodded.
“Yes, thirty-four weeks.” Then she said to his next question, “No other known complications.”
Penni nodded affirmation.
Jodie offered her the phone.
She shook her head vehemently.
Jodie repeated the address the dispatcher had on file with the cellphone’s number.
Penni nodded then began to weep silent tears.
That was more than Jodie could stand. The dispatcher wanted her to stay on the line, but Jodie said no. “I need to tend to my sister. Send help.” She hung up, set the phone on the nightstand, then sat on the edge of the bed.
Penni rolled her head into her sister’s lap and hid her face in Jodie’s pajamas. “I’m so scared. It hurts so bad,” she said into Jodie’s thigh.
Jodie almost broke down then. She was glad Penni couldn’t see her face. She took several deep breaths as she patted her sister’s head and brushed her hair with her fingers. Then she took a deep breath and eased Penni back so she could see her eyes. “You are going to be O.K. Your baby is going to be O.K. We’ll do this together.”
Penni nodded slowly, her chin lightly bumping Jodie’s leg.
“The ambulance will be here shortly. Let’s get you ready.”
Penni made a move as if to stand but fell backward in the effort.
“No, Penni! Stay where you are. And let’s raise your butt to keep it above your heart.” She took her pillow and slid it under Penni’s backside as she lifted Penni’s legs with her free hand. The pillow would get all wet now, but what did that matter? She reconsidered then went into the bathroom and came back with two towels and folded them together and slid them under Penni’s butt on top of the pillow to catch any additional leakage.
Penni watched her sister’s every move and responded to every gesture obediently.
Jodie looked up from setting the towels. Her sister’s rapt gaze made her laugh. “I’m just Jodie, Penni—not some sort of angel!”
That brought a grin to Penni’s eyes but she said nothing.
“We need to get you dressed. What do you want to wear?”
Penni said, “In the closet, top shelf on the left.”
Jodie looked in their small walk-in. There was a soft-sided overnight bag already filled with birthing supplies. On top of it was a new sweat suit in—thank God—burgundy. Jodie pulled down the bag and clothes, set the bag beside the bed, and helped her sister pull off the pajama tops and slip on the sweat suit top. She had no bra but what did that matter under the circumstances? Jodie looked at Penni’s naked legs and abdomen and knew the first thing the paramedics would want to do is check that area. Nonetheless, she slid the sweatpants onto her legs and pulled the elastic waist all the way to Penni’s ballooning midsection.
With Penni once again fully clothed, both sisters exhaled sighs of relief—one step completed.
“What about your feet?” Jodie asked.
Penni smiled and pointed toward the bag.
Jodie looked inside. Sitting atop an assortment of supplies (including a paperback birthing manual) was the pair of
bunny slippers Jodie had given her sister as a gag (well, maybe not completely) bridal shower gift with a card that read Don’t want you to be barefoot and pregnant! and delivered via parcel post (she’d not attended the shower). Jodie pulled them out and slipped them on her sister’s pale feet. They fit just fine despite the swelling.
The EMS personnel—a burly middle-aged man and a thin efficient woman no older than Penni—arrived. Jodie let them in while telling Penni to stay in bed. They did an initial assessment and exam with Penni on the bed and able to answer most of the questions until a severe contraction caused her to grit her teeth then release a long moan. They brought up the stretcher and transferred Penni with surprising ease and no apparent discomfort to her.
As Jodie turned out the lights and grabbed Penni’s birthing bag and her soft-sided purse, the man said, “Next of kin only.”
“I’m her sister.”
“Her husband is next of kin.”
“He’s not here.”
“Next of kin only in the ambulance. That’s the rule.”
“But I don’t have a car to follow.”
“Get a cab—Boston Medical, Emergency Dock.”
Penni raised herself on her elbows. “She goes or I don’t.”
The man stopped at the condo’s front door and started to turn the gurney. “Suit yourself.”
The woman pressed the brake on her end of stretcher. “Let her go, Jack. A sister is as good as a husband in my book. Who will know?”
Jack pasted a scowl on his face but chose not to fight. “The demerits go in your file if they do an audit.”
“They won’t audit a premature labor.”
“It’s yours if they do, Tammy.”
She smiled and touched Penni’s hand above the blanket with her hand inside a latex-free sterile glove. “Lie down and concentrate on controlling your contractions. Your sister will stay with you.”
But Penni didn’t lie down. “We need to go to Mass. General. That’s where my obstetrician practices and where my husband is a resident.”
This time it was Tammy that frowned. “Sorry, Penni. We’re districted to Boston Med, and there’s no bending that rule.”
Penni began to cry.
Jodie stepped forward and took her hand. “I’ll text Randall the change, and I’ll call your obstetrician.”
Tammy added. “We need to get you to a hospital and get a monitor on the fetus—on your baby.”
“My daughter,” Penni said firmly though she still didn’t know.
“Yes, your daughter,” Tammy said. “We need to find out how she’s doing in all this excitement.”
Penni looked to Jodie. “You won’t leave me?”
Jodie said, “Not even to go to the bathroom.”
Tammy said, “We’ve got a urinal in the truck—I use it all the time.”
“Empty, I hope,” Jodie said.
“And rinsed,” Tammy said as she released the gurney’s brake.
Jack shook his head and muttered “Women” as he took the lead and headed for the building’s stairs.
The ten-minute ride to the hospital was surreal to both sisters. Penni closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing in an effort to reduce the pain of the contractions. Jodie continued to hold her sister’s hand from a seat on a side bench but chose not to look at Penni’s face once her eyes had closed, a visage that reminded her all too vividly of her mother’s unconscious face just two nights ago. Penni looked so much like Mom. How had she not noticed till now? She looked out the ambulance’s window slits at the buildings flashing blood red as they raced past, trying her best to let that lurid scene erase the more risky image lodged now in her heart.