Chapter Twenty-One

Jandy arrived a little before four-thirty a.m.

“Any word?” she asked, as she hugged him.

“Not yet.”

“Everything’s going to be okay,” she reassured him.

Rick left a message for Faith’s boss while Jandy contacted Sarah and Nathan to let them know what was happening.

Then they settled in for the wait.

***

A little before six a.m., Dr. Davis came out to talk to them.

“Okay,” he said, sitting on the little table in front of them. “Here’s what we found.”

Rick and Jandy grabbed each other’s hand and looked at him expectantly.

“The mass we saw in the sonogram was solid, not a cyst as I had hoped. I thought we might be able to just remove it, but its location and size meant we had to take the uterus completely, along with her left fallopian tube that contained the ectopic pregnancy. The mass did look suspicious; we’ll be testing to see if it’s a malignant growth.”

Rick winced. Jandy squeezed his hand.

“How soon before we know anything?” he asked.

“We should have the biopsy results back within three days.”

“How...how far along was the baby?”

“I estimated four, maybe five weeks, at the most.” Dr. Davis cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry.”

“What do we need to know about her after-surgery care?” Jandy inquired.

“Well, we were able to do this laparoscopically rather than making a long incision in the abdomen; three incisions total, that aren’t much bigger than about a half-inch each. She shouldn’t lift anything weighing more than three pounds for the next couple of weeks, and we will be sending her home this afternoon with incision care instructions once we’re sure all the anesthesia is out of her system.”

“She’ll need to come in for a post-op checkup in a week,” he finished. “If there’s any good news here, it’s that her ovaries looked just fine. Which means no hormone therapy needed, and that’s always a positive thing. Less disruptive on the body.”

He looked at them.

“Any other questions or concerns?”

Rick and Jandy looked at each other.

“I don’t think so, except, how soon can we see her?” he asked.

“The nurse will come get you guys once we get her settled in the recovery area.”

“Thanks, Dr. Davis,” he said, extending his hand. They shook, the doctor shook hands with Jandy too, then walked away.

Rick held his head in his hands, his mind reeling.

“A lot to process right now, I know,” Jandy reassured him again. “But we will all get her, and you, through it. Neither one of you have to walk this by yourselves.”

“I can’t lose her, Jandy,” Rick said despondently. “I just can’t.”

“I know, hon. We just have to stay upbeat, for her sake, and hope that biopsy gives us great news. It’s all we can do. And we’ve got to be there for her. She’s going to be devastated when she hears what they had to do.”

Twenty minutes later, a nurse approached.

“For Faith?” she asked.

They confirmed, stood, and followed her back to recovery bay seven.

***

Faith was floating in and out of awareness quite a bit. In a moment of lucidity, she noticed Rick’s face close to hers.

“Hi, gorgeous,” she murmured, then went back to sleep for a bit.

The next time she surfaced wasn’t as happy.

“I lost the baby, didn’t I,” she stated to him, tears trickling.

“Shh, get some sleep, we can talk about that a little later. Okay? I love you.”

And she was out again.

***

Around two p.m., they discharged her.

Jandy went and picked up Faith’s prescriptions. By the time she arrived at Rick’s to help get her sister situated, Faith had been gently settled into bed and was sound asleep again.

Rick and Jandy went over the discharge instructions together.

Then she said, “Do you need me to stick around? I can, you know.”

“I’ve got this, for now,” he replied. “But if you could come be with her tomorrow for a while, I’d appreciate it. I will need to make some calls, get the schedule lined out for the part-time guy I just hired.”

“You got it, brother of mine,” she said, and gave him a big hug. “I’ll be back here by ten a.m. Okay?”

“Thanks, sis,” he said, and made her smile.

***

Three days later, Faith and Rick were settled in on the couch watching television when her cell phone rang. She answered it nervously.

“Hello? Yes, this is Faith Thomas.”

Rick muted the TV and watched her face as she spoke.

“Just a moment, Dr. Davis,” she said. “Let me put you on speaker so we can both hear you.”

She did so, then said, “Go ahead.”

“Faith, we have your biopsy back. Great news. No malignancy.”

She and Rick both closed their eyes in relief.

“Thanks, Dr. Davis.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll be seeing you as scheduled for your follow-up. But I wanted to tell you the results as soon as possible; I know you’ve both been worried.”

“You’re right, Doc, we have been,” Rick chimed in. “Thanks.”

They ended the call and looked at each other. He hugged her tightly.

“Baby, I am so relieved to hear that,” he told her. “Waiting to hear has been brutal. I know it has been for you, too.”

She blew out a long breath.

“Yeah. Dodged a bullet there.”

Her face took on a pensive look.

Rick knew what she was thinking about. She hadn’t mentioned the lost pregnancy at all in the last three days. And he wasn’t sure how to bring it up so she could talk about it if she wanted to, or if he even should bring it up at all.

Now she took a deep breath, leaned her head on his shoulder, and opened her heart up to him about it.

“It all still seems so… surreal,” she sighed. “Does it feel that way to you too?”

“Kind of,” Rick agreed. “I mean, it’s me and you, and we’re coasting doing our thing, and then the test was positive, and you were freaked out a bit and so was I. And then before we could even get our feet under us, wham.”

“Exactly,” Faith said. “And I really wanted that. To get our feet under us about it. I mean, it would never have been a question of keeping it or not, in my mind.”

“Honey, mine either,” he told her earnestly. “I wasn’t even considering keeping versus not keeping. I was more meaning like, adjusting some future planning. You know?”

“Yeah, I know. And me too,” Faith nodded. “It was never even a question of not having the baby. My mindset was like you said, figuring out stuff like are we living in the best school district? Would I work up until the baby was born then just take maternity leave, or would that have been a good time to launch my own business like we’ve talked about? Would we still be able to travel like we wanted to, or would we have postponed that until the baby was older?”

“I’ve never had to stop and consider children in any of my plans before. Until this, I thought I could never have kids, so that kind of planning never came up.”

She sighed again.

“But it would have been nice to have had the choice and the chance to do that.”

“For what it’s worth,” Rick said gently, “I honestly thought when I lost my kids that I would never even have a chance to be a dad again. Like you, I was used to planning based around it being just me to worry about. Then I met you, and it changed. And I agree – it would have been nice to have had that choice and that chance. But if we decide we want a family, we can love an adopted child just as much, Faith.”

He kissed her.

“Right here, right now, I’m just glad that it wasn’t cancer, that you are here, and you are going to be okay.”

“Me too,” she agreed. “Speaking of which, I need to get on the horn and let the family know it’s all good.”

“You do that, and I am going to go get us lemon bars from Mama J’s, if you like. To celebrate Dr. Davis’s call.”

“Sounds good. I will make you some coffee and me some tea to go with them and meet you back here on the couch.”

Standing, she leaned over and kissed him.

“And I promise to behave about the whole three-pound thing.”

He’d caught her earlier in the day trying to lift a full gallon of milk, which was more than five pounds over Dr. Davis’s lifting restriction.

“You’d better,” he said with mock seriousness. “Or you don’t get a lemon bar.”

“You wouldn’t,” she pouted, teasing.

“Try me,” he teased back, and headed to the lift.