Loss

I just got home from Anna’s. She’s doing about as fine as you’d expect. Theo was at a medical conference all weekend and at Anna’s insistence didn’t fly home on the first jet out of town. Zoey and I stayed with Anna all weekend until Theo got back early this morning, but Elise had to leave on Sunday for a photo shoot 6 hours away and has been calling sporadically for updates.

When I got to the hospital Zoey was sitting next to Anna who was sleeping in the hospital bed. I told her I’d stay with Anna so she could walk around a little and get some coffee. While Zoey was out, Elise arrived, sat on the end of Anna’s bed and started rubbing her feet. I thought it was weird that Anna didn’t wake up and when Zoey got back I asked her what was going on.

“She called me this afternoon in hysterics. I had no idea what was going on so I walked down to her office. She told me that she needed me to take her home so I told Missy (Zoey and Anna’s boss) that Anna was sick and that we were both taking the rest of the day off. We hit a ton of traffic and Anna started to get more and more agitated and hysterical. I tried to calm her down but she was freaking out. When I finally got her home I dropped her off at the door and went to park, by the time I got upstairs to her apartment she was in the bathroom and refused to come out for about 45 minutes. I started to get worried when I didn’t hear her moving around or crying and opened the door. She was covered in blood and laying on the floor, I called an ambulance and we ended up here. Anna almost died because she lost so much blood. She had to be sedated when she regained consciousness because she was so distraught and scared. She’s been out for awhile, they admitted her immediately, took care of the miscarriage bleeding, and gave her a few transfusions, now they’re observing her. I don’t know how long she’ll be here. I was so…”

Zoey broke into tears and Elise and I surrounded her in a group hug. I’d only seen Zoey cry a few times, she was usually the rock to all of us so it makes sense why Anna called her in such an emotional situation. I offered to get Zoey a hot meal from the diner across the street, which she accepted. While I was waiting for Zoey’s open-faced roast beef sandwich, my phone started ringing. It was Kevin. I let it go to voicemail because I was feeling a HUGE sense of relief for not having sex with him. I checked it on my way back to the hospital.

“Hey Faith, it’s Kevin. I just wanted to see how your friend was doing and if you need me to do anything, like pick you up from the hospital or something. Call me if you need anything.”

When I got back with Zoey’s food, Anna was sort of awake but totally out of it. She didn’t really remember much and we weren’t sure how to tell her she had a miscarriage, so we decided to wait until the drugs wore off completely so we only had to tell her once. She kept falling in and out of sleep for about 30 minutes until she fell asleep again. All three of us fell asleep about an hour later and were kicked out by the nurses around 3am. We decided to go to Anna’s apartment and clean up her bathroom so that when she got home she didn’t need to see all of the blood. I packed her a bag of comfortable clothes to change into the next morning and her favorite pillow. We decided to let Anna call Theo, surprisingly, the hospital hadn’t called him and in the giant mess of the day before we hadn’t thought to either.

By the time we got to the hospital the next morning, Anna had been awake for awhile, she had been told about the baby by the doctor and was being released in the afternoon. Her eyes were puffy and swollen, it was clear she had been crying. She started sobbing at the sight of us and told us she called Theo and told him to stay at the conference. I handed her the bag of things and we helped her change out of the hospital gown and get comfortable in her bed. She was pretty unresponsive for the rest of the day, which the nurse told us was expected.

Once she’d been released, we took her home and she fell asleep on the couch. Zoey and I decided to go buy some groceries and cook so that Anna didn’t have to worry about making food for the rest of the week. Anna pretty much slept until the next morning.

On Sunday morning I made Anna and the girls some breakfast before Elise had to leave. Afterward Elise gave Anna a hug.

“Call me if you need anything, I mean it” Elise gave her one more hug and then left.

“Anna do you want me to run you a bath?” Zoey asked. She nodded her head and then pulled us both in for a group hug.

I could tell that Anna was uncomfortable with us taking care of her but she knew that she needed us. While she was in the bathtub, I did her laundry and washed her bed linens. I threw the clothes she had on at the hospital away since they had been ruined by the blood, but washed everything else. The three of use spent the rest of the day watching sappy romantic comedies and trying to take Anna’s mind off of everything.

On Monday, Theo got back super early, so Zoey and I left to give them privacy. I had enough time to get home, shower, and leave for work (which I’m running late for!).