Leaps and landings

65

With Celeste's blood transfusion completed, the doctors having examined her and considered her safe to be moved, they rolled her on to the 15th floor. The plain looking hallways and rooms changing to noticably more luxorious ones with wood pannelling and real live plants and art on the walls. She was disappointed, having gotten her hopes up, when she found out that Evie wasn't in their room yet. Jess was with Evie - she knew that much, and surely there was little other to do than wait.

Her body really didn't feel like hers, with the sudden shrinkage of her stomach that had been replaced with whatever was going on there - she really hadn't dared to properly look even. She felt weak, craved sweets, which was very much unlike her, but all she'd had that day really was some soup and jello, that was not really helping. Those cravings were, however, nothing compared to the need she felt for Evie. And as Jess rolled her in with a nurse accompanying him, her eyes flooded with tears of joy. Every hour that she'd been apart had been an hour too long.

"We'll set her up in here, and we can keep the blanket on the incubator while she's in phototherapy so it doesn't bother you, but you can peek at her as much as you want, and insert your hands. Skin to skin contact in any form is very good for her. You can take her out for feeding, so every 3 hours or so, burp and cuddle, but the more she's in there the quicker she'll get rid of the jaundice," the young-looking nurse explained, clearly not lacking in experience. "I'll have the lactation specialist come and help you try to nurse her directly, proabably it'll be the most comfortable on your side right now. But, Jess, you'll have to lift the baby for her the first couple of days at least. Her suction may be a little weak in the beginning so I'll come the first few times and we'll weigh her before feeding and after to make sure how much she is getting to be sure she's getting enough. And right now she'll probably need feeding a little more often than that, so it's perfectly find if you don't nurse her every time, but we use either your own expressed milk or donor milk in between - you need your rest," the nurse added.

"Thank you," Jess replied. This all sounded like such an improvement from the courier job he'd been doing with tiny batches of breast milk.

"And Celeste, it's vital that you start to move around a little bit more, I know it probably doesn't feel particularly nice right now, but just a few small strolls across the room should do it, and tomorrow morning you can take a shower," the nurse instructed, adding, "the doctor will come by in the morning to check on you both and he'll give you the word, if it's okay to accept visitors tomorrow afternoon during visiting hours."

"Great," Celeste's raspy voice replied, nodding in 'thank you'.

That evening passed pretty much in awe of the creature - and Jess of Celeste as well. She'd never seen anyone so made for this - the love that radiated from her was incredible. They'd moved the incubator by her bed, and she laid there on her side, hand stretched out into it, gently stroking Evie. She cried a little, and Jess feeling like all he really could do, was hold her gently, kissing her shoulder. There they were - parents. All the responsibility, all the fear and all that love just rushing into them. It was almost too much to handle.

"I should try to shower," Celeste began after she'd fed Evie, who had even surprised the lactation specialist with her suction skills. "but I don't really want the nurse to help..," Celeste notes hesitantly. With the ICU nurses cleaning her and the catheter that now had been removed, she just wanted some of her dignity back. She'd somehow managed to stay out of hospitals almost her entire life - not so much as an IV - and now she had gotten the whole lot. Thinking about any of it still made her queasy.

"I could help, if you want. Evie just fell asleep anyways," Jess suggested.

"Are you sure you'd be up for that? It's' probably not pretty - bloody," she said, scrunching her nose at the very thought, unsure how she could handle it herself. Plus she wasn't too keen on the thought of looking or touching her wound. She worried how seeing her like this would change her in his eyes. She was fairly sure sexy wasn't even something to consider at this point, but she didn't want to be offputting either.