meet me halfway | l.s

12. everything

louis

Three days go by, 72 hours of straight misery. I don't have it in my heart to leave Harry's side, or our daughter's, neither of which have opened their eyes.
Liam and Niall, and our families have been watching William, who sometimes comes by to see me, but I haven't allowed him to see the baby or Harry, I just know it will break his heart.
The doctors have been nice enough to let me sleep next Harry in a parent-cot. But it's not enough, I don't think I've ate, or truly slept since.
"Harry, it's been almost a week, please wake up," I say in the middle of the night holding his hand. His eyes are still shut, his body still limp.
"Please, we need you, I need you, you have to see our baby because she's perfect and there might not be a lot of time to see her," I say, nearly sobbing.
Nothing. Not even a squeeze to my hand.

I sit down in the chair in the room, and start jotting down notes about Harry and our daughter. Their conditions, what doctors keep telling me. I write down my feelings, I write down memories of how happy we were right before this all happened.
I eventually convince a nurse to let me see our daughter, I feel like I'll never get to see enough of her.
"Has anything changed?" I ask her.
"I'm afraid not, I wish I had better news. I'll leave you two alone."
She's still the same, still tiny, still asleep. I see a lifetime I'll have to endure without her, and a lifetime she won't get to have. The thought lingers in the back of my head, if it's all going to end up like this then what's the point? Why are we here? What do I get out of it, it's just constant suffering?

"Louis come quick!" The nurse says, I chase her down the hallway and Harry's body is making swift movements.
"He started moving, he might be waking up," the intern on rotation says. I grab his hand and his eyebrows furrow while his eyes flutter open. Then he starts to panic and choke.
"We need to remove his ventilator, please step out," the doctor shouts.
I back out slowly and watch them remove this tube from his throat, his chest moves up and down, and doctors wave me back into the room.
For once I feel a sliver of happiness, to see him alive and breathing, only to have it quickly swept away with the words, "where's the baby?"
I stare at him with a blank expression, and sit next to his bedside, I take his hands into mine and inhale deeply, trying to find the words. Once I do, and once I say everything to him, he looks at me, tears swelling in his eyes.
"So either choice we make, ends up being the wrong one," he says to me.
"What do you mean?"
"If we keep her on life support, she just stays as is, she won't grow or develop, she'll be the shell of the baby she was supposed to be, but if we chose to Allow Natural Death, we'll probably stay up thinking about all the ways we could have expanded extreme care, it's all wrong."
"No one should have to make this decision."
"But we do," Harry cries. He tries to gather himself for a minute. "So what is it? What do you want to do?"
"I guess we can look at it from both perspectives, we can leave her on life support, and hope for a miracle that has the smallest chance of happening. Or we allow her to pass, and live with the fact that it could be the wrong choice," I tell him, wiping his tears away with my sleeve.
"I don't think there's a right or wrong choice, we just have to make one."
A doctor comes in, checks Harry and explains everything to him in more detail. My chest is in shambles and I have felt a bit of relief. Once the doctor leaves, I climb into bed with him, I carefully pull him into my arms and we just sit in silence for a few moments, blankly staring at the wall, at each other, out of the window.
"Catharina," Harry says, very horse.
"What?"
"Before we knew William was a boy, before I even told you about him, I looked through baby names, and Catharina clicked, it was on my list as a name I would like for a girl. It means innocent."
"Innocent."
"Yeah, she got the worst hand in this situation, she had no time to make a mistake, and now she's—it means innocent."
"I like it."
We got back to staring at the wall and then two police officers come inside.
"Hi, Harold, Louis, we are detectives and we need to speak with you for a moment."
"Sure."
"So we just need a statement from you, ask a few questions."
"Okay."
"So when the suspect entered in the room, did you know who he was?"
"He was a patients husband. She had signed papers stating she didn't want critical care in the case of an emergency so legally we couldn't have kept her hooked up to machines to sustain life after her surgery took a turn for the worse."
"So do you believe he was out to get you?"
"I unplugged her. Of course he was out to get me. I knew from the second I saw him, and then I remember blood, and not being able to breathe."
"And Louis, you and the nurse in the room, you two helped Harry?"
"Yes, we delivered our baby, and well, she's not good, she's dying."
"I'm sorry, well, we didn't want to intrude so we're gonna leave you be, we'll be in touch later."
"I want to see her," Harry says to me. Even though his doctors and nurses fight it for a few minutes they finally give in, and help him into a wheelchair.

harry

My heart, my lungs, my entire core is just compromised, I've never been so unready for something in my entire life, but I want to see her at the same time, regardless of what happens to her, I did have a baby, and I'm still her father, in sickness, in health, the good and the bad.
I've seen this before, a baby hooked up to tubes and wires with little to no hope of survival. But it's different this time, it's not from light birthweight or being born too early, she's just a shell, and I can't stand this. It's unbearable.
"We can't leave her like this," I say to Louis, crying. Louis grips my hand and leans in.
"I'll tell someone."

A few hours later, after signing multiple papers, certificates, they take us to a room and roll her inside next to my bed. They ask us one more time if we're sure, and we both say we are.
A nurse starts unplugging wires and removing tubes, she wraps her up into a bundle of blankets and hands her to me, her chest is moving, she's breathing and then soon it all just stops, it had to have been less than 20 minutes.
I can't hold it together, and I start crying, holding her close and praying for some miracle. I don't want to let go, I want to just sit and go into another world.
I've lost everything today.