She saw the papers on the table but didn’t pick them up.
“Your monitoring has stabilized for the moment.”
I closed my eyes.
“For the moment?”
“We’re still watching you.”
I nodded.
Then I asked the question I had been afraid to ask all day.
“Are my babies okay?”
She looked at the monitors.
“They’re being monitored closely. Right now, that’s what we’re concentrating on.”
Four heartbeats continued.
One after another.
I reached for the edge of the sheet.
For the first time since my husband dragged me from that room, I felt something return that I hadn’t realized I’d lost.
Choice.
Not control over everything.
Not certainty about what the next hours would bring.
But the right to say what happened to me.
The right to be heard.
The right to remain where my doctors believed I needed to be.
And the right to decide what happened next.
