Chapter 199: My Girl

I don’t think she even noticed that April was our daughter. Is that part of why April didn’t seem really interested in Paula holding her?

“Hey. Night shift told us you had to care for your little sister while you parents were trying to get some rest. I can’t get my head around how you seem to be the only one that is able to keep April from crying any time she is awake,” one of the nurses said as she came in with a cart loaded with stuff. “I’m not sure I know of many adults who would take on caring for a newborn all on their own. No men that I have ever met would even try. Rumors are that you aren’t a regular teenage boy. She’s already taken to you as if you were her father. Last night the nurses listened closely for her, but never heard a peep out of her. It was a bit rocky getting accustomed to your being here, but in that short time you’ve really helped us out, even if we can’t say so officially. As you may already have noticed, our staff is a mixture of women who are still looking for the right guy and some who skipped biology 101 during the days they covered human reproduction. They don’t seem able to figure out why they keep popping out babies every twelve to eighteen months. Anyway. The rest of us kept a stash of stuff in case we found ourselves unexpectedly expecting. Now that it is much easier to have our guys snipped, versus our tubes tied, were not having that happening unless we step out on our husbands. What is the point of having nearly new infant gear gathering dust, or dry-rotting, before our children are old enough that we need it again?”

“Thanks,” I told her as I was changing April, again, before giving her another bottle.

As soon as I burped April, and had her diaper changed again, the nurse helped me get her into a cute pink flannel onesie. It was one that I had the fold over flaps to keep her from scratching her face up with her fingernails.

I’m glad the nurse noticed that April was almost too small to even wear it even Elena’s dad said she was about the size of a three-month old. Did he mean a three-month-old triplet born premature?

“Wow she is a tiny little girl, isn’t she? I’m surprised she isn’t still in the Natal ICU,” the nurse told me. “I saw you didn’t fold back the diaper for her umbilical cord stump. The diapers I brought you are the newborn samples from the diaper companies. These specifically have a cutout notch for the umbilical so it doesn’t get irritated. They don’t get many preemies at the hospital so they had a huge stash in the storeroom and you can have all you need, since the companies send them cases of them each week. I had to borrow a cart to bring over the stack of newborn baby bags they get from the formula companies, and a few other companies as well. They checked their stock to find they only had two cases of pre-mixed four-ounce disposable formula bottles with newborn nipples. Their old stock got pushed to the back so they had no idea most of their big stash was expired.”

After instructing me how setup the bottles, she went through the rest of the stash. I had a baby sling, front carrier, and back carrier. April was still way too small for the back carrier. She was quite happy to show me the back she had used for her babies. It was so small a woman could carry it like a purse or clipped into the slots on the front carrier. The nurse dumped out all the free baby bags to set me up with diapers, wipes, burp cloths, pre-mixed formula bottle, premeasure tubes of formula for regular four-ounce bottles, butt cream samples, a small bottle of the liquid powder, and an entire plastic bag with every possible shape and design of pacifier she could find.

April didn’t seem to need a pacifier and Elena didn’t have any that she sent with me. Wouldn’t she have given them to me if April had been using them?

After helping get April into the front carrier, stashed the sling in the baby bag, she told said, “Sorry, I really hate to rush you, but there seven new little kids starting PT today. Unlike other patients, we are only guessing they might be on the spectrum, but their records only mention some things that can trigger tantrums, screaming, or other undesired behavior. Three have some form of physical developmental delay. I’ve seen these same notations on patients you helped us reach last week. I’ve got a very good source who told me how you ripped the boss and our legal team new assholes, while holding a terrified naked Autistic girl. They don’t seem to like a fifteen-year-old boy calling them out. As you may have heard, shit flows downhill. It was quite clear that anyone who didn’t want to bother to read patients entire files, thoroughly, doesn’t need to work here. They should clock out immediately and not return. Two of the stubborn nurses, who also happened to be next to useless, called their bluff. They weren’t bluffing and handed them their last paychecks as security walked them out the door.”

As I headed out of Paula’s room, she directed me to the nurse’s station where she loaded up the baby bag, and my pockets, with small bottles of hand sanitizer.

Well I know my hands are always sterile and I’m pretty sure I have felt my shield doing something on April’s body as I clean her up, but it never hurts to have additional protection against germs. She really shouldn’t be out around anyone for at least another week or two.

I was very surprised to find only one little girl having a hard time in the main PT area. The other new kids were passing the beach ball around or using this odd machine that had textures and sounds. To have it play a sound, they had to use the sense of touch on the bottoms of their feet to match the texture under their hand. When they pushed both textures down, they got a different sound. The kid I was watching only took a few seconds of experimenting before he was making some odd-sounding, repetitive notes coming out of the machine. As I headed over to the girl, as the PT began to overwhelm her and cause to start shutting down, the kid on the texture machine was adding in new sounds to his repetitive pattern. Each of the kids on texture machines looked ready to blow up when the tech went over to ask them all to stop. After a few adjustments she said they could go start using the machine again. The kid I had been watching looked beyond happy when he discovered the range of new sounds he could now make. The adjustment allowed them to now use a combination of both hands and both feet as well as getting sounds as they matched up different textures. It was now a memory game to figure out all the sounds and then using those they preferred.

And they are off. A rough triangle pattern is being mixed with a soft flat pattern. Now they are going for the rubber safety mat and mixing it with the folded-up upholstery blob. They are composing a symphony of odd sounds.

I went to the girl who had pushed herself into a corner with her legs pulled up to her chest. She was rocking enough that her head was hitting the walls behind her hard enough to make an audible thud. Quickly looking for what I wanted and I didn’t know what it was, yet. Over under one of the tables was exactly what I wanted. There was a piece of pool noodle material that looked like they punched out an extra-large noodle out of a square block, but where off by a few inches. It had a ninety-degree angle on one side and concave on the other. In the concave part they had glued in a two-inch thick foam pad.

Other than what I’m about to do with it, what else could they use it for?

When she rocked forward, I put my hands between her and the wall on each side just above her waist. She didn’t seem bothered by me touching her as I scooted her forward enough that I could slide the corner pad in behind her. When she rocked back the next time her head slammed into the pad, making her let out a frustrated scream. After slamming back into it as hard as she could a few times, which caused it to be even louder than before, she settled down to rocking back to hit her head back harder into it to get the loud thump that seemed to comfort her, sort of. From time to time she screamed out before slamming back into it as hard as she could.

Finally, I put my hand gently on her knee to get her attention and asked, “Hey. I get that you’re working something out in your head. A very good friend of mine does that sometimes too, but could you please grunt or make a sound that is less shrill than the scream you’ve been doing. I’m trying to keep you from waking the baby.”

Maybe five to ten minutes later she had her frustrated and again, but I saw it on her face when she started to scream and instead grunted. Her eyes locked on mine and she stopped rocking.

“Baby? What baby? You mean a baby doll. But that can’t be it. Boys don’t play with dolls and they don’t have babies because the hole in their penis is too small for a baby to come out there. Only girls have a hole between their legs for a baby to come out,” she said looking confused as she waited for me to help her resolve the dilemma in her head.

There are many ways to answer her, but only one that I know will be as direct and clear as possible.

I undid the clips holding April up to my chest and then took her out of the carrier.

Softly I told her, “You’re right about boys not being able to have babies, but girls need boys to do their part to make the babies inside a girl before they come out through the girl’s vagina. That is the proper name for the hole between a girl’s legs that she doesn’t pee from. She was keeping everyone caring for her awake with her nonstop crying until she fell into an exhausted sleep. When she is with me, she only cries when she is hungry, needs changing, or just wants me to hold her. Now everyone she kept awake can get some well needed sleep.”

The little girl’s eyes lit up when she saw April. I gave her a bottle of hand sanitizer to clean her hands before I would let her touch April.

Probably not a good thing without first knowing if she obsesses about washing her hands. Only her desire to touch April made her stop sanitizing her hands after she had done it three times in a row. She probably could only get one or two more uses out of that small bottle anyway.

Like many autistic kids, with a sensory issue, she didn’t like them touching her during PT as she did her scheduled exercises. After playing with April’s tiny fingers and tickling her, at least when April was awake. By the time she had finished all her coordination, balance, and muscle building exercises, she had explained to the therapists that light touches were very uncomfortable. The girl told them that if they were going to touch her, they needed to be sure it was a hard touch. She wasn’t going to break. Once they had that worked out, she decided that PT might work for her after all, at least if April was here.

I never even noticed that I unconsciously touched her firmly anytime we made contact.

When the girl finished for in that PT area, I took April over to the quiet resting room to wake her up long enough to change, feed and burp her. Our link was strong enough that I knew when she dirtied her diaper in her sleep. When she was hungry, she would cry to get my attention even though we both knew she was hungry without her making a sound. Most times she went right back to sleep after her bottle and a good burp. Other times she was fully alert and looking around at what her eyes could see. I remember hearing how babies can’t really see very far when they are born, instead finding their mother by sense of smell. Surprisingly she loved it anytime someone wanted to hold or play with her when she was awake, after they used the hand sanitizer first. She only needed to feel me close enough to feel me over the link.

She is a perfect angel. Mom and dad are going to love her as much as my new brother and sister. I hope she won’t mind sleeping in the nursery with her aunt and uncle.

“David are you sure this is your baby sister? You two seem to have made a bond already that most parents never get with their babies,” a technician asked as I went to change April again without her even crying. “You seem to already know what she needs before she even starts to cry.”

“You’re telling me. I can’t explain it, but there does seem to be something between us that is very strong. I felt it when I was on my way to get her yesterday. The closer I got the stronger I felt her. How psychic things work is well beyond what I have learned in high school so far. They saw it too. It was why I they asked to take her since she stopped her constant crying when I got there to hold her,” I told her.

Everything you told her was completely honest and she seems to have a damn good bullshit detector.

She shrugged and said, “Yeah. That sort of thing is beyond my knowledge too. It was just an observation. She hasn’t cried a single time since you came down here except when she was hungry and that was only until you got a bottle for her.”

“David you are banned from here until you go eat some lunch,” an official looking woman in scrubs told me. “You won’t do your friends or baby sister any good if you don’t eat. Because I’ve been keeping a very close eye on you, I know you didn’t have breakfast today and barely ate one meal a day last week. If you don’t take care of yourself and eat properly, I’m going to deny you access to the PT area until you’ve eaten three healthy meals a day for at least two days.”

Now that you mention it, I am hungry. Probably need to find somewhere to work out too. The equipment here doesn’t have enough weight.

I knew April was sound asleep against my chest and still I didn’t feel like there was anything there, not even with the baby bag attached. I loaded up on food, found a table, laid out my food to one side, took April from her carrier, and held her with one arm while I ate with the other. Our bond let me know exactly where she was without even looking. I was doing fine holding her and eating, but some of the nurses and technicians weren’t so sure. They kept offering to hold April so I could eat.

I passed off April and the baby bag to one of the ladies as I headed to the line for the third time telling the lady, “She is going to need a change in a few minutes and then be ready for another bottle.”

The nurse gave me an odd look right as April let out a smelly wet fart and a got a big smile on her face. When I headed to get something else to eat the nurse checked April’s diaper to see that she did indeed need a change. April turned her head toward me to watch me go as far as she could see me. The nurse was burping her when I got back. I gave April a stern look when I felt she was going to spit up on the nurse because she didn’t like how the nurse was trying to burp her. That was all that stopped her.

Yeah. She is mine and Paula’s baby alright.

I let my food settle a bit as I rocked April to sleep. Maybe half an hour later a phlebotomist, who had very obviously given birth recently and was breast feeding, came over to the table.

“Does she breast feed when she is with her mother,” the woman asked quietly.

I gave her a quick explanation about how April had a baby sister and brother my mom was trying to breastfeed as well. She seemed to be the only one of them that would take a bottle.

“This is probably going to sound really weird, especially since you are a boy and not a mother who breastfeeds. I’m being quite selfish to ask this, but do you think she would nurse from my breasts the next time she is hungry? My breast milk production recently kicked into high gear for some odd reason. I pump them down every one to two hours, but both are full again and hurting in no time,” she explained.

I replied, “Well she just had a bottle not that long ago and then went to sleep. She has been eating every three to four hours. Can I come by the lab in a few hours and we could see then? I don’t know if a baby will suckle another woman’s breast at so young an age.”

Well I guess that can’t be right because some people have wet nurses for times the baby’s mother can’t be there to nurse.

She put her the number of the phones they carry here that only work in the hospital, seeing as I had a full signal where most barely got a single bar. The woman was delighted to hold April as I got yet another tray full to eat. I headed back up to the room so I could put April in her carrier. I wasn’t even considering working out with her anywhere close to where I worked out.

Surprises keep coming. That is a high-end jogging stroller pushed into the alcove between Paula and Annie’s rooms. They even got a clinic ID badge with April Michelle Jones that they attached to the handle.

A nurse called me over to the nurse’s station and said, “About time you two came back up to the floor after you were kicked out of the PT suite for not eating. Give me a wrist and one of April’s tiny legs. She’s getting Lo-Jacked.”

I got a self-locking wristband and April got a tiny box, barely bigger than the watch battery it used, just above her tiny ankle. The nurse pulled it tight enough that it couldn’t slip off, but not enough to cause make it tight on her leg.

“You two are now officially stuck with each other. April can’t leave any floor or ward with anyone but you. Anyone else will cause the floor to go into lockdown and set off alarms. Our presidents use these on their children to thwart kidnapping attempts as only the president, the first spouse, and a member of their detail can transport the children from one area to another. These are a matched pair. The only way to remove hers without yours is to cut off your arm or some part of her leg. I see you noticed the jogging stroller.”

Well that is cool. No one is walking out of here with April.

“That is perfect timing. I haven’t worked out since Paula left the hospital. The weights in the PT rooms aren’t enough weight for me. Is there a bigger workout area here somewhere? I might like to go for a jog as well, but don’t know where the best place would be to go. I don’t want to chance April getting sick because I went running outside,” I asked.

The nurse had a huge smile as she handed me a map of the entire clinic complex and then said, “We are just the smaller building focusing specifically on children. This smaller tower has enhanced security to keep it locked down to protect the child patients. On sub-level 2 there is a half-mile long tunnel to the adult towers. Your Lo-Jack is also a wired to permit you access to parts of the entire campus where Legal has determined you can have access. They have a large indoor track where you can run all you want. We have a pool just off the gym too. We can keep an eye on April. Most of us have our own children.”

“Thanks. I’m not sure I want to leave her with anyone right now,” I told her.

Back in Paula’s room I found Paula was dead to the world again. Her body showed it was quickly recovering her muscle mass and her brain had “remembered” a lot more today than on other days.

I got April into the carrier and got that locked into the jogging stroller with the baby bag underneath. Crystal and Trudy were hanging out in a room with Annie. April was sound asleep, but I felt that if I had to leave April with anyone, she preferred Trudy and then Crystal. Annie was cool, but I got pretty much the same vibe from April about Annie as I had with Paula.

“And now for the news at eleven...” I joked. “I don’t know if my parents or my baby brother and sister are finally getting some rest. I was called last night to go get April because she wouldn’t stop crying.”

Before I continued I did the trick the triplets showed me to put Annie to sleep. I loved and trusted her, but the man in the machine had his reasons for having the triplet’s old sister make Annie’s memories cloudy about the hospital. That hadn’t happened to Crystal or Trudy. Both saw that Annie was sound asleep even though she had been wide awake when I came in.

“April went with her two blond Paula clones. For reasons they don’t know, April just started crying non-stop so they had to call Steve so he could get me to go up there to her. I could feel her the closer I got to their house. She quieted down when I landed outside their house,” I explained. “Part of her doctors trying to find a reason for her crying they ran her DNA. Hers doesn’t match her two sisters anymore. I checked to find they were right, but also wrong. Her DNA reverted to what it was when conceived. She is my and Paula’s daughter. Oddly, I feel that April doesn’t have a bond to Paula as her mother, even when Paula was holding her earlier. I’m certain April knows she came from Paula’s womb. Anyway, nurses Lo-Jacked us so that she can’t leave any area in the entire clinic campus without me. I’m going to work out and April will be close-by in her carrier.”