Happiness
Title: Happiness
Rating: PG
Summary: Cuddy wants a baby, is it too late?
Disclaimer: I do not own House MD or the characters involved in this story, no copyright infringement intended.
Fic: Oneshot, just something that was half finished - I found it on my computer and decided to finish it! Hope you all enjoy :)
Happiness
'Putting all your eggs in someone’s basket’ was a phrase that Lisa had sometimes thought of as stupid and cowardly. If you wanted something in life, you couldn’t count on others; you couldn’t assume that by handing your fate over to someone else it would be protected. So she’d, literally, kept all of her eggs in her own basket and where had that gotten her?
Nowhere.
She’d held onto those eggs as if though were the last thing left keeping her alive, she’d been careful during the periods where she’d been ovulating and had dated (AKA interrogated) enumerable men, all in the effort of finding an appropriate man to fertilize her eggs. Still, it had been almost a year of abstinence and she still hadn’t found a suitable man.
And here she was, time ticking slowly onward, alone and afraid that her careful attention had rendered her even more alone than when she’d begun.
At forty one pregnancy was dangerous and highly discouraged, the risk of having a child that was ‘less than perfect’ (she’d cringed and felt slightly offended when her gynaecologist had used the phrase) shot through the roof. Ten months later she turned forty two and at her yearly physical she received the same pressing warning when she broached the subject of bearing a child.
She felt ill when she left.
Time was slipping out of her grasp, trickling away with her perfectly sculpted breasts and toned thighs. Age tugged at the corners of her eyes and lips, only becoming more apparent when, seven months shy of forty three, her sperm donor was successful and managed to spawn a child.
Though age marked her body she became more pleasant and her spirits lifted, she ignored the unwanted changes in her body and focused on the wanted ones; the subtle swell of her smooth belly, the rosiness in her cheeks and the painful ache of her swollen breasts. She plucked a streak of grey from her bangs and smiled, unwilling to sacrifice the health of her unborn child for an impeccable head of dark, chestnut hair.
Dark creases settled unkindly in her worried eyes the day she was told her daughter wasn’t developing normally. Anxiety clouded her normally cheerful face and tugged at her pursed lips. Twelve hours later she was wincing under the transducer as her doctor explained that her child had Down Syndrome.
For three days she stayed at home, holing herself up in her office and googling “Down Syndrome” and “Trisomy 21”, drinking in all the information that she could and searching for support that years of being a doctor hadn’t provided her. Her doctor recommended termination but she fought him adamantly, clinging to her daughter’s life and insisting that she was just like any other child, she was her child.
She was put on bed rest for the last three months of her pregnancy after her obstetrician had done a routine scan and discovered that her amniotic fluid was low. After fainting at home and being transported via ambulance to the hospital, bed rest became hospital-bed-rest and she was trapped up on the third floor until she was ready to explode.
She realized how much her body had deteriorated the day she went into labour and delivered her bawling, red faced, beautiful baby girl. Her legs trembled and her eyes were hollowed as she moaned and twisted in the bed, cursing whoever had managed to knock her up. She couldn’t remember his number...2887361?
Yet, as the pain had slowly ebbed into numbness and a shrill, albeit slightly weak, cry cut through her panting any anger or frustration seemed to dissolve. The doctors were reluctant to place her daughter in her arms, not wanting to forego any necessary medical treatment, but she was adamant and in the end she stretched her arms out to envelop her tiny, warm daughter.
Dark curls framed her round face and her slightly almond-shaped eyes opened to stare up at her intelligently. She seemed small in Lisa’s arms but her hand tightened firmly around her pinky as if to reassure her. She was reluctant to let the doctor take her away and kept her eyes fixed on the incubator as they weighed the baby and offered oxygen to remove the blue tint from her fingers and toes. She barely noticed the obstetrician who had her hands wrist-deep in her “girl parts” as she watched them fit her little girl with an oxygen mask.
“Violet.” She breathed softly, drawing in the attention of the nurse attending to her child, “Her name is Violet Alexandra Cuddy.”
She nodded with a smiled and scrawled the baby’s name down to be transcribed to her birth certificate.
It was several hours before Cuddy was wheeled down into recovery and greeted by her postnatal nurse, who was bearing her swaddled daughter and pushing a wheeled bassinet. She was the most beautiful thing Lisa had ever seen, she had perfect little fingers and feather soft, dark lashes that brushed gently over her cheeks when she blinked. She smelled of talc and baby powder and Lisa could’ve spent hours cuddling her close and breathing in the scent if she hadn’t started wailing and batting her fists in frustration and hunger.
Breastfeeding was a battle that she hadn’t expected and it took her four tries, a lactation consultant and two nurses to get Letty to even latch on. When she did Lisa sucked in a deep painful breath, flinching away from the radiating pain. It didn’t last long as Letty gave up after a few half hearted swallows, resulting in frustrated tears on both of their part. The lactation consultant assured her it was normal and that babies with Down syndrome had decreased muscle tone and a flat tongue, making it difficult for them to nurse. These words did nothing to soothe Lisa, who spent the next 3 hours working on giving her daughter a decent meal.
The difficulties didn’t stop with breastfeeding - Violet had to stay in the hospital longer than normal after a slight heart condition was noted, even after being released from the hospital Lisa still had to make weekly trips back to the pediatric cardiologist , and she had to set her alarm for every two to three hours to feed Letty as she had difficulty waking up on her own and alerting her mother that she was hungry. She worried every time Violet’s cry’s reached ultrasonic level and her fingernails took on a light blue tint, she worried when she was unable to get more than a few ounces of milk into her belly and she worried when Letty was acting perfectly normal. On top of that she was ordered to take it easy for the first few days home from the hospital after moderate vaginal bleeding 24 hours after delivery and several sutured skin tears.
As time passed, the small hole in Letty’s heart eventually healed and Lisa was able to breathe a slight sigh of relief and focus her attention on appropriate stimulation and muscle developing therapy instead. She spent her days marvelling over her daughter and playing with her, thoroughly enjoying her hospital-free maternity leave.
She curled up in the ivory rocking chair in Violet’s room and rocked her slowly, smiling softly as her eyelids drooped and she struggled to focus on her mother’s face. Cuddy gently rubbed the baby’s belly and hummed quietly, listening to the baby sigh contentedly as her eyelids slid closed. She waited for a few more minutes before standing and gently easing Letty into her crib. She hovered over the oak crib, body sagging in exhaustion, but as she watched the slow rise and fall of her daughter’s chest she realized that she had never been happier.