Macie's Story

13

(February 7th, 24 days old)

"Hey, Hailey," Doctor Andrews greeted as he stepped into the office. It made both the detectives look up and Hailey shoots the doctor a smile to greet him back. "How are we feeling today?"

She pauses for a moment, thinking about her answer before she nods her head. "I'm good, feeling good."

Doctor Andrews smiles as he makes his way across the room, taking a seat in one of the stools and he slides it across the floor, coming to a stop at the foot of the examination chair. "So we're gonna do some quick exercises this morning and then hopefully we'll get your sling off for good."

Hailey can't help at the way her face lights up at the thought of being able to get rid of the sling that had been keeping her arm restrained for weeks. When she first got home from the hospital she didn't immediately notice how much of an inconvenience it was only having one available hand, she could barely get herself up off the couch and Jay didn't leave her side, helping her to fulfill each one of her needs - if she needed a drink or something to do, Jay would rush to the kitchen and get her a glass of water or bring her a crossword or her phone if she left it behind. All the little tasks that didn't get much thought became that little bit harder, and as she started to get a little more mobile, she started to notice it a lot more.

One of the biggest problems she had been running into was when they would go to visit Macie in the NICU and the nurse would get her out for a skin-to-skin session. Every time Hailey would need the help of the nurse to hold the infant against her chest because she would only have one hand to support her. When she went over the other day and managed to hold her without her sling on, it was the first time she really felt like she was holding her daughter, fully embracing the tiny infant on her own, being able to adjust her if she moved, having full control over holding her baby.

And then everything that happened on Saturday happened, and neither of them had been able to hold her since.

The doctors had said that within the next day or two that the catheter sticking out of their daughter's chest would be taken out, provided her next x-ray came back clean, and that after that they could go back to being able to hold her. So Hailey was hopeful that by then she would have the sling taken off so she'd be able to hold Macie properly again when the time came to.

Doctor Andrews taps on the very foot of the chair, silently encouraging the detective to scoot forward slightly and sit on the very edge. She does as she's asked without a word spoken and then the doctor unstraps the sling at the top, taking it off gently and removing Hailey's arm and moving it up so her elbow is pointed to the ceiling.

"How does that feel?" He asks, a scrunch in his eyebrows.

Hailey nods quickly. "Really good."

The doctor moves her arm back down into her lap as he smiles. "Great."

xxx

"How does it feel?" Jay asks, briefly looking over the console of the truck to the passenger seat, where Hailey was sitting staring out the front window.

"Kinda weird," she chuckles before shaking her head subtly. "It feels like there should be something there, but there's not... I can just move it freely."

Jay feels the smirk pull up on the corners of his lips as he says, "Oh the things you can do now, the places you'll go."

"Yeah I'm not solving the world's problems just because my arm is out of a sling." She responds.

"I more meant the top of the kitchen cupboard." He quickly adds and it earns him another quiet laugh from her, widening the smile on his face as he keeps his focus on the road.