Chapter Eight

The next morning Richie tried to rush everything, the evening before he had quickly explained everything that had happened to Caleb and Ava and hoped they would be satisfied with the explanation he could give. He didn’t know anymore.

He brought them to school after breakfast and to their surprise got out of the car too after he had parked it.

With Noah’s help he found the History teacher and could go explain why Noah hadn’t studied, asking if he could do the test another day.

Luckily Noah’s teacher had been understanding and had allowed for Noah to do the test on Wednesday instead.

After his stop at the school he continued his way to the private hospital Sarah was staying.

He easily found his way back to Sarah’s room, happy to see she was already up and looked pretty good.

Not wasting a second, he went over to kiss her.

“Feeling better?” He asked cheerful, hoping she did.
“A little.”
“Have you had breakfast?”
“No.” She answered gloomy, dreading it already.


Sarah had been right to dread it, the IV might have made her feel a little better but throwing up the bit of breakfast made her feel worse again.

Another nurse came to set up another IV drip for Sarah.

Richie got back on the bed with Sarah and held her, hoping they’d have the results soon and she could really start feeling better.

Sarah got comfortable against Richie again, settling in her favorite position, resting her head on his shoulder. Her wrist was now in a splint and it didn’t hurt as much to move it so she could lay it over Richie’s belly and hold him.


“Mr. and Mrs. Sambora?” A different person walked into the room, followed by the same nurse.
“Yeah?” Richie asked, sitting up but trying not to disturb Sarah just yet.

The nurse introduced the doctor, “Doctor Smethwyck has the results of your wife’s blood tests.”

Richie nodded, then looked down at Sarah on his shoulder, not entirely sure if she was sleeping or not.

“Sarah? Honey, did you hear that?” He asked carefully.
“Mmmmhmmm.”
“You did? Are you awake enough?” He asked just as carefully.
“Yeah.” Sarah nodded and moved to sit up a little and be able to look around the small room.

She now also noticed the new person in the room, a female doctor, a couple of years younger than herself. She couldn’t remember the name the nurse had just mentioned but the doctor didn’t look familiar. The IV was making her drowsy so she wanted to sleep, but she needed to pay a few minutes of attention.

When her brain unfogged she looked up at the doctor, waiting for an explanation to follow now.

The nurse interrupted the doctor before she could say anything.

“We also need to check Sarah’s wrist, we haven’t been able to check if it’s broken or sprained.” She explained.

Doctor Smethwyck nodded. “We’ll have to take a closer look at that.” She agreed.

Richie couldn’t believe they were discussing that right now. In fact he could care less if Sarah’s wrist was sprained or broken, it would hurt her anyway. The blood results were a lot more important and would finally explain why Sarah had fainted.

Finally the doctor opened the file and reviewed it before looking up at them, then at the nurse and back to them, making both Sarah and Richie even more nervous about what the results would be.

“Well?” Richie asked impatiently.
The doctor hesitated, “Eumh. Well, yes…”

Richie cocked an eyebrow, was she going to tell or beat about the bush some more? He was really close to losing his patience now.

“Well?” He urged on a little irritated.
“Yes. Your wife’s hCG levels seem to have been raised.” The doctor finally said.

Richie searched his brain for the abbreviation but couldn’t find it in his dictionary.

“What does that mean?” He asked confused.
“Human chorionic gonadotropin, it’s a hormone.” The doctor quickly said.
“How much has it raised then?” Richie asked worried now if it could be something bad.
“It’s at 6310 right now but –“

Richie didn’t let her end her explanation, he looked down at Sarah who all of a sudden looked a little better, a bit cheerful.

“Is that a bad thing?” He said even more worried about it.
The doctor chuckled and shook her head. “No, it means,” she took a deep breath, “that your wife is pregnant.” She smiled gently.
“What? Pregnant? Really?” He said more and more excited.
Doctor Smethwyck nodded again. “Most certainly.”
“But,” he looked at Sarah again, even more confused than before, then back up at the doctor, “how long?”

She in turn looked back down at the file, reading. “I would say about five or six weeks.”

Richie had to do some thinking, looking from his wife, to the doctor, to the nurse. How hadn’t Sarah known this? Hadn’t she noticed any of the signs? Her period being late, not coming? The throwing up, of course that was it, he realized.

“How didn’t you notice?” He finally asked Sarah.
She gave him a small smile. “Can we talk about it later?” She asked carefully.
Richie nodded, “Right.” They still had other things to worry about now.

“Of course, we now can’t x-ray your wrist to check if it’s broken.” The doctor said apologetic to Sarah. “To be sure, I think it’s best to put on a cast and check in a few weeks.”

Sarah agreed, she understood x-rays could be harmful to such a young baby.

“I’ll let nurse Harris do that.”

Immediately the nurse got into action and got everything ready to do so.

“So how come Sarah passed out then?” Richie finally asked.
“It’s called acute morning sickness.” Doctor Smethwyck answered. “Of course morning sickness doesn’t only occur in the morning and for some women it can be the entire day. The nausea usually starts around 6 weeks of pregnancy. It tends to get worse over the next month or so.”
“It’s gonna get worse?” Richie asked in disbelief.
“It depends, it’s different for each pregnancy. Anyway,” she said, trying to get back to her thought, “it’s called Hyperemesis Gravidarum.”

Richie looked even more confused and a little relieved Sarah looked confused too, at least he wasn’t the only one that didn’t understand.

“Which by definition is the loss of at least 5 percent of the total body weight.”
“That’s not good.” Richie said, at least understanding that.
“It isn’t.” Doctor Smethwyck agreed. “Sarah needs to stay for a few days, to get back to health and strength and so we can monitor weight and how much she eats.” She explained to Richie.
Richie nodded.

“Alright then, congratulations.”

She gave the nurse a few more instructions and left the room.

Fairly quickly Sarah’s wrist had been put into a cast. Sarah couldn’t decide on which color and was completely fine with the regular white but Richie decided it should be purple instead.


Richie spent the entire day in the hospital with Sarah. He was incredibly happy and was even happier to see that Sarah was probably even happier than he already was. It was making her look better although it didn’t help her keep food down.

He had cancelled their appointment with a fertility doctor but together they had decided to only tell the kids right now and wait a little longer before telling anybody else.

“Did you really not know you were pregnant?” Richie asked a while later, still wondering how she could have missed all the signs.
Sarah shrugged.
“What?” He asked.
“I don’t know, it just took so long to get pregnant and I just didn’t think it was going to happen. I really thought we needed help and that I couldn’t be pregnant.” Sarah explained quickly, hoping if she said it fast it wouldn’t be so bad.
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have given up. Apparently I just needed a little more patience.”
“Yeah you did, you knew it wasn’t going to work the first time. It takes a few tries.”
“I know but it took six months-“
“Four.” Richie interrupted.
Sarah nodded. “Everything just seemed so perfect and I guess I was just disappointed getting pregnant didn’t work at the first try.”
“It only took four months.” Richie pointed out.
“I know, now it doesn’t seem so bad anymore that it wouldn't work earlier.”
“No?”
“No, now we’re having a baby, that's what's important.”