Newborn Needs a Dad

by Dianne Drake

  “I’m really happy you’re here,” she said, relaxing back on her pillows. “Even if Walt Graham had managed to drift in on his canoe, I’d have chosen you. And right now you’ve got about five minutes before I have another contraction, so maybe you’d better go take a fast shower, because yours are the only fingers I want to break.”

  “Are you sure about that, Gabrielle?” Their eyes met briefly, and he saw the answer there, the answer he wanted from her. But she glanced away so quickly, so awkwardly, it gave him cause to doubt again. It was her feelings for him he doubted, though, not his for her.

  “What I’m sure of, Neil, is that you can’t be part of this without a shower first, and I do want you to be part of it. So, go. Get yourself cleaned up, and come back ready to meet my son, because he’s ready to pop out to meet his uncle.”

  As much as she wanted him here, it broke her heart just looking at his face…his beautiful, muddy face. She so desperately wished that Bryce was his son. That had been the fondest wish of her heart for a while now, one that she was only now able to admit. But what was done was done. In all honesty, she wouldn’t change it, because one thing different in the whole sequence of events could have meant she wouldn’t have Bryce.

  It was a bad situation, and such a pervasively painful one she wasn’t sure the hurt could ever fully heal. That was the sadness she saw in his eyes every time she looked. Yet Bryce was on his way now, and all the feelings, all the answers would have to come later.

  “It’s Gavin’s baby?” Angela whispered, as she entered the room.

  Gabby nodded. “Before I ever knew Neil, Gavin and I…” Another contraction grabbed her, much faster than it should have, and this time Angela surrendered her hand. But Gabby refused it, clutching at a pillow instead. “Go tell Neil it’s happening…now.”

  “Just one more push, Gabrielle. That’s all I need. One more push and you’re a mother!”

  She was exhausted. This was harder than she’d ever imagined it would be, and with no pain relief…

  “Bear down, Gabrielle, and push.”

  Neil sounded so calm, so assured. And she was anything but assured right now. All her medical training down the drain, she was any other woman in the throes of delivering a baby, and that’s all that mattered. “I’m pushing,” she forced out, as Dinah propped her up to a near sitting position and held her there while Angela busied herself wiping a cool rag over Gabby’s face.

  “Breathe,” Dinah said. “Come on, Gabby. Take a deep breath, then push that baby out.”

  “He’s waiting for you, Gabrielle,” Neil prompted. “Bryce Evans is waiting for you.”

  Bryce Evans… The men in her life passed before her eyes…her father, her son, Neil, even Gavin…as she bore down for one final time. Then, suddenly, it was over. Bryce was here. She was exhausted, happy… “Let me see him,” she said to the deathly quiet room. “My baby…”

  Dinah eased her back into a flat position, then hurried to the end of the bed—Neil’s big king-sized bed—and Angela immediately stepped away. Went to the other side of the room, slumped down into a chair. Which was when the cold chill hit Gabby, spreading its icy tentacles through her veins, bringing to bear a terror like she’d never known could exist.

  “He isn’t crying,” Gabby gasped, fighting to sit back up. Thrashing wildy, she was trying to toss off the sheets covering her. “Neil, he isn’t crying! What’s wrong?”

  Even after Gabby rolled onto her side to see, she couldn’t. Neil had taken Bryce to the other side of the room, to a dresser, and Dinah was with him, purposely obstructing Gabby’s view. “What’s wrong with my baby?” Gabby screamed, fighting to get up, even though she was too weak.

  Dinah rushed back to the bed and gently pushed Gabby back down. “Look, Gabby. Neil’s working on your baby right now. He’s not breathing too well…”

  “Did he aspirate?” Gabby choked.

  “I’m not sure,” Dinah said. But from the look on her face, Gabby knew better. It was the look she saw on her staff when a baby was born with a serious problem. Or a stillbirth.

  “Is he alive?” she screamed, her voice so broken it didn’t sound natural. “Neil, you’ve got to tell me, is he alive?” Neil’s back was to her. She could see him working, bent over the dresser and working. But from the bed she couldn’t tell what he was doing. “I’ve got to get to my baby,” she said, suddenly launching herself up. But Dinah stopped her again.

  “Gabby, let him do what he has to do.”

  “There wasn’t a problem,” she cried. “Never was a problem, and I’ve had so many tests, just to be sure.” She rose up, watched. “Is that CPR? Is Neil giving him CPR?”

  “Look, Gabby, I’ve got to go try and make a phone call. Do you hear me? I’ve got to leave the room for a minute, but I need for you to stay where you are, and be calm. Will you do that for me?”

  A million things were running through her mind, none of them good, none of them that would allow her to be calm. “I want to hold him,” she whispered. “Please, I want to hold him.”

  “Gabby, you’ve got to leave Neil alone now.” That was Angela. She was huddled in her chair, looking scared to death. “He knows what he’s doing, and you have to trust him. So, please…”

  Gabby nodded. But she didn’t lie back. Couldn’t take her eyes off Neil’s back. Couldn’t not watch him fighting to save her son’s life.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Dinah reassured, then ran from the room.

  “Fight for him, Neil. You’ve got to fight for him.”

  He didn’t answer, but she knew he was. Neil could do no less.

  “Is he responding?” she finally asked, then watched Neil’s body language for an answer. But saw none there.

  “He’s alive, isn’t he? Neil, please say something. Anything!”

  “He’s alive, Gabrielle. But cyanotic. And he’s struggling.”

  She nodded. At least now she knew. “Breathing at all?”

  “Some, but not sufficiently.”

  “Any guesses?”

  This time he didn’t answer. Rather, he looked up as Dinah ran back into the room. She was soaking wet. “I finally got through to a woman named Fallon O’Gara, a nurse practitioner. Had to go halfway down to the road to get a signal, but she said to stay here, that she’s sending someone named Eric in with oxygen and an IV set-up. It’s too bad out there to attempt any kind of transport before we’ve stabilized Bryce.”

  “Damn,” Neil muttered. “Three lousy miles to the hospital, and I can’t get there.”

  Dinah laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “Your medic will get here,” she said. “Fallon told me he does mountain rescue, so I’m betting he’ll be here sooner than you think.”

  He nodded gravely. Didn’t speak. And that wasn’t missed by Gabrielle, who’d finally managed to sit up and swing her legs over the side of the bed. One way or another she was going to get to her son. He needed her. She knew it. Could feel it deep down. So she pushed herself up, wobbled, and fell back. By the time she hit the bed, Dinah was at her side, ready to push her all the way in.

  “You’ve got to stay strong for him,” she said as she pulled the blanket up over Gabby, who immediately kicked it away.

  The blanket meant she was permanently in bed, down for the count. Not having it on her meant she could get up, could get to her baby when she had to. “I have to see him,” she said, this time her voice not quite so adamant. It was all beginning to sink in. Bryce was in trouble. Truly, honestly in trouble. But she trusted Neil to save him. “Please, before you take him away, I have to—”

  “We won’t take him anywhere before you see him, Gabrielle,” Neil said. His voice was so tense it sounded as if it would snap in two. “Or hold him. I promise. But you’ve got to promise me that you’ll be still.”

  She hated that promise, hated what was happening, hated more than anything that she was so helpless. So it was a hard promise to make. But she did, only because it was Neil who asked her.

  Fo
r the next few minutes Neil worked on Bryce, and Gabby stayed in bed, watching everything and seeing nothing. But then, after the longest time of her life, she heard…a baby’s cry. It wasn’t strong. In fact, it was the cry she so often heard from a very sick baby. But it was Bryce, and he was alive, and crying the most beautiful cry she’d ever heard in her life.

  “Do you want to hold him?” Neil asked, finally turning around. In his arms he held a bundle wrapped in a brown-and-blue Argyle sweater.

  “Yes,” she cried, pushing herself up in bed to receive her son.

  “Just for a minute. He’s still not doing very well.” Neil walked slowly toward the bed, never for a second taking his eyes off Bryce. Then he bent, and handed him over to Gabby. “Bryce, this is your mother, and she’s awfully worried about you.”

  Tears of joy, and fear, streaked down Gabby’s cheeks as she took her son into her arms. He was a good size, and so beautiful. But he was struggling. His tiny chest was fighting so hard to take in breath, and when she put her fingertip to the pulse in his neck, she could feel his heart beat far faster than it should. And his lips…his precious little lips were blue-tinged from a lack of oxygen. So was his skin. He was breathing, though, and his heart was beating. Where there was life, there was so much hope, and for the next few minutes, as she cradled Bryce to her chest and told him stories about his grandfather, she hoped. Dear God, she hoped.

  Neil looked down at his hands. They were shaking. So far, it was a miracle that Gabrielle’s baby—his nephew—was still alive. Considering that he had no equipment, no oxygen, no IV…it was the power of love and sheer determination. That’s all it could be. “He’s doing a little better,” he said, thirty minutes into the ordeal. “Pulse rate has come down a little, and he’s breathing better.” Not good enough, but enough to offer some hope.

  “I know,” Gabby whispered. “He’s a real fighter.”

  He might be a fighter, but if Eric didn’t come soon, Neil wasn’t sure how much longer the fight would hold out. “Just like his mother,” he whispered. He was sitting in bed with Gabrielle, his arm around her shoulders to support her, his eyes never once off Bryce, lest a change occurred that Gabrielle might miss. He was a beautiful boy. And he looked like Gavin in some ways. But he also favored Gabrielle. Bryce would have her smile, he guessed. He hoped.

  “Neil!”

  It was Eric. Eric, a former pediatric surgeon. Eric, the one who would make the real diagnosis and figure out what to do. Neil suspected the problem was something to do with the heart. The symptoms were all there, and with the proper diagnostic tools he was fairly certain he would discover transposition of the great vessels, where the two main arteries leaving the heart were reversed.

  Normally, blood from the heart’s right ventricle was carried by the pulmonary artery to the lungs, and blood from the left ventricle was taken by the aorta to the body. In the case of TGV, it was just the opposite, leaving the oxygenated blood meant to circulate through the body being pumped back into the lungs.

  This wasn’t something Neil could treat because he wasn’t a surgeon. But Eric was. And for once Neil was grateful that their practice had such a pediatric influence. “Up here. My room.”

  Eric flew through the door, headed straight to the bed, and stopped short when he encountered Dinah Corday there. “You!” he snapped.

  “You!” she snapped back.

  “You two have met?” Neil asked.

  “No, we haven’t,” Dinah snapped as she yanked the oxygen mask from Eric’s hand.

  “It was a slight tap,” Eric said defensively.

  “And you didn’t stop to see if you’d damaged my car, or injured me,” Dinah argued back as she slipped the pediatric-size oxygen mask over Bryce’s face and turned on the emergency tank Eric had brought.

  “I was in a hurry…emergency.” Eric popped the stethoscope earpieces into his ears, then held up his hand to shush everybody. A moment later he looked up at Neil. “I think you could be right.”

  “Right?” Gabby choked out. “About what?”

  “Neil thinks it might be TGV,” Eric explained, “and at this point I have no reason to disagree because the symptoms fit. Things may turn out differently once we get the baby—”

  “Bryce. Bryce Thierry Evans,” Gabby interrupted.

  “Thierry?” Eric questioned, looking downright shocked.

  “Gavin was the father,” Neil explained, not sounding as awkward as he could have.

  Eric nodded, but didn’t comment. “OK. Once we get Bryce to the hospital.” He looked at Dinah. “You’ll drive.” Then he looked at Neil, a silent agreement passing between them. In the next instant he was gone, with Dinah soon to follow.

  “What was that about?” Gabby asked, sliding to the edge of the bed.

  “It’s critical, Gabrielle. He’ll do what he can to stabilize Bryce, and if it’s TGV he’ll probably do the balloon septostomy here in White Elk.” Enlarging a small opening between the atria that is normally present at birth in order to let more oxygenated blood reach the body. “But we’re going to have to send him down to the hospital in Salt Lake, where they can do more tests, as well as the follow-up surgery to reconnect the arteries normally.”

  “And you think it’s TGV, Neil?”

  “I’m afraid I do, Gabrielle. And I’m so sorry.”

  “Then I’ve got to go,” she whispered. “Because when Eric does the septostomy, Bryce might not…” She stopped, unable to say the word.

  “He’s a good surgeon. Trust me on that. Eric will do everything humanly possible to take care of Bryce.”

  “I do trust you, Neil. And I trust Eric. But somehow you’ve got to get me there. Bryce can’t go through this alone.”

  “I’ll get you there,” he promised.

  Gabby glanced at Angela. “Come with me,” she said. “I don’t want you here alone.”

  Angela went on ahead, gathering blankets and rain gear, as Neil helped Gabby dress and get ready for the trip. “What if Bryce doesn’t make it?” she choked as he pulled a sweater over her arms.”

  “He will, Gabrielle. Like I said, Eric is the best. If I had a baby who needed surgery, he’d be the only one I’d let do it.”

  “But sometimes the best isn’t good enough.”

  “And sometimes it is.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her lightly on her forehead. “This time you have to trust that it is.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  HUDDLED in the truck seat, squeezed between Angela and Neil, and wrapped so tightly in a cashmere blanket that her head was the only thing visible, Gabby didn’t want to think about anything. It was too painful, too frightening. All these months connected to her son, and now she couldn’t feel that connection any more. She couldn’t feel anything. It was all gone, and it almost seemed like it had never been there at all. It was like those months had suddenly turned into a haze where everything was fast fading from her memory.

  “Are you warm enough?” Neil asked her.

  “Fine,” she lied. Because nothing anyone could do would take the chill away. It was the cold, harsh iciness of fear that couldn’t be quelled with a blanket, or ten blankets, or even a blast of heat from the truck’s heater.

  “And you, Angela. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, her voice on the edge of a quiver.

  “Are you comfortable, Gabrielle?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she lied again. In truth, she was miserable, but not in the physical sense. It was as if her body didn’t matter in all this. She’d given birth a little over an hour ago but the emotional pain had far outdistanced the physical pain of it. “Should you call Eric again?”

  “We talked to him just a minute ago. They haven’t reached the hospital yet.”

  “But I need to know about Bryce. I need to hear Eric tell me that Bryce is still…” She bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep herself from crying, as Angela reached to take her hand. Gabby knew that Bryce needed her to be strong for him, and that’s what she
had to do, no matter how hard that was right now. There would be plenty of time for the emotions later on. “I just need to know.”

  Neil hit speed dial, then handed the phone to Gabby. “How is he?’ she whispered, fighting against the tremble in her voice as Eric answered.

  “Fighting, Gabby. He’s a strong little boy, and he’s fighting like hell.”

  “Can I talk to him, Eric? He needs to hear my voice.”

  Neil glanced over at Gabby, and smiled, while she waited for Eric to give her the go-ahead. She found a brave smile to return to him. “It’s not silly,” she said. “He knows my voice.”

  “I know it’s not silly. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s waiting to hear from you.”

  A look of hope flashed across her face. “Do you think so? Do you really think so?”

  “The bond hasn’t broken because he’s not in your arms right now, Gabrielle. So, yes, I really think so.”

  “Neil, I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t think I could go through this without you.” She squeezed Angela’s hand. “You, too. And don’t you worry. Things are going to go better with you when your time comes. And we’ll deliver your little…baby in the hospital.”

  “You know what it is?” Angela asked.

  Gabby nodded. “Do you want to?”

  “Not yet.”

  Gabby actually laughed. “Well, in case you’re curious, I have a pair of baby bootees for you in my bag. When you want to know, find them. See what the color is.”

  “You shouldn’t be worrying about me right now, Gabby,” she said.

  “Of course I should.” She squeezed Angela’s hand again, then leaned her head against Neil’s shoulder. Fatigue was setting in. “Just, please, don’t go into labor early the way I did, because I’m really not up to a delivery today.”

  “But she’s so stubborn she’d have had a go at it anyway,” Neil said, the affection in his voice so clear that even Angela heard it. Neil was brushing his thumb across Gabby’s cheek when Eric finally told her the phone was in place and that she could say a few words to Bryce.