by Lexy Timms
A nurse appeared. “Everything okay?” She checked the constant print out coming from one of the baby monitors. “Would you like something to eat? I have a feeling you probably haven’t eaten much today.”
Elijah got off the bed. “Why don’t I go and get us a sub? I’m actually kind of hungry and if I’m hungry…” He glanced at Charity and gave her a coy look and then shot a look to her stomach, purposely not finishing the sentence. “Is she on full food? She can eat anything? That’s healthy, of course.”
The nurse smiled and batted her eyelashes.
Everyone loved Dr. Bennet and his handsome self. It made Charity giggle. How did she get so lucky? She understood the nurse’s reaction, and shamelessly kind of enjoyed it.
“I’ll double-check with Dr. Govender, but I don’t see why she can’t have food outside of the hospital.” She flashed him a smile. “It’s probably better for her. She’ll eat it then.”
Elijah put his coat on and checked his back pocket for his wallet. “What do you feel like?”
Charity didn’t waste a breath. “Chicken Club. Just a six inch. No pickles or anything hot.”
“I can manage that.” He French-kissed her right in front of the nurse. “Do you need anything else?”
Charity pretended it was no big deal, but the monitor showed her heart rate increase. She ignored the burning on her cheeks knowing he was trying to make her laugh or distract her. It worked. “Maybe later you can swing by our place and grab some of my PJs? And your robe?” She didn’t own a robe and if she was going to be here for the next while, she might as well be comfortable. “Can you grab some of my resident binders too? I can do some studying and try to keep up with what’s going on.”
Elijah chuckled. “You are not working while you’re here.”
“It’s just something to read.”
“I’ll buy you some magazines then.”
“I’m not reading celebrity crap! I hate that stuff.”
“I was thinking some of the other kinds.”
“Dirty ones?” She shook her head when she saw him fight back a grin. You bugger. “So help me, if you bring me your mother’s collection that she left here…”
Elijah’s mouth dropped into a perfect shaped ‘O’.
The nurse shuffled quickly to the door. “I’ll let you guys sort this out. If you need me, just push the button.”
Charity could hear her laughter as she walked away.
Elijah returned with food about an hour and a half later. “I’m home, sweetie.” He handed Charity the subs and went straight to the monitors. “How are you feeling?”
“Everything is stable at the moment. Dr. Govender came in and seemed…” She paused as she tried to find the right word. Happy wasn’t it. “Content that things have been semi-steady. He’s worried but is hoping we can get to forty-eight hours after the injection’s now in.” She didn’t want to alarm Elijah but knew he would be checking her file next. “Contractions have started up again. They are about fifteen minutes apart.”
Elijah sat down on the bed and hugged her. “You okay?”
In his arms, she felt safe… protected. She marveled how he could be so steady and strong. He called the baby by her name when she couldn’t bring herself to do it. What if something terrible happened? She had kept herself slightly removed at times throughout the pregnancy and now she wondered if this was the reason why. She wouldn’t let herself complete the thought. “I’m scared.”
“Me, too.” He squeezed her tighter around her shoulders. “But we are going to get through this together.”
Her watch beeped and a second later her stomach tightened as a contraction started. She shifted and Elijah slipped off the bed. She rested part of her weight on her elbow and concentrated on breathing.
He rubbed her back. “Is there anything I can do?”
Charity shook her head as she counted. The last one had lasted about twenty-five seconds. It helped if she focused on the numbers. “Twenty-three… twenty-four…” Her abdominal wall began to relax.
“Should I get Doctor Govender?” He looked lost. Elijah was a doctor, and to not be in control of the situation must be driving him mad.
Charity shook her head as she inhaled and then exhaled a long slow breath. “He’s going to be back later to administer the second shot of steroids. Let’s just get to there, shall we? Just focus on getting to twelve hours and then twenty-four hours. Then forty-eight hours. We’ll just keep taking one step at a time.”
Elijah paced back and forth down the length of the hospital bed. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?” She leaned over and took a long sip of water.
“Stay so calm?” He shook his hands and arms as if trying to get the nervousness out of them.
Charity scoffed. “Me, calm? You’re mister-sexy-smooth in everything you do. You’re pacing now, but you still don’t seem agitated. I’m not calm, but I’m just trying to do whatever it takes to keep our baby safe. I’m terrified she’s going to come out and have to be rushed to NICU.” She swallowed and could only whisper her next words, “What if I don’t get to hold her? What if…”
Elijah dropped down beside the bed and held both her hands. “That’s not going to happen. You are in the best hospital, with the best doctors.” His kissed her hands. “You will hold your baby. I promise you that is going to happen.”
A knock at the door distracted them from the conversation they did not want to have.
Charity’s father walked in, his face unreadable. She needed to learn how to make the doctor face. There had to be a course to teach her. “How are things going?” He held Charity’s gaze a moment before quickly looking away. He walked over to the monitors and flipped through Charity’s chart. “You look like your mother.” He turned his attention to Elijah as if unable to look at her. “I spoke to your mom. She’s booking a flight to get here as soon as she can.”
She understood his uncomfortable silence and avoidance to her. For the first time, that she could recall, she identified with her father’s emotion and sympathized with him. Playing doctor was easier for him to do than trying to be a man without his wife to help their daughter who was at risk to lose his only grandchild. She wished so badly her mom was here. The longing hurt so bad, it almost felt physical.
Then she realized it was another contraction. It had begun before her watch timer went off. She double-checked and as she concentrated on counting, she changed her watch to a thirteen-minute countdown. Hopefully, it was a one off and things were not progressing too fast.
The two men didn’t even notice. Charity shuffled her legs off the side of the bed after it had passed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” her father asked sternly.
“I’m going to the bathroom.” She smiled at how serious he looked. “Do you want to come with me?”
He held his hands up and took a step back. “I can call the nurse.” He reached for the remote on her bed.
“I’m okay, Dad. It’s just a pee.” She unclipped the monitors on her belly and grabbed the traveling IV.
“You shouldn’t take the baby monitors off.”
“Dad, I have to pee.” She held her hand up. “I don’t need a catheter yet, so don’t even suggest it.”
A nurse came into the room. “Everything alright?” She noticed Charity standing.
“Bathroom break.”
She nodded and cleared the way to the bathroom and held the door open for her. “Next time, just click the intercom to let us know and when you get back we can come and hook you all up again.”
“Will do.” She rolled her eyes at the two men standing behind her.
The nurse smiled and leaned in close to her. “Do you want me to get rid of them for a little bit?”
“Just enough time so I can fall asleep?” Charity winked. “It’s fine. They’re a good distraction.”
“When the distraction becomes a disturbance, just let me know.”
Charity saluted as the nurse closed the bathroom
door. “Will do.”
Chapter 17
After a day, a night and another day of barely sleeping, Charity had managed to fall into a restless nap. Her contractions continued and were beginning to become painful. She was exhausted but wanted to hold on as long as she could for the steroids to help the baby.
It felt like she had only closed her eyes a moment and now Elijah, Dr. Govender, and several medical staff were all in the room checking the monitors and talking quietly.
“What’s going on?” Charity rubbed her eyes, trying to shake the groggy feeling hanging over her head. A contraction started and she sucked her breath in sharply, grabbing on the bed rails to keep from crying out.
Elijah raced to her side. “Count, baby, count.”
She had the urge to tell him to shut up but bit her tongue to stop herself. It wasn’t his fault. Wide awake now, she glanced around and did not like the look of the faces in her room. “What’s wrong?”
Dr. Govender signed a form and handed it to a nurse. “Get the operating room ready.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Why wasn’t anybody telling her? Charity covered her stomach protectively.
“Charity,” Dr. Govender looked over the monitors one last time before turning his full focus on her. “The baby is becoming distressed. She’s having heart rate decelerations. It’s dropping too low. We need to get her out now.”
Her heart exploded into an anxious rhythm. She glanced at Elijah and then back to Dr. Govender. “Okay. How far am I dilated? Can you begin oxytocin to induce the labor?”
He shook his head. “There isn’t time. We need to do a C-section. Are you aware of the process?”
She nodded, trying to remember what she had learned in class and wishing she had done a rotation on the prenatal floor before having the baby.
“Good. An anesthesiologist is going to administer a spinal block when we get into the operating room. It will last about twenty-four hours. I prefer working with it instead of an epidural with a C-section.”
A nurse began unhooking the monitors from Charity’s stomach. She set the IV bag attached to the bed and another nurse helped her start pushing Charity’s bed out of the room.
She reached out for Elijah’s hand. “Are you okay?”
He smiled and squeezed her fingers gently between his. “Don’t worry about me.”
Dr. Govender stopped them. “Right now, Dr. Bennet, you are now a father-to-be, not a doctor. Remember that while we are in there. I’m going to scrub in. You do as the nurses ask.” The look on his face seemed to say, Don’t give them a hard time.
He spun around and hurried through a different door. The nurses pushed Charity’s bed into the other room. It was one of those beds that worked as a birthing table so she didn’t need to switch.
Charity tried to focus, but everything seemed to be happening so fast. The anesthesiologist came in and had her lie on her side to administer the spinal block. She grimaced when a pin pricked into her spine. She knew it was the freezing agent before the needle for the spinal block.
Elijah stood off to the side, his eyes on hers the entire time. He had a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look. It reminded Charity of when she found him after he had received the phone call that his father had died.
A tear slid silently down her cheek and another one ran over her nose and under her eye. She wasn’t prepared for this yet. The baby wasn’t ready.
Everyone moved swiftly inside the little room. Charity was rolled onto her back and staring up at the ceiling. Someone had used and then pushed a light out of their way, probably the anesthesiologist, and forgot about it. The brightness shone directly into Charity’s eyes. She squinted against the light but was unable to ask someone to move it.
Dr. Govender came in and Elijah moved to stand beside Charity where Dr. Govender instructed.
Charity could feel her abdomen contract, but there was no pain or discomfort. She didn’t like the foreign feeling. “I can’t feel my legs.” She reached for Elijah, terrified.
“It’s the spinal block,” he explained. “It’ll come back, it’s just for the C-section.” His eyes held hers a moment before darting over the small raised sheet that Charity couldn’t see over.
“Charity,” Dr. Govender said. “The C-section is going to take about thirty minutes. You’re going to see your little baby very soon.”
She liked that he sounded so confident. She was terrified. What if something was wrong with her? She knew she couldn’t live with herself if Jamie was hurt because of something she had done.
“I’m going to make two incisions. One through your skin down to the uterus and then I’m going to open the uterus to get the baby. I can do a horizontal incision. It’s the Pfannenstiel, or bikini, cut. You have very strong abdomen muscles and I think the next baby you have, you are going to want to have a natural birth.”
Next baby? She could barely get through this one. She doubted another baby was on the table – ever.
She felt pulling and tugging on her stomach as he began to make the incision. He constantly chatted as he worked. Charity tried to pay attention to what he was saying, but her head kept a steady rhythm of, “Get her out… Get her out… Get her out.” She just wanted Jamie out and rushed to NICU to make sure everything was alright. Dr. Govender had wanted to wait forty-eight hours. How long had it been? Twenty? Thirty? She couldn’t remember and numbers were her thing.
Elijah whispered assuring words into her ear. He hesitated when Dr. Govender shifted and stood up. His arms disappeared. A severe tugging made Charity’s body jerk down and then up.
“Congratulations! It’s a girl!” Dr. Govender held a tiny little ball of skin up. He handed her to the pediatrician and turned his attention back to Charity.
Charity pushed Elijah. “Is she alright?” She arched her neck trying to see. “Go check if she’s okay.”
Elijah, mask and hospital gown on over his regular clothes, rushed over. His back was to Charity as he bent over the little body as the pediatrician and nurses hovered over the baby. The pediatrician handed Elijah a pair of scissors.
It took Charity a moment to realize he was cutting the placenta. Tears rushed out of her eyes and she blinked rapidly trying to remove them. Why wasn’t the baby crying? Were her little lungs not breathing? “Please,” she pleaded in a hoarse voice. “What’s wrong?”
Elijah slowly turned around, his face locked on the little bundle in his arms. A tear ran down his cheek as he brought his head up to Charity.
Charity reached her arms out to him. Silently he laid Jamie on her chest. Terrified, but unable to look away, she stared at her petite newborn. Jamie moved slightly and moved her head. A tiny wail blessed her mouth. It grew as she gasped another first breath of life and tried to cry out again.
Laughing and crying at the same time, Charity wrapped her arms carefully around her. She was so incredibly small. “Hi, Jamie. I’m your mommy. I’m your mommy.” She brushed her finger gently down Jamie’s teeny pink face. Her eyes were scrunched tight as she screamed, but her head moved toward Charity’s finger, her mouth open. She couldn’t believe how tiny and perfect Jamie was. She didn’t know the last time she held a baby, but she knew she never wanted to let this one go.
The pediatrician walked over. “This one’s a fighter. She’s amazingly breathing on her own. Thirty-two weeks, four pounds three ounces, and she’s already trying to suck on her finger.”
Four pounds three ounces? That was so light. “Is she… is everything alright?” Charity touched Jamie’s miniature hands, counting ten perfect fingers.
Elijah bent down, his head beside Charity as he reached out to stroke Jamie’s hand. His finger looked bigger than her petite arm. “You couldn’t have made her more perfect.”
“We did it,” Charity whispered and turned her head so she could kiss Elijah’s cheek. She giggled when she kissed him. “You need to shave.”
Elijah rubbed his five o’clock shadow.
The pediatrician came over and picked Jam
ie up. “I need to take her now and run some tests. Let’s make sure everything’s okay and she’s managing. I want her up in NICU until I give her the all clear. Plus, she needs to get under the heat lamps. It’s cold out here compared to your beautiful warm belly.”
He picked the baby up and Charity reached out to stop him leaving. “Elijah, go with Jamie. I don’t want her to be alone.” She wouldn’t be able to relax or focus if Jamie wasn’t with one of them.
“She’s not a …” Elijah stopped himself when he glanced up at Dr. Govender. “Sure.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Do what Doctor Govender says.”
Dr. Govender popped his head up. Charity could see him smile from behind his mask. “I’m almost finished here. Charity, when the freezing wears off, you are going to be sore.”
She was okay with that. It would be a good sore, worth every minute of the pain inflicted. She watched her baby being wheeled away in a little container and Elijah following right behind it. She knew their baby would be okay. Deep down, she felt her mother watching and protecting them. She knew from a doctor’s standpoint it sounded silly, but she didn’t care. It gave her peace.
“We’ve removed your placenta and closed everything up with internal sutures that will dissolve on their own.” He stood up as a nurse laid a blanket over Charity’s midsection and set the bed so her legs were flat. “I didn’t go near your Caduceus tattoo.”
Charity had forgotten all about the ink. She waved her hand, embarrassed now about it. “It wouldn’t have mattered.” She could feel her cheeks begin to burn.
“Well, it’s intact.” He pulled his mask off. “You did a fantastic job, Dr. Thompson-Bennet. Barring any complications, I’m going to keep you here for a few days, maybe four. Your father insisted your room be set up by the NICU wing.” He grinned. “I won’t be surprised if you’re right in the chamber beside your baby.” He tossed his gloves in the correct bin and pulled his phone out. “Duty calls. Congratulations again.”
