Chương 7
“How much?”
“You’re four centimeters.”
I stared at her.
An hour earlier, I had barely been one.
“So this is happening.”
“It may be.”
“That sounds like a doctor answer.”
“It is.”
She gave me a small, apologetic smile.
“The contractions are stronger and you’re making cervical change, so yes, we need to prepare as though you may deliver tonight.”
Evan stood beside me with both hands braced on the rail.
“What do we need to do?”
“We’re moving her to labor and delivery.”
He nodded too quickly.
“Okay.”
“And neonatology will come speak with you.”
His face lost color again.
I watched him swallow.
There was something frightening about seeing the person you rely on become visibly afraid.
Evan was not dramatic.
He did not panic.
He was the man who kept extra batteries in a kitchen drawer and knew where the water shutoff valve was without having to look.
Seeing fear on him made the situation feel official.
A nurse disconnected one set of monitors and transferred the leads to a portable unit.
The room became busy around us.
Cords.
Paperwork.
A new IV bag.
A wheelchair nobody used because they rolled the entire bed instead.
As they pushed me down the hallway, I passed rooms with doors half open.
A woman in one was asleep on her side with a peanut-shaped birthing ball between her knees.
In another, a man stood over a plastic bassinet recording a newborn who was making squeaky little noises.
I turned my face away.
“Don’t look,” Evan whispered.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“I hate you.”
“Good.”
His hand rested on my ankle as the bed moved.
The labor room was larger.
There was a couch beneath the window and a warmer in the corner for the baby.
That warmer became the center of the room even when nobody was standing near it.
I could not stop looking at it.
The nurse introduced herself as Karen.
She was in her forties, with blond hair twisted into a bun and the tired confidence of someone who had seen every version of panic.
“I’m going to get you settled, and then the NICU team is coming by.”
“What if I don’t deliver?”
“Then they’ll have introduced themselves for no reason, which is a lovely problem to have.”
I liked her immediately.
She adjusted the fetal monitor and tucked another blanket around my legs.
“Anything you need right now?”
“A different family.”
Karen paused.
Then she said, “I’m afraid those are on back order.”
Evan laughed.
So did I.
The laugh caught halfway through when another contraction started.
Karen watched the monitor and told me to breathe.
I wanted to tell her I had been breathing successfully for thirty-two years.
Instead, I closed my eyes and did what she said.
Afterward, she asked about pain medication.
I had spent months telling everyone I wanted to try an unmedicated birth.
I had read books.
I had practiced breathing.
I had bought a birth ball that currently sat in our hallway because it would not fit through the nursery door while inflated.
All of those plans belonged to a woman whose mother had not slapped her into a pool.
“I want the epidural.”
Evan looked at me.
“Okay.”
I glared at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You were going to say something.”
“I was going to say okay.”
“You said okay.”
“Yes.”
“You said it with a tone.”
“I have no tone.”
Karen turned toward the medication cart to hide a smile.
Ten minutes later, a neonatologist named Dr. Howard came in.
He pulled a chair close to the bed.
He did not stand over me.
That detail made me trust him more than it should have.
“I’ve reviewed where you are in the pregnancy and what’s happening.”
He spoke calmly.
“If your daughter is born tonight, she will be premature, but thirty-four weeks is a gestational age where we see many babies do very well.”
I nodded.
“What does well mean?”
“It can mean different things.”
He rested his forearms on his knees.
“She may breathe on her own, or she may need some respiratory support.”
“Ventilator?”
“Possibly, but many babies at this stage need less support than that.”
“What else?”
“Temperature regulation, feeding, blood sugar monitoring, jaundice.”
“How long would she be in the NICU?”
“I can’t predict that before she’s born.”
He glanced at Evan, then back at me.
“Sometimes it’s days.”
My chest loosened slightly.
“Sometimes it’s weeks.”
There it was.
I looked toward the warmer again.
“Can I see her?”
“If she is stable, we will do everything we can to let you see and touch her.”
“Hold her?”
“If it is safe.”
Safe had become another cruel word.
Everything depended on it.
Safe to deliver.
Safe to wait.
Safe to hold.
Safe to breathe.
Dr. Howard kept talking, but I lost part of what he said when my phone buzzed on the windowsill.
Evan glanced toward it.
I shook my head.
He left it alone.
When Dr. Howard finished, he asked whether we had named the baby.
I looked at Evan.
“We have.”
“Do you want to tell me?”
“Lila.”
Dr. Howard smiled.
“Then if Lila decides tonight is her birthday, my team will be there.”
After he left, Evan sat on the edge of the couch.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Same.”
I stared at him.
“You’re supposed to lie.”
“I’m trying a new thing.”
“Bad timing.”
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
“Do you want me to call my mom?”
I thought about it.
His mother, Carol, lived forty minutes away and possessed the rare ability to be helpful without turning help into ownership.
She would come.
She would bring food we could not eat.
She would probably arrive with three phone chargers and a sweater because hospitals were cold.
“Yes.”
He called her.
I listened to only his side.
“Mom.”
A pause.
“No, Savannah’s okay.”
Another pause.
“The baby’s okay right now.”
May you like
Longer pause.
“We’re in labor and delivery.”
