2. Omar
Chapter two
Omar
A baby whimpered, then another squealed, then the whole room woke up and wailed.
There were only four wrinkled little pink things, but they sounded like an angry mob.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”
I reached for the first infant with both hands, hoping a little love might settle it down, but the other cries grew.
I yanked back and let my eyes dart from baby to baby. “Guys! I’m new here. Be gentle, please.”
They screamed louder, tiny birds with impossibly strong lungs and beaks wide.
“Omar!” barked a voice that carried enough authority to make a Marine piddle.
I spun as three other nurses rushed into the room and scooped up charges. A mix of lullabies and other soothing sounds replaced the babies’ cries. I wanted to shrink under one of the nearby tables and vanish.
Olivia, the boss of all bosses, who I feared was secretly the Mother of Dragons—or herself a dragon, the one you could never kill, only make her stronger—stood at the nurse’s station, clipboard in hand and an expression that could’ve curdled milk etched onto her ageless face. Sharp, beady eyes hid behind square glasses. A no-nonsense bun and a voice that frightened mountains into moving out of her way completed her uniform. “Come here.”
I scurried over like a guilty schoolboy. “Yes, ma’am?”
She squinted, a stare that felt like it could see right through my skin and into my soul. “Rule number one: Don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ I’m not running a finishing school, and I am not your mother. It’s Olivia. Clear?”
“Crystal, Nurse . . . Miss . . . Olivia,” I stammered, then lowered my head in defeat.
“You have been a registered nurse how long?” Her question sounded more like an accusation than an actual query.
“Almost two years. I graduated—”
“Then stop acting like a rookie,” she snapped, silencing me with a wave of her wand—er, hand, then thrusting a clipboard into my chest. “You’re on Level One baby-watch. These are your assignments. Read them, memorize them, live them. If you have any questions, figure it out.” She paused, then added with a faint smirk, “Or come find me if you’re about to set something on fire, especially if it’s a patient.”
“Got it,” I said, flipping through the paperwork like it was written in a foreign language. Weight charts, feeding schedules, oxygen levels. Intellectually, I knew what it all meant. Of course, I did. I was a registered nurse and a smart guy, damn it.
But . . . if I knew so much, why did it feel like I was in over my head and sinking fast?
“Don’t look so terrified,” Olivia said, snapping her fingers in front of my face. “This isn’t a horror movie. Our patients don’t need an actor feigning terror; they need a level-headed nurse. Now move.”
Orders issued, she turned and strode away.
I stood there clutching the clipboard like it was a life preserver.
One of the other nurses holding a now-sleeping baby gave me a sympathetic look. I wanted to believe she’d been in my shoes, that she felt for the new guy facing Goliath for the first time, but no one could ever feel as lost as I did in that moment, could they?
Technically, Olivia had been right.
College lasted four years. I interned at our local hospital throughout that time. The nursing program I attended took another four years, three plus a year of clinical rotations. After passing my NCLEX and becoming properly licensed, Grady had taken me on staff. The head of nursing had promised to assign me to a department quickly, but a year later, I was still bouncing from one floor to another, filling in when one team or another ran short.
I’d probably seen a few hundred patients, maybe more, since my clinicals. Most were adults, though some were children.
None were infants.
I hadn’t even substituted for anyone in the maternity or neonatal wards. Hell, I hadn’t had any reason to pass by their doors.
Yet here I was, an official member of the NICU’s Level One team, standing in the middle of our open room with four babies judging and needing and . . . crying.
What had I done with my life?
I drew in a deep breath and scanned the room.
Rows of incubators lined the walls, each one either housing a miniature human or prepared to. I’d spent forever in training, but nothing prepared me for the reality of . . . of any of this.
While I wasn’t working with the most seriously injured or ill of patients, these babies were tiny, and they looked so fragile , like porcelain dolls that might shatter if I even breathed too hard.
My hands were bigger than some of their heads.
How was I supposed to “handle with care” when the packages I was handling were made of living, breathing tissue paper?
“Hey, you okay?”
I wheeled about to find one of the nurses who’d rushed in staring at me. She was a bubbly woman with a messy ponytail and a name tag that read “Carlie.” Stickers of smiling and dancing Disney characters were stuck beside her name. They made me smile.
Carlie was holding a bottle of formula in one hand and a stack of blankets in the other. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Don’t forget to breathe, okay?”
“Breathe, right. That wasn’t on Olivia’s list,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I’m just trying to make sure I don’t break anything.”
She grinned. “Oh, don’t worry. You will break something. We all do. Just make sure it’s not a baby.”
I was pretty sure my face lost the last of its color—and that was hard for an Egyptian whose skin could make mahogany look pale.
Carlie laughed, patted my shoulder, and glanced at my name badge.
“Relax . . . Omar. You’ll do fine. It’s nice to have a rooster in here with all us hens.” She glanced around at the two other women holding babies. I mentally ticked down the list of other nurses I’d seen on the floor. All were women.
Growing up, I’d always been the “different” kid. My Egyptian heritage and British accent marked me as foreign, even to my own people, whoever they were. Being the gay son of a devout Muslim father only added to my out-of-placeness.
Now, surrounded by patients I worried might shatter at my touch, I was the only man in a sea of female nurses.
This was turning out to be quite the first day.
“Just start with B5 over there. She’s easy—no IVs, no special orders, just feed her, burp her, and put her back to sleep.”
“Feed, burp, sleep. Got it,” I repeated like I was rehearsing lines for a play.
The other nurses scooted behind Carlie, their babies now comfortably sleeping in their plastic cradles. Carlie, clutching her supplies, tossed me one last grin and left.
I sucked in another deep breath and held it for a calming moment.
“Here goes nothing,” I said aloud.
Approaching B5’s incubator with all the confidence of someone defusing a bomb without protective gear, I stared at the tiny life whose fingers and toes wiggled as she slept.
“Aren’t you the most beautiful girl in the world?” I said, meaning every word.
The baby’s eyes fluttered open, and I felt the smile that bloomed across my face filling the center of my chest. The baby didn’t cry. She just blinked up and reached her tiny, meaty fingers in my direction, gripping and releasing the air, as though my finger already rested in her grasp.
“Hi there, sweetheart,” I whispered, reaching over the lip of the crib and gently stroking her cheek. When she didn’t complain, my other hand joined its twin and lifted the precious lady out of her bed.
“I can’t call you B5. Do you have a name yet?” I lifted her arm with my off hand and read her armband. “Ana. What a lovely name for a cutie like you.”
It felt like I was holding a whisper.
“All right, Miss Ana. Your bottle should be ready,” I murmured, grabbing the prepped bottle from the nearby station. “Let’s get you fed, okay?”
She latched on like a champ, and for a brief moment, I felt a spark of confidence. I rocked her back and forth, talking nonsense in what I hoped was a calming, low voice, as Ana devoured her meal.
“How do women feed you little terrors? You’re gumming that nipple like a sailor at a titty bar.”
Ana didn’t laugh or cry or respond in any way. She just kept sucking.
I brushed wisps of hair back, enjoying the soft perfection of her skin.
Another few moments passed before the bottle ran dry. I held the empty bottle in the air like a trophy I’d just won.
“Ana, that was so good,” I said, grinning as I held the bottle for the baby to see. Then, more to myself than her, I added, “I can do this. I’m a good nurse.”
And then she spit up.
All over me.
Then did it again.
“Aw, really, Ana? I thought we were friends. You know, I feed you the good stuff, and you don’t vomit all over me. That kind of friends,” I muttered, grabbing a burp cloth and trying to clean us both up without dropping her. “First day on the job, and I’m already a human napkin.”
“Welcome to the club,” Carlie called from across the room where she’d been watching from the open doorway. Her grin widened and a laugh escaped as we made eye contact. “It’s a rite of passage. You’re one of us now.”
I managed to get Ana burped and back to sleep without any further disasters. By the time I returned her to her pod, it felt like I’d run a marathon.
And that was just one baby.
There were three more on my list.
The next few hours were a blur of bottles, diapers, and beeping monitors. Every time I thought I’d caught up, Olivia appeared like a hawk swooping down on prey.
“Omar, why is D6’s oxygen saturation at ninety-four percent? Did you check her cannula?”
“Uh, no, not yet,” I stammered, scrambling to fix it.
“And why is D3’s feeding chart incomplete? You need to log everything immediately.”
“Yes, ma—Nurse Olivia. On it.”
“And for the love of all things holy, tie your shoelaces before you trip and take down half the unit.”
“Right, sorry, ma’am. I mean sir. I mean Olivia.”
When lunchtime finally rolled around, I was ready to collapse.
I’d scarfed down half a granola bar when Olivia appeared again, clipboard in hand and an expression that suggested she’d just spotted me trying to dig a tunnel and escape through the prison yard.
“Omar, break time’s over. D2 needs a diaper change, and D4’s temperature needs to be rechecked. While you’re at it, try not to look like you’re about to cry. It unnerves the parents. Hell, it unnerves me.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or hide.
Instead, I saluted her with what I hoped was a convincing smile. “Yes, Nurse Olivia. Right away, Nurse Olivia.”
As the day wore on, I started to find some semblance of rhythm—sort of—a bit.
I figured out how to juggle multiple tasks without spilling formula all over myself. I learned which monitors to ignore and which ones meant imminent disaster. Oddly, those cues were different in the NICU than in adult wards. I also discovered that Olivia, for all her bark, wasn’t entirely the tooth-lined shark I’d taken her for. She actually smiled when I managed to swaddle D6 in under a minute.
“Not bad,” she said, her tone grudgingly approving. “You might survive your first week after all.”
“High praise,” I said, trying not to sound too smug.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” she snapped, but I caught the faintest hint of another smile as she walked away. Under her breath, I heard, “ Nursling .”
Was that irritation, amusement, or affection?
I had no clue.
By the end of my shift, I was a sweaty, exhausted mess, but I’d made it.
Barely.