Chapter 9 #4
Sasha spoke calmly to the laboring woman and introduced Anton to her, and assured her they were going to get her twins out with no problem, and silently prayed she was telling the truth.
They heard a long piercing scream as soon as she said it, and recognized immediately that the woman who had been about to deliver just had.
They heard a tiny wail a minute later and Sasha smiled at Anton, who was admiring the way she handled her patients and a terrible situation.
Her patient’s abdomen was enormously distended, the twins looked huge.
It was two weeks before her due date, and her water had broken earlier that day.
Everything appeared to be on track. Sasha checked her and told her she could start to push with the next contraction, and Anton stood just behind Sasha so as not to get in her way, but ready to help if needed.
The young woman gave a mighty push and nothing happened, and Sasha assured her that they were in no rush, everything was fine.
She had checked the fetal heartbeats and they were strong.
Sasha acted as though it was the most normal thing in the world to be delivering twins in the hospital basement after a bomb hit.
An orderly came to tell them then that the fire was under control.
The mother of the twins went on pushing, with no progress for the next hour, and Sasha applied pressure just above the babies to try to help her.
She frequently checked the heartbeats since they had no fetal monitors in the shelter.
She showed Anton where to apply the pressure, and gently applied forceps, and then finally the first baby crowned.
The mother was in agony, but the shoulders had presented first, and Sasha had to move the baby’s position, while the mother screamed, and the baby slid out in a rush, without a sound.
It was a boy. His coloring was blue, and Sasha massaged him vigorously, patted him, cut the cord, moved him, and grabbed a tube from a rack under the delivery table and suctioned him, as the mother cried.
Anton felt sick watching the drama unfolding, and then the baby let out a lusty cry.
Sasha showed him to his mother, who was sobbing and smiled when she saw him.
Sasha had had to do an enormous episiotomy to get him out, and the woman was in pain and still having contractions from the next baby.
It looked ghastly to Anton. He was holding the woman’s hand and encouraging her, and Sasha was doing all the heavy lifting.
She acted as though it was normal, and to her it was.
If Sasha was concerned or nervous, she let none of it show to the mother.
She was calm and reassuring during the entire procedure.
The second twin was bigger and harder to get out.
The mother was in and out of consciousness, and the nurse put an oxygen mask on her.
Sasha was doing everything she could to avoid doing a C-section in the shelter, and used the forceps again, which was an unpopular, old-style method of assisting a delivery, but she was skilled at it and it worked.
The baby, another boy, slid out with the help of the forceps and gave a fierce cry, and the nurse took him as the mother began to hemorrhage.
Sasha gave her a shot, delivered the placenta, and asked Anton to administer the transfusion they had for her, just in case.
She cut the cord, and half an hour later, the mother was holding both twins with a dazed expression and the bleeding had slowed down.
Sasha had given her something for the pain and sewed up the episiotomy, and both babies had pinked up and were dozing in their mother’s arms. Sasha finished in time to deliver the last of the five women.
The resident was delivering, and she thanked him and took over.
The midwife had delivered two, and the OB had delivered one and then had to rush to help with an emergency with one of the oncology patients.
The final delivery was easy, as the baby was small and came out without a problem, although she needed vigorous massage and suction to get her breathing as well, but she responded quickly.
As they walked back through the crowds three hours later after the deliveries, Anton looked at Sasha in awe.
“I am so glad I opted to be a surgeon. I’d have a heart attack if I had your job.
Everything is unpredictable. You have to be prepared for everything, and you have two lives on the line at all times, or three,” he said, thinking of the twins.
“The first twin scared the hell out of me. Sasha, you are amazing.”
“It’s a lot easier in a delivery room,” she said calmly, “and if no one drops a bomb on the hospital and sets fire to it.” It was a miracle, but no child had died.
They had acted quickly and efficiently, and the firefighters had put out the fire.
But they had to keep the patients in the shelter until it was safe to send them to other hospitals.
They didn’t want the Russians to finish the job while they were being moved, which had happened before.
Sasha and Anton went outside to get some air. There were no planes in the sky, and the air raid sirens were silent at last. The sun was coming up. They leaned against the hospital wall and could finally unwind.
“Do you think this miserable war will ever end?” she asked him, as the tension of the night began to hit her and she felt like someone had pulled the plug on her.
“Yes, I do, but I don’t know when. I don’t think it will go on for years, as some people say. But it’s not ready to end yet,” he said seriously. “At first, I hoped it would be over in weeks. Now I think we just have to be brave and patient for as long as it takes.” Sasha nodded agreement.
“Soon. I hope. How many more people are going to have to die before this is over?” But at least they hadn’t lost a single mother or child that night. It had been a major victory for their side, and six new human beings had come into the world and deserved a chance to live.
They watched the sunrise together, without saying a word, and held hands. Just being there, still alive, felt like a miracle.