39. Rowan #2
Across the table, Serena checks her watch. "You should let me decide whether it's unusual."
"I've had contractions before." I keep both hands on the edge of the table while the pressure continues.
"This one changed your breathing." Serena keeps watching the time until my abdomen finally relaxes. "Forty-seven seconds."
Erik reaches toward his phone.
I look at him.
He catches himself and leaves it beside his plate.
Conversation starts again after Serena decides one contraction isn't enough to turn dinner into an evacuation. Mom asks Liya about the scholarship program, Harper steals one of Makari's potatoes, and Peter makes it six minutes into a discussion about middle names before another contraction begins.
I stop halfway through telling him he doesn't get to name any future grandchild after himself merely because persistence has worked for him in other areas of life.
Serena checks her watch again.
Erik stands so quickly his chair moves backward. "Makari can bring the car. Serena should call the hospital. Liya can notify?—"
I look up at him.
He stops in the middle of the sentence.
Everyone around the table waits while I work through the contraction. It's stronger than the first one and lower, enough that I have to concentrate instead of watching seven people watch me.
Erik comes around the table and crouches beside my chair rather than finishing his orders. "What do you need?"
I wait until the pressure eases enough to answer without breaking the sentence apart. "I need my shoes from upstairs, the hospital bag from our room, and Callie to stop looking like she's about to faint."
Callie sits straighter. "I'm not going to faint."
I turn toward her now that I can. "You look worse than I do."
"That's impossible. You're enormous." Callie realizes what she said when Mom turns toward her with a horrified expression.
I laugh anyway, although a lingering ache low in my abdomen makes me stop sooner than I want.
Makari rises only after I look at him. "Do you want the car brought around?"
"Yes, please." I nod toward the foyer, and he heads that direction with Harper close behind him.
Mom pushes back her chair and comes around the table. "I know where your bag is. Do you want me to bring it?"
"Yes." I point toward my sister. "Take Callie upstairs with you before she starts reorganizing people."
"I'm not reorganizing anyone." Callie gets up anyway and follows Mom toward the stairs.
Serena comes around the table and checks my pulse. "That one was fifty-three seconds. We're going to the hospital."
"Is this actually labor?" I turn my wrist when she adjusts her fingers.
"You're thirty-three weeks and four days pregnant with triplets, and you've had two regular contractions six minutes apart." Serena takes out her phone. "I'm not waiting for five more in your dining room."
Erik stays beside me while she calls ahead.
He doesn't issue another order.
The hospital has been preparing for this delivery for weeks. By the time we arrive, three neonatal teams have been notified, my records are already in the maternal unit, and two obstetric nurses take me directly into assessment.
The contractions keep coming, then shorten to four minutes apart.
Serena examines me with the attending obstetrician and confirms enough cervical change that nobody discusses sending me home.
The room becomes busier after that, although nobody behaves as if anything unexpected is happening.
A nurse starts an IV while another attaches monitors.
Someone takes blood, and another nurse brings Erik the surgical paperwork we've already reviewed twice.
The anesthesiologist goes over the spinal with us while another physician reviews the cesarean plan we approved weeks ago.
Erik listens until the neonatal specialist starts explaining which team will receive which baby.
He leans forward with the questions he's apparently been storing since we left the house.
"How quickly do you move to respiratory support if one of them doesn't transition?
Will Rowan be able to see each baby before transport?
Which team has Callan given his growth lag? "
I turn my head toward him.
He notices before I say anything and closes the folder in his lap. "What do you need?"
"I need you with me." I adjust against the hospital pillow while another contraction works through me. "I don't need you running the neonatal teams."
Erik puts the folder on the floor. "I can do that."
"You also need to tell me if you're scared instead of becoming administrative." I keep my attention on him until he stops looking toward the doctors.
He moves his chair closer and rests his forearms on his thighs. "I'm scared."
My throat closes before I can respond. I reach for him and wrap my hand around his forearm. "Good."
One eyebrow rises.
"That sounded awful." I hold on to him. "I mean I don't want to be the only one who's scared."
"You aren't." Erik covers my hand with his and stays there instead of reaching for another file. "I'm staying with you."
The operating room is brighter than I want and colder than I expected. The spinal takes away pain below my ribs while leaving enough pressure that I know people are working on the other side of the drape.
There are more people than I anticipated even after Serena warned us. Three neonatal teams require three sets of equipment, three warmers, several nurses, and enough voices that I give up trying to identify who belongs to which baby.
Erik sits near my head in surgical clothes. He keeps one forearm close enough for me to hold without forcing his hand into mine. "You're doing well."
"That sounds like something Serena told you to say." I turn my face toward him because watching the ceiling is worse.
Erik leans slightly closer. "She told me never to tell you to relax."
"That was excellent advice." I grip his forearm when pressure moves through my abdomen again.
The first baby arrives at 10:14 p.m., and a cry fills the room before I can ask whether she's breathing.
"Baby A is a girl," the obstetrician tells us while the first neonatal team takes over.
Zoya.
I start crying as soon as I hear her.
Erik leans close enough that I can press my forehead briefly against his. "They have her."
From where I'm lying, I see pieces of my daughter through the staff moving around the warmer. A tiny red leg kicks free of a blanket before someone tucks it back in, then a nurse puts a knit cap over her head.
Four pounds, eleven ounces.
"She's mad." I laugh through the tears when another cry comes from the warmer.
Erik looks toward our daughter. "She sounds like you."
"You can tell her that when she's older." I loosen my grip on his arm enough to wipe my cheek.
Maren arrives three minutes later and announces herself before anyone can give me a status. Her cry is sharper than Zoya's, and I laugh again because both daughters sound furious about being removed from wherever they were comfortable.
The second neonatal team takes her.
Four pounds, eight ounces.
Someone brings Zoya close enough for me to see her face for a few seconds. She's red, wrinkled, tiny, and furious. I barely have time to touch her cheek before the nurse moves her back toward the warmer.
Then Callan arrives.
The room changes before anyone says anything.
There's no cry.
I turn toward Erik. "Why isn't he crying?"
He looks toward the warmer, then back to me without pretending he knows. "They're working on him."
A neonatal physician answers while fitting respiratory support over Callan's face. "His heart rate is good, Rowan. He needs help getting his lungs working effectively."
"Is he breathing?" I try to lift my head farther, but I still can't see enough around the people working over him.
"He is with support." The physician keeps her attention on Callan while another nurse adjusts equipment beside the warmer. "We're giving him what he needs."
I can't see enough from the table, and every person between me and my son makes the distance worse.
Serena comes close enough for me to see her above the drape. "They may need to take him directly to neonatal care. You'll see him first if he's stable enough for that."
"What about Zoya and Maren?" I turn toward the other two warmers and catch only brief glimpses of blankets and tiny moving limbs.
"They're doing well for their gestational age." Serena stays where I can see her rather than turning away. "They'll still be monitored because they're premature."
I look at Erik.
The color has left his face.
Since Dad died, I've had a job every time my family was frightened. I handled Mom, managed Callie, kept going to school, tracked deadlines, made calls, and found the next thing that needed doing because usefulness gave me somewhere to put fear.
There's no useful task on this table.
"I'm terrified." I hold Erik's forearm harder than I mean to.
He leans closer. "I know."
"I can't do this part for everybody." I look toward the team around Callan because turning away is worse. "I can't be the one telling everyone he'll be fine when I don't know that."
"You don't have to." Erik puts his other arm near mine without trying to pull my attention away from our son.
The words are harder to say than anything I've admitted since Dad died. "I'm scared he's going to die."
Erik doesn't promise me Callan won't.
He looks toward our son for several seconds, then turns back to me. "I'm scared too."
I close my eyes briefly because that is somehow easier to hear than reassurance would've been. When I open them, Erik is still beside me, and the neonatal team is still working.
"I need you to carry some of this." My voice shakes, but I don't take the request back.
Erik shifts closer. "I have it."
I let him.
The neonatal team brings Callan close before taking him upstairs. A nasal interface covers part of his face, and enough wires are attached to him that I'm afraid to touch anything. I use two fingers against the side of his leg instead.