Everything starts to happen very quickly like a blur, and I don’t have a chance to say anything at all to Chad.
The medics come in and Chad’s hand lets go of mine as he moves out of the way. I didn’t realize how much it comforted me to hold onto his hand until I couldn’t do it anymore. I can hear Chad talking to one of the medics, while two of the others come to stand beside me.
“Hi Seraphine,” one of the female medics says. “My name is Liz and I’m going to take a quick look to see how dilatated you are, okay? We just need to know if we have time to move you out of here and get you to a hospital.”
She drapes a blanket over me and after a few seconds, she gives a thumbs up to the medics standing nearby.
“Okay, Seraphine, I think we’ve still got a little time left so we’re going to load you into the ambulance and get you to the hospital to have these babies!”
“Are you the dad?” one of the medics asks as they start lifting me onto the stretcher.
I hear Chad tell them that he is indeed the father and argue a bit with them about being able to ride in the ambulance with me. Something is said that I don’t quite catch or understand, and then an oxygen mask is put over my face.
“What’s going on?” I ask Liz as I start to feel panic rise within me again. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, Seraphine,” she says with a calm and measured smile. The kind of smile that I don’t know whether to believe is true, or whether she is just trying to keep me from panicking. “We need to keep both you and the babies calm so that we can have a nice, smooth delivery once we get to the hospital, okay?”
The way that she says it, makes it sound like the babies aren’t calm. And now that I try to look past the pain and pay attention to it, I can feel them flipping around in there as if they are doing jumping jacks.
“It’s too early,” I say, feeling myself start to not be able to breathe right. “They shouldn’t be coming yet.”
“It’s okay, Seraphine,” she says as she sits down next to me and then bangs three times on the side of the ambulance. The ambulance takes off and the siren starts to squeal in response to her. She holds my hand but it’s not the same.
“Where is Chad?” I start to cry. I can feel myself going lightheaded.
“You need tobreathe,” she says. “Everything is okay, and your boyfriend is following behind the ambulance in his car. He will meet you at the hospital . Right now, you need to focus on breathing for you and your babies.”
She mimics the sucking in of slow breaths with me in an exaggerated way.
“Like this,” she says. “Suck in all that good oxygen that is coming through the mask for you. You’ve got this. We’re almost there.”
The ride is a blur. Everything is a blur. And when we get there, I am rushed off the ambulance and into a labor and delivery room. Chad is there too. I can see him as soon as we got into the hospital. For a few moments, while they prep me for delivery, he is gone but right before things start kicking into high gear, he appears at my side again.
After everything that I have already been through up until this point, the actual birthing is the easy part now. The rest of it comes quickly once it begins. And before long—there are two beautiful new babies in the world.
I smile, feeling more exhausted than I have ever felt in my life, as I wait to hold the babies.
“One girl and one boy,” Dr Gideon says as she hands me my new little son and then goes to get my baby girl from the nurse who is cleaning her up. But something is wrong.
Chad stands beside me, beaming down with a proud smile as he looks at our baby boy.
“Seraphine,” Dr. Gideon says as she walks back over to us empty-handed. “Your daughter is fine, but she is going to go to the NICU for a little while to give her a bit of extra support.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. Panic is setting in.
As Dr. Gideon starts to answer me, her words sound all jumbled and my face feels cold and clammy. My hands start to loosen around the baby and Chad reaches down to grab him. Then, the sides of my vision start to close in. I can hear the voices around me for a few more seconds. I hear Dr. Gideon call for a nurse and say something about me being unstable. I hear one of my babies cry. And I know that the babies were too early and that I was under too much stress.
The only thing that Idon’tknow when my eyes fall closed, is what is happening to me and what is wrong with my baby girl.
I fade in and out of consciousness, able to see glimpses like flashes of a movie camera in my head as I get rushed off to some sort of emergency surgery. I lay eyes on both babies—the boy in Chad’s arms, and the tiniest little girl that the nurses are wheeling down to the NICU.
I see the ceiling of the hospital and feel myself being wheeled to surgery almost as if I am weightless and flying down the hallway. And the sight of faces peering down at me intermittently is entirely unsettling. Dr. Gideon is at the front of my wheeled hospital bed and there are nurses on either side. Someone is behind my head pushing the bed, but I can’t see them. This time, Chad isn’t with me.
When we get into the operating room, I am lifted onto a very hard, metal bed that is cold and harsh. Above my head, there is a whole wad of medical machinery on some sort of mechanical arm that reaches down from the ceiling. I am scared, and cold, and in pain—and all of this feels a lot like a scary sci-fi movie all of a sudden.
The only thing that I find any comfort in is Dr. Gideon’s kind face looking down at me.
“Okay, Seraphine, we’re going to put you to sleep for a little bit now so I can get you all fixed up. Have sweet dreams about your babies and we will see you soon.” She smiles just as a nurse puts an oxygen mask on my face and everything disappears almost instantly.