Chapter 10 - Thirty-Two Weeks and Counting
Within four minutes, Suite 402 was transformed into a staging ground for one of the most complex high-order multiple deliveries in the hospital’s history.
Dr. Althaus burst through the door in sterile surgical scrubs, her hair tucked into a blue paper bonnet, followed by an army of nearly twenty medical personnel.
“Membranes on Baby A have ruptured,” Dr. Althaus announced, rapidly checking the telemetry strip. “Contractions are every ninety seconds and lasting sixty seconds. Cervix is fully effaced, dilated to six centimeters. We are not waiting. We are going to OR 3 right now for an emergency Cesarean section.”
The bed was unlocked from the wall with four rapid clicks.
The transit down the corridor was a blur of fluorescent lights rushing overhead, the sharp smell of iodine, and the steady, reassuring presence of Maggie running alongside the gurney, holding my left hand with both of hers.
“You’re thirty-two weeks, Clara!” Maggie shouted over the noise of running rubber soles. “You made it to thirty-two weeks! You did it!”
“Thirty-two weeks and one day,” Dr. Althaus said from the head of the bed, guiding the steering wheels with precision. “Their lungs have had forty-eight hours of steroid saturation. The NICU has four dedicated resuscitation teams prepped in OR 3. Clara, this is going to happen fast, but you are completely safe.”
We burst through the automatic double doors of Operating Room 3.
The room was vast, freezing cold, and brilliantly lit by three massive overhead surgical light discs. Along the back wall stood four identical stainless-steel radiant warmers, each surrounded by a neonatologist, a respiratory therapist, and two specialized neonatal nurses. Four portable incubators stood ready with their plastic hoods open and pre-warmed.
“Transfer on three!”
Four hands slid under my shoulders and hips, smoothly lifting me onto the narrow, heated surgical table.
An anesthesiologist with kind, crinkling eyes immediately sat at the head of the table, placing a gentle hand on my forehead. “Hi, Clara. I’m Dr. Marcus. We’re doing a rapid spinal block. You’ll feel a cold pinch and a sting in your lower back, and then your legs will feel warm and heavy. You’ll be awake for the whole thing.”
“Will I hear them cry?” I gasped, curling my spine forward as Nurse Gable supported my shoulders.
“You will hear every single one of them,” Dr. Marcus promised.
The spinal took effect within forty-five seconds. The crushing, agonizing pressure of the contractions melted away, replaced by a profound, numb heaviness from my ribs down to my toes.
A high blue sterile drape was raised across my chest, blocking my view of the surgical field, but Dr. Marcus stayed right beside my ear, monitoring my oxygen and blood pressure while Maggie, fully gowned in sterile scrubs, sat on a stool beside my left arm, holding my hand against her cheek.
“Scalpel to skin at 4:12 AM,” Dr. Althaus’s calm, authoritative voice called out from beyond the blue curtain.
I felt no pain, only an intense, rocking sensation—like being jostled gently on a small boat in rough water—as Dr. Althaus and her assisting surgeon moved through the layers of tissue with practiced, surgical speed.
“Uterine incision made,” Dr. Althaus said. “Presenting part is vertex. Here comes Baby A.”
The room went completely quiet for three agonizing seconds.
Then, cutting through the hum of the air handlers and the beep of the anesthesia monitors, came a sound that broke my heart open forever.
Waaaaah! Waaa-waaaah!
A thin, reedy, beautiful cry.
“Baby A is out!” the delivery nurse called out. “A boy! Four pounds, one ounce! Vigorous! Spontaneous respiration!”
Over the blue drape, a bundle wrapped in sterile towels was lifted into view for a split second—a tiny, wrinkled, perfect little boy with a shock of dark hair, kicking his legs furiously against the cold air before being rushed to Warmer 1.
“Here comes Baby B,” Dr. Althaus called out immediately. “Watch the cord. Clear the airway.”
My breath caught in my throat. Baby B—my fighter, the one who had survived the torn placenta, the one who had absorbed the blow when Brandon dragged me across the ward.
A second later, an even louder, indignant roar filled the surgical theater.
WAAAH! WAAAH!
“Baby B is out!” Dr. Althaus laughed, her voice thick with pride. “Three pounds, fourteen ounces! A boy! Look at those lungs!”
Tears were streaming uncontrollably into my hair. Maggie was sobbing beside me, kissing my knuckles. “Two boys, Clara! Two beautiful boys!”
“Don't stop now, we’ve got two ladies waiting for their entrance,” Dr. Marcus said with a grin.
“Baby C,” Dr. Althaus announced thirty seconds later.
A soft, sweet, high-pitched whimper echoed from the middle of the room. “Baby C is out! A girl! Three pounds, eleven ounces! Apgar score of eight!”
And before I could even draw another breath, Dr. Althaus shouted with pure, unadulterated joy:
“And Baby D makes four! A girl! Three pounds, nine ounces! All four are breathing on room air!”
The operating room erupted into an extraordinary, chaotic symphony of four distinct, demanding, triumphant cries.
Four voices. Four living souls.
Four miracles that Brandon Cross had tried to snuff out for a real estate commission.
They brought them to me one by one, wrapped in warm flannel blankets with tiny knitted caps on their heads.
First Baby A, whose tiny fingers curled instinctively around my thumb.
Then Baby B, who nuzzled his nose against my bare collarbone, his warm, milky scent erasing seven months of terror in a single second.
May you like
Then Baby C and Baby D, nestled together against my shoulder, their tiny chests rising and falling in perfect, peaceful unison.
“You did it, Clara,” Dr. Althaus whispered, leaning over the drape, her surgical mask pulled down to reveal tears in her own eyes. “You brought them all home.”
