Page 69 of Sainte
Ice and I follow the paramedics out, and they place the stretcher into the ambulance. “I’m going with her,” Ice says and jumps in after her.
Just as they are closing the doors, I holler back, “I’ll meet you at the ER.” The rear door closes, the remaining paramedic gets in the front seat, and the ambulance takes off. I grab my keys and jacket and run to my bike.
When I get to the hospital, I find Ice pacing in the waiting room. “What’d the doctor say?”
“It’s preeclampsia.”
“What the fuck is that?” I ask.
“Apparently, it happens when a pregnant woman’s blood pressure gets too high. That’s all I know for now. The doctor is with her now.”
“So we wait.”
“We wait,” he says, defeated.
I swear I have never seen him this bad. I thought it was bad when Hawk was in the hospital, but this is so much worse.
A few minutes later, the doctor approaches us. “Caden, Emma is resting comfortably,” she says.
Ice breathes a sigh of relief.
“But she is not out of the woods yet. Preeclampsia is a warning sign for us to keep a close eye on her blood pressure, and she’s resting because we had to sedate her.”
“Sedate her? What…” Ice is clearly overloaded and confused, as am I. “What does that mean? Is she going to be okay? What about the baby?”
“Well, for the moment they seem to be doing all right, but she had a seizure and is susceptible to another blood pressure spike. I’m gonna be honest with you, Caden. Preeclampsia can lead to eclampsia, which in rare cases could result in seizures and could become life-threatening. We needed to stop it to save them.”
“What?” Ice says desperately.
“Hang on. It’s a warning, Caden.”
“So what do we do?” he asks.
“In my expert opinion, I think we should do an emergency C-section. Emma is thirty-three weeks along. She’s far enough along that we shouldn’t risk her having another seizure, and the survival rate of little ones this close to term is around ninety percent.”
Little ones?Did she just refer to more than one baby? Ice is too frazzled to notice, but I sure as hell did. Is Emma fucking having twins?
“And her survival rate?” he asks.
“At this point? Ninety-nine point nine percent. If we wait, that percentage drops drastically.”
“So you are asking me to risk my child to save her.”
“You are not the first father who has had to make this decision, and you won’t be the last. It’s not easy for anyone.”
“Would Emma be able to have children later on?” he asks. Good question. I didn’t even think of that.
“Yes, but we would not recommend it. She would be considered high risk and would need to remain on bed rest for most of her pregnancy. Her blood pressure would have to be carefully monitored, and there is a good chance this could happen again.”
“Fuck!” He turns away, raking his hand through his hair. Looking at me, he asks, “What would you do?”
Aww fuck, I don’t know. I think that if this were Honey, my first thought would be to save her. She may never forgive me, but I couldn’t imagine my world without her in it. “Save Emma,” I say and then immediately regret what I said. I’ve just given his kid a death sentence.
“Is Emma awake?”
“No, she is out and will be for the next hour. She is not coherent, and I recommend we don’t wait. Time is of the essence, Caden, if we want to save both of them.”
“Take the baby,” he says and walks away.
