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I didn’t know if I should speak, with how the worst possible things that could happen were flooding my brain. What if Katie lost the girls? What if the girls were okay but Katie didn’t make it?
I pushed those thoughts out of my head. I couldn’t keep it together if I kept going down that road, and I didn’t want to break down, not in front of Katie. I had to be strong for her.
“It hurts so much,” she whimpered, and I swallowed hard, looking over at the pain etched on her face as I blew through a redlight.
I had to focus on the road. I had to get us to the hospital as soon as possible, without killing all of us first.
It felt like it took forever to get there, even though the hospital was only ten minutes away. I parked right in front of the emergency entrance, jumping out and unbuckling Katie’s seatbelt, picking her up and carrying her inside.
A nurse or a tech, I wasn’t sure which, met us at the door with a wheelchair and I lowered her down into it carefully, heading to the desk to sign Katie in. She clutched at my arm.
“Don’t go, Adam,” she pleaded. “Don’t leave me.”
My heart lurched in my chest. “I’m not going anywhere, baby,” I promised. “I’m just going to check you in, okay?”
I walked over to reception and was prepared to start demanding that she needed to be seen immediately, but I didn’t have to wait, grateful the staff on duty understood the gravity of the situation. I had to finish signing paperwork before I was able to go back with her and when I walked into her room, she already had a monitor on her stomach. The babies’ heartbeats sounded strong, at least, but Katie was crying out in pain.
I knelt next to her bed, taking her hand in mine. “Squeeze it as hard as you need to, baby. I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be okay. The babies are going to be fine. You’re going to be fine,” I told her in a soothing voice. Maybe if I told her enough times, I’d start to believe it myself.
“Her water’s broken,” the doctor said, not Dr. Christine, Katie’s regular ob-gyn, but a short, balding man. He snapped off his gloves. “But one of the babies is breech.”
“Breech?” I asked.
“Upside down,” he explained. “Seems to me like the babies are fighting to get out at the same time, and one of them got turned around.”
“What do we do?” I asked, and Katie gripped my hand harder, crying out as another contraction hit. “Contractions are two minutes apart, we have to movenow,” the doctor said, all but ignoring me.
“What’s happening?” Katie asked, huffing out little breaths through her mouth. “I want Dr. Christine,” she said in a gasping, sobbing voice.
“There’s no time,” the doctor said firmly. “We’ve got to get you into the operating room now.”
“The operating room? No, no, I want to have the babies naturally,” Katie argued.
“That’s no longer an option, ma’am.”
One of the nurses threw a mask and a gown at me. “Suit up, Daddy. You’re having twins today.”
“I’m the one having the twins,” Katie muttered, and I barked out a surprised laugh. I was glad that she still had a sense of humor because I was losing my mind.
“We haven’t even picked out names yet,” she said.
“There will be plenty of time for that later,” I promised her. She had loosened her hand in mine but then as another contraction hit, she grunted and squeezed again so hard I thought I felt bones crack.
“They’re going to be okay, right?” Katie asked the doctor.
“I’ve performed hundreds of C-sections,” he said solemnly. “And they’re all different, but we’re going to get these babies safely out into the world.”
“And she’ll be okay, too?” I asked, but the doctor just rushed out of the room. I put on the gown they gave me while the nurse helped Katie undress and get into her own gown.
“God, it hurts,” she gasped out, and I stared at her, searching her face which was drawn and pale.
“Can’t you give her something for the pain?” I snapped at the nurse.
She shook her head. “Too late now.”
“You’re coming with me, Adam?” Katie asked, staring at me with pleading eyes. “You won’t leave me?”
“I’ll never leave you,” I promised fiercely, leaning down to press my lips against her forehead, as a couple of techs came in to transfer her to the operating room and we were on the move.I didn’t have time to think, yet those same awful thoughts were still trying to sneak around in my head.
