Part 51 (2/2)
”I want to wait for my husband,” Annalise gritted out. The contractions were slicing her in half, like the magician's a.s.sistant.
”I don't think your baby's got the same idea,” a nurse murmured, coming up behind Annalise to brace her shoulders.
She and Joseph had toured the rooms at Lenox Hill, with their silk bedding and faux fireplaces. Just around the corner was their favorite Italian restaurant. Joseph had promised to bring her penne alla diavolo, penne alla diavolo, the restaurant's specialty, the night she delivered. the restaurant's specialty, the night she delivered.
Suddenly, there was a crash as a new patient was wheeled into the cubicle beside Annalise's. ”Maria Velasquez. Thirty-year-old female, primip, twenty-seven weeks' gestation,” the paramedic said. ”BP one thirty over seventy, heart rate one-oh-five sinus rhythm. Beaten up one side and down the other by her husband.”
Annalise stared at the curtain that separated her from this woman. The nurse behind her gently turned her face away. ”You concentrate on you,” she said.
”Are you having contractions?” The question came from the other side of the drape, the one Annalise was gazing at so fixedly she expected it to fly off its hangers at any moment in a feat of telekinesis.
”Si, los tiene,” the woman moaned. the woman moaned.
”Looks like she's bleeding. Could be a placenta previa. Call OB.” Annalise licked dry lips. ”What's ... what's the matter with the woman over there?”
Her doctor glanced up from a spot between her legs. ”I need you to push,” he said. ”Now, Annalise.”
She bore down with all her strength, squeezing her eyes so tight the room swam about her, and the words that filtered through the curtain came thin and quivering.
”No pueda!”
”It's coming ... get me a gown and gloves, for Christ's sake.”
”BP's falling. She's ninety over palp.”
”Ah, d.a.m.n. She's bleeding out.”
”Respire, Mrs. Velasquez. Mrs. Velasquez. No empuje.” No empuje.”
”Primero salvo mi bebe! Por favor, salvo mi bebe!”
Annalise felt herself being opened from the inside, a seal yawning and widening. She had a sudden vision of Joseph pulling on a weekend turtleneck sweater, the wool stretching taut as his head slowly emerged to show his smile, his tousled hair.
”Here we go,” the doctor said.
”Ringer's lactate, wide open. Type and cross her. Where the h.e.l.l is OB?”
”We've got to do this now. Ahora, Ahora, Mrs. Velasquez. Mrs. Velasquez. Empuje Empuje.”
”Pedi's here.”
”About time. Take the baby.”
”el se llamo Joaquim!”
”Yes, Mrs. Velasquez. That's a lovely name.”
”One more push,” the nurse said to Annalise, ”and you're gonna have yourself a little one.”
”Suction the infant ... I want him intubated and bagged with one hundred percent oxygen ...”
”No quiera morir ...”
”Pulse ox ninety-eight. Heart rate's one-fifty.”
A high whine of machinery. ”The mother's bleeding out.”
”Ma.s.sage her uterus. Hard. Harder!”
”Hang pitocin, and two units of O neg on the rapid infuser. IV fluids wide.”
”Where the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l is OB? Put in a central line.” is OB? Put in a central line.”
Annalise grabbed the nurse's collar and pulled her close. ”I don't want to die.”
”You're not going to,” the woman said.
”One more push, Annalise. One good one.”
She clenched her teeth, pressed down, and suddenly her son came into the world.
”The baby's abdomen is filling with air.”
”You intubated the esophagus. Do it again.”
”Pulse ox sixty-three. Heart rate seventy.”
”Put in an umbilical line. Give him one cc of atropine, point three of epi, and three milliequivalents of bicarb.”
”Draw a blood gas.”
”She's coding!”
”He's in v-fib!”
Groggy, Annalise looked down at the healthy bundle in her arms and clutched him tightly.
On the other side of the curtain, two separate wars were being fought. One was to save the life of a woman who'd been beaten to near death by her husband. The other was to allow her child to have any kind of a life at all. From time to time, the curtain billowed in toward Annalise, the frenzy spilling into the limits of her own s.p.a.ce.
She could identify two voices now, the doctor taking care of Mrs. Velasquez, and the doctor taking care of the woman's newborn.
”Starting chest compressions.”
”Charge the paddles to three hundred fifty watts ... intubate her!”
Thump, thump, thump-the sound of electricity jolting to jump-start a body.
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