Chapter 2- The Silent Screen
The sudden silence of the lost heartbeat monitor seemed to suck the oxygen straight out of the delivery room.
“Which one?” I gasped, my fingers digging so hard into the mattress that my knuckles turned paper-white. “Dr. Foster, which one?!”
Dr. Foster didn't answer right away. She was already moving with a speed that frightened me more than her silence. She grabbed the ultrasound transducer, smeared a fresh glob of blue gel onto my lower abdomen, and began pressing firmly against my skin. The nurse beside her, a seasoned veteran named Brenda, reached over my head to silence the blaring flatline alarm, but the sudden absence of that steady rhythm felt even worse than the noise.
“I’m looking,” Dr. Foster said, her voice dropping into an eerily calm register—the tone doctors use when panic is a luxury they cannot afford. “Hold your breath for three seconds, Hannah. Just three seconds.”
I held my breath, clutching the bedrails. On the screen, gray and white shadows shifted in static waves. I knew how to read these screens by now; I had spent six months staring at them, memorizing every contour of my children.
“There,” Dr. Foster whispered, a heavy exhale escaping her lungs. She pointed to a tiny, fluttering rhythm hidden deep in the lower quadrant of my pelvis. “It’s Mia. The sensor slipped off her sac because Oliver shifted his weight down against her. Look. Right there. Eighty beats per minute... ninety... one hundred and twenty. She’s fine. The monitor just lost contact.”
I let out a ragged sob, my chest collapsing. “She’s okay?”
“She’s okay. Her heart is beating normally.” Dr. Foster readjusted the electronic pad over my lower stomach and taped it securely into place. The steady, rhythmic thump-thump-thump returned to the speaker, joining the other two.
Three heartbeats. Still here.
But my relief was short-lived. My eyes darted back to the closed double doors at the end of the hall—the doors Andrew had disappeared through just moments ago.
“Faith,” I whispered. “What’s happening to Faith?”
“Dr. Reed is one of the best neonatologists in the state, Hannah,” Dr. Foster said softly, adjusting the IV drip pumping magnesium sulfate into my veins—a brutal drug meant to stop my uterus from contracting, though it felt like hot liquid lead running through my bloodstream. “He is with her. Right now, your body is a life-support system for Oliver, Sophie, and Mia. Every breath you take, every minute you stay still, you are buying them time.”
“I’m trapped,” I choked out, a tear sliding down my temple into my hair. “I delivered a baby thirty feet away, and I can’t even hold her hand while she fights for her life.”
“You are keeping her brothers and sisters alive,” Dr. Foster insisted, her eyes locking onto mine with fierce intensity. “You are doing the hardest job in this hospital right now.”
Fifteen minutes stretched into thirty. In the quiet of the labor room, the magnesium sulfate made my vision blur and my skin burn as if I had a fever of one hundred and five. My muscles felt like lead, yet every small twitch of my stomach brought a spike of terror. Was that a kick? Or was that another contraction beginning?
At 2:15 AM, the double doors pushed open slowly.
Andrew walked in. He moved like an old man carrying a weight that was crushing his spine. His hospital gown hung loosely off his shoulders, and his eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark purple circles.
I stopped breathing. “Andrew?”
He walked over to the side of my bed, sank onto his knees on the cold tile floor, and took my hand. He buried his face in my palm, and I felt the scalding wetness of his tears soaking into my skin.
“Andrew, talk to me!” I begged, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Is she... did she die?”
He shook his head, pressing my hand harder against his wet cheek. “No,” he choked out, his voice raw. “No, she’s alive. But... but her lung collapsed, Hannah. They had to put a chest tube in her. She was so tiny... I watched them push this needle into her chest, and she didn’t even have the strength to cry.”
A fresh wave of agony washed over me. “Did they fix it?”
“They stabilized her,” Andrew sobbed, looking up at me. “She’s on a ventilator now. One hundred percent oxygen. Dr. Reed said the next twelve hours will tell us if her body can absorb the air. She’s so small, Hannah. Her skin is translucent. You can see her little heart beating through her chest.”
I closed my eyes, picturing our daughter—Faith, named for the one thing we needed most—lying in a plastic box under harsh fluorescent lights, surrounded by tubes, fighting for air while her mother lay in a bed thirty yards away, pregnant with three more children.
“You stay with her,” I whispered to Andrew, smoothing his damp hair with my free hand. “Don’t leave her side.”
“I can’t leave you either,” he said, looking torn, broken into pieces.
“You have to,” I insisted, forced by an instinct deeper than fear. “She’s alone over there. Oliver, Sophie, and Mia have me. They have my heart beating for them. Faith needs yours.”
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Andrew looked down at my swollen abdomen, where three monitor cables stretched across my skin like umbilical cords to machines. He placed a trembling palm over the spot where Oliver’s head was resting.
“Don’t come out yet, little guys,” Andrew prayed aloud, his voice cracking. “Stay inside your mom. Let your sister fight her battle first.”
