Chapter 9 - The Operating Room
The drive to the hospital was a blur of flashing red tail lights, screaming tires, and Elias’s fierce, unyielding voice calling out to me from the front seat.
“Stay with me, Adelaide! Look at me in the mirror! Keep your eyes open!” he demanded, running red lights and swerving around abandoned cars on the icy highway. “Don't you dare close your eyes! We are almost there!”
When we crashed through the emergency bay doors at Riverside, Elias didn't wait for orderlies. He threw open the back door, grabbed me in his arms, and ran straight into the trauma bay screaming for help.
“EMERGENCY C-SECTION!” he roared, his voice shaking the glass doors of the ER. “PLACENTAL ABRUPTION! GET DR. CHEN NOW!”
The medical team moved with terrifying speed.
Within ninety seconds, I was wheeled into Operating Room 3. Nurses were ripping off my clothes, attaching IV lines, and prepping my abdomen with brown iodine soap.
Elias was stopped at the door by two security guards and a nurse holding a sterile scrub suit.
“You can’t go in there without scrubs, sir!” the nurse yelled over the chaos.
“I’M NOT LEAVING HER!” Elias shoved past the guards, grabbing the paper scrub suit from the nurse’s hands and throwing it on over his clothes in five seconds flat. He burst into the operating room just as Dr. Chen was raising her scalpel.
He rushed to the head of the operating table, grabbing my shaking hand between both of his, pressing his lips against my sweaty forehead.
“I’m right here, Adelaide,” he sobbed, his tears dropping onto my cheek. “I’m not leaving you. I’m never leaving you again.”
Anesthesia took effect, dulling the pain into a bizarre, floating pressure.
“Incision made,” Dr. Chen’s calm voice announced. “Uterine wall exposed. Suction ready.”
I closed my eyes, gripping Elias’s hand as hard as I could, feeling the world spin around me.
“He’s out!” Dr. Chen called out.
A sudden, terrifying silence filled the operating room.
No crying.
No baby sound.
Just the hum of the heart monitors and the heavy breathing of the surgical team.
“He’s not breathing!” a pediatric nurse shouted. “Get the resuscitation bag! Clear the airway!”
“NO!” I screamed, trying to push myself up from the table, but Elias held me down gently, his face pale as death, his eyes wide with horror as he looked over at the warming table where three doctors were surrounding our tiny baby.
“Please...” Elias prayed out loud, dropping to his knees beside my operating table, holding my hand against his face. “Please, God... take me. Take everything I own. Just let my son live. Let Adelaide’s baby live.”
Ten seconds passed.
Fifteen seconds.
And then—
A sharp, shrill, magnificent sound pierced through the sterile room.
“WAHHH! WAHHH! WAHHH!”
The baby let out a roaring, furious cry that echoed off the tiled walls.
The room erupted into relieved laughter and cheers.
“Strong lungs!” Dr. Chen laughed, wiping her brow. “He just had a little fluid in his airway! We have a healthy baby boy!”
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Elias buried his face into my neck, weeping uncontrollably, his shoulders shaking with pure, unadulterated joy.
“He’s alive, Adelaide,” Elias sobbed into my skin. “Our boy is alive.”
