Chapter 3 - The Sterile CorridorThe ceiling lights of Scripps Mercy Hospital blurred together into a continuous strip of harsh white.
I was being wheeled down the hall at a dead run. Paramedics were barking vitals over my head, their boots squeaking against the polished linoleum.
"BP is falling, 90 over 50! Fetal heart tones are erratic, dropping into the 70s—late decelerations!"
"Maddie, I'm right here," Ethan was running alongside the gurney, his hand wrapped tight around mine. He had stripped off his blood-stained shirt; someone had thrown a sterile scrub top over his shoulders. His face was gray, streaked with sweat and dried milk. "Dr. Vance is waiting. We’re going to get her out. Do you hear me? We’re going to get Lily out right now."
"Ethan... it burns so bad," I cried out, the contractions now overlapping in one relentless, crushing wave. The burns on my stomach felt as though someone had laid a sheet of red-hot iron across my flesh, and with every contraction, the skin stretched and tore.
"Push four of morphine," a voice ordered from somewhere near my head.
"No morphine—fetal depression!" another doctor shouted.
"We need the baby out in two minutes or we lose them both!"
The double doors of Operating Room 3 swung wide with a pneumatic hiss. The air was frigid, smelling of iodine and cold stainless steel. A swarm of blue-gowned figures descended on the gurney. Hands lifted me onto the operating table. Someone began slicing away the remnants of my ruined dress with trauma shears, peeling the fabric from my skin with agonizing precision.
"Madison, look at me," said Dr. Vance, her face masked and shielded behind plastic. "We have to put you under general anesthesia. There's no time for an epidural, not with the burns covering the lumbar region and the baby in severe distress. You're going to sleep, and when you wake up, Ethan will be with you."
"Save her," I sobbed, looking frantically around the room until I found Ethan’s eyes above his mask. "Ethan, don't let her die. Please."
"I swear to you, Maddie. I swear to you."
May you like
The clear plastic oxygen mask came down over my face. A sweet, chemical chill flooded my veins.
The last thing I heard before the blackness took me was the erratic, slowing beeping of the fetal heart monitor: beep... beep....... beep...............
