Chapter 7 - Twenty-Seven Hours
The labor was brutal and frighteningly early. At thirty-three weeks, my daughter wasn't ready for the world, and my body was still battered from the smoke inhalation.
The monitors at Northwestern Memorial screamed in deafening bursts as the nurses wheeled me into the high-risk delivery suite.
"Her vitals are dropping!" Dr. Chen shouted over the noise of the machines. "Get the neonatologist in here now! Prepare for an emergency C-section!"
"No," I gasped through the oxygen mask, gripping the steel rails. "I want... I want to deliver her naturally if she can handle it."
"Lauren, she’s in distress," Julian said, his hand firmly holding mine as he stood by the head of the bed in scrubs. "Listen to the doctor."
Suddenly, the operating room doors swung open with a loud bang.
Grant stood there, wearing wrinkled civilian clothes, his chest heaving as if he had run five miles across the city. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, and filled with a terror I had never seen in him before.
"Get him out of here!" Julian shouted, letting go of my hand to shove Grant toward the door.
"Julian, please!" Grant begged, dropping to both knees right onto the cold linoleum floor. "Please, don't keep me out! Let me be here for my daughter! If something happens to her, I will never survive it!"
The doctors and nurses paused, the tension in the room thick enough to choke on. Another contraction ripped through me, making me cry out in agony.
Grant looked up from the floor, his face soaked in tears, his hands raised in surrender. "Lauren. Hate me forever. Never speak to me again. File the divorce, take everything I own, leave me with nothing. But please... please don't let our daughter enter this world without her father praying over her."
I looked at him. The arrogant, untouchable rescue captain was gone. In his place was a shattered man, stripped of his pride, kneeling in the dirt of his own mistakes.
Another alarm blared on the heart monitor. The baby's pulse dipped dangerously low.
"Let him stay," I gasped out through clenched teeth. "By the wall. Don't touch me."
Grant scrambled to the corner of the room, pressing his back against the wall, bowing his head into his hands. His broad shoulders shook violently with silent, racking sobs as he began whispering prayers he hadn't spoken since childhood.
For four agonizing hours, I fought. Every contraction felt like broken glass tearing through my spine.
"Push, Lauren! Push!" Dr. Chen ordered.
With one final, desperate burst of strength, I arched my back and pushed with everything left inside my soul.
A sharp, thin wail cut through the sterile room.
The tension broke instantly. The nurses moved quickly, wrapping the tiny, five-pound girl in warm towels.
"She’s breathing," the pediatric nurse declared with a broad smile. "APGAR score is eight. She's a fighter, Lauren."
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They laid her on my bare chest. She was tiny, with a dusting of dark hair and huge, dark eyes that blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights.
From the corner of the room, a ragged gasp echoed out. Grant was still on his knees, his forehead pressed against the floor, weeping so hard he could barely draw breath.
