“NICU and peds are on it. I’m on you.”
Katy gives me a harried look, and I stand, watching the teams work. “They’re bagging him and inserting an umbilical central line. Epi is going in. No chest compressions.” I glance down at her. “That’s good. He has a heartbeat. I can’t see the monitor, but I know he has one that’s strong enough.”
Katy can hardly hold it together. “I need more.”
“Give it a minute, Katy. They’re working on him.”
It’s the longest minute of my life. Maybe two or three. Katy is sobbing. Keegan is barely holding it together and doing everything she can not to cry as she works to close Katy up. I’m holding my tears back too because they won’t help any of us right now.
“Ah! There it is.” I practically jump. “He’s pinking up. They’re still bagging him, no intubation yet, and he’s pinking up.”
Then we hear it. The softest, tiniest, weakest cry. It’s not even a cry so much as a noise, but it’s there and Katy hears it, which makes her cry even harder.
“Katy, we’re going to put him on BiPAP and will hold off on intubation,” the NICU doctor tells her. “Sats are good for now, as is his heart rate. He’s a strong kid. A total fighter.”
“Can I see him before you take him up?” They wheel the incubator by her bed, and she emits a sob. “I’ll see you soon. I love you,” she tells him before they wheel him out to the NICU.
“Mom’s blood sugar is now seventy-two,” the scrub nurse states.
“What do we have her on?” Keegan questions.
“D10.”
“Increase to D40. Jesus, Katy. Tell me you ate today. Why is your blood sugar dropping this fast?”
Katy makes a noise. “I had lunch but nothing since about eleven. I was going to make freaking orgasm chicken tonight.”
The whole room falls silent. “What is orgasm chicken?” I ask.
“It’s chicken in a garlic cream sauce.” Then she makes another noise, this one more of a snort. “Your husband made it years ago on one of his Food Network drop-ins.”
I can’t help it. I sputter a laugh before my hands drop to my knees and I crack up like I’ve never laughed before. The nurses, other doctors, and even Keegan join me even as they work and do their jobs.
My hands scrub up and down my face. “Oh my god, I so needed that.”
“Me too,” Katy agrees, though she’s not laughing. Not yet.
“Sounds amazing. I’ll have to ask Roman to make it for me sometime.” Not tonight. He has a fight tonight.
“Blood sugar is back up in the nineties.”
“Now we’re talking,” Katy crows. “Keegan, finish up. I need to go see my baby.”
A second later, the OR doors burst open, and there’s Bennett, sweating and harried as he practically dives on Katy. “You didn’t tell me.”
“You had a life to save.”
His hands are all over her face, his lips following their trail. “Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
Bennett nods but keeps his face against hers. “I saw him. I saw them in the hall with him. He’s so small. But he’s so beautiful, Katy. So perfect.”
Her hand wraps around the back of his head. “Go be with him. I need you to be with him.”
“Callan,” Bennett declares, wiping her tears with his thumbs. “I want to name him Callan.”
Callan is her uncle, who adopted her as a kid when her parents died. He was also the chief of the ER before Jack took over, so I know him pretty well. “He’ll love that,” Katy rasps, her voice hoarse with emotion.