“Whatever happens, we’re in this together.”
She bit down on her bottom lip and nodded, but the shimmer of tears in her expressive eyes gutted him.
“They’ve given me an epidural, and I’m heading off to surgery soon, because the baby is showing signs of distress . . .” She swallowed, several times, before continuing. “I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t know how or why you are, but I’m glad.”
“We can talk later,” he said, as a team of midwives bustled into the room.
“Is this Dad?” the oldest one asked, a fierce sixty-something woman who looked like no baby would dare do the wrong thing as they came into the world.
“I am,” he said. “Rory Radcliffe.”
“Well, Rory Radcliffe, you can gown up at the OR and watch your baby being born,” the nurse said, taking Samira’s pulse. He didn’t like the small frown that appeared between her brows. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Rory had jumped out of moving cars and taken tumbles off bridges, but the fear of injury performing stunts had nothing on the terror dogging his every step as he followed the nursing entourage to the operating room. He walked beside Samira’s bed as the orderly wheeled it, clutching her hand like a lifeline he needed.
After traversing endless corridors, they reached their destination and a nurse stopped him. “I’ll take you to get gowned up now.”
“Okay.” He bent down to press a kiss to Samira’s lips. “I’m here for you and our baby. Today and forever.”
Either she didn’t register the implications of what he’d just said or she was too withdrawn into her fear, but she offered a brief nod before they wheeled her through the swinging doors.
Leaving him bereft.
If he’d had any doubt about his feelings for Samira before now, this moment, today, had solidified his love.
He loved her.
Whatever may come.
Hopefully, she’d give him a chance to prove it to her for the rest of their lives.
“Come on, Dad, let’s get you gowned up.”
As he entered an area where medical staff scrubbed down and a nurse handed him a gown, cap, and mask, a surprisingly young doctor approached. With her black hair in a ponytail and her face free of makeup, she looked about eighteen.
“You’re the dad of the baby being born in this upcoming C-section?”
“Yeah, I’m Rory.”
“Okay, Rory, I’m going to give you a heads-up before we get started.” She hesitated, as if she didn’t want to say more, and he held his breath. “At thirty-two weeks, your baby is what we class as very preterm. So it will be small, about three pounds.”
Rory’s stomach went into free fall. Three pounds. How could a baby that small survive?
“There’s also the possibility of respiratory distress due to immature lung formation, and feeding difficulties, due to lack of sucking and swallowing reflexes. Heart and gastrointestinal problems are also common.”
Fuck, this just got better and better.
Some of his terror must’ve shown, because she offered a reassuring smile. “But rest assured, we have a fantastic team in the neonatal intensive care unit, where your baby will spend the first few weeks of its life until it can breathe and feed on its own, and we’ll do our best to ensure you take home a healthy baby.”
He managed a mumbled “thank you,” as he followed her into the OR. The sight of a pale Samira lying on a gurney, her lower half shielded by a blue sheet, clutching at the side of the bed tight, made his heart flip.
They would get through this. He had to be strong, for both of them. And their baby.
He sat by her head, clutching her hand, maintaining eye contact the entire time. He saw her flinch slightly when the doctor made the first incision, he saw her grit her teeth as the doctor tried to pry their baby free of her uterus, and he saw the relief mingled with joy as the doctor held up their baby and they heard a feeble cry.
“A boy,” she murmured, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “We have a son.”
Rory couldn’t remember the last time he cried, but in that moment, he rested his forehead against the woman he loved and let the tears fall.
Forty-Eight
Over the next seven days, Samira’s world constricted. Nothing else existed but her room at the hospital and the short walk from the maternity ward to the neonatal intensive care unit. She’d always hated acronyms, but NICU became her focus day in, day out. She spent every waking hour beside her son’s incubator, watching him, willing him to grow and be strong and survive.
She ignored the tubes helping him breathe and the ones feeding him. She ignored his tiny size. She ignored the bone-deep dread that took hold when she allowed the doubts to flood in, doubts that centered on whether he would live or die.
She didn’t care about the doctor’s dire warnings revolving around long-term damage, vision and hearing problems, learning difficulties, chronic health issues, recurrent infections, and all kinds of bad stuff.
All she cared about was survival.
And through it all, Rory was by her side.
He held her hand, he cradled her in his arms, he wiped away her tears. She’d never known anyone so stoic, so strong.
Pia and her mom were as bad as Samira, their expressions equal parts frightened and sad when they peered through the glass into the NICU. Not that they weren’t supportive—they’d been great—but she had enough to deal with, with her fear, to manage theirs too.
Through it all, Rory had protected her. He hadn’t spoken much, and that was one of the things she liked the most. He didn’t offer trite platitudes. He didn’t fill fraught silences with false humor. He didn’t expect anything from her. He was just there, and she loved him for it.
A fine time to discover she loved him, when they clung to each other beside their son’s crib, willing him to start breathing on his own.
There would be time enough to tell him. For now, they had more important things to discuss.
“We should name him,” she whispered, hating to disrupt the peace of the NICU. Despite the infernal beeping of various machines keeping premature babies alive, the place exuded a calmness she needed. “Do you have any ideas?”
Rory flashed the lopsided grin she loved so much. “Rocky, because he’s a fighter.”
“Uh, no.” She cleared her throat, surprised how emotional she was by her choice and hoping he’d go for it. “I was thinking Ronald Garth. After his grandfathers.”
His eyebrows rose. “Wow, you are a traditionalist.”