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Chapter 37

"Cameron is downstairs so we are going to have a snack and then I'll bring him up for a visit." Jason said leaning over and kissing his wife's lips.

"Okay. I can't wait to see him." Liz said smiling up at him. "Enjoy yourself. Behave." She instructed arching a brow.

"Please, we both know he'll be fighting off nurses. Cameron is a chick magnet." Emily said from her chair.

"Ignore her." Jason said getting another kiss. "I'll be back in about half an hour or so." He was looking forward to time with his son.

"Can I do anything for you?" Emily asked once her brother was gone.

"Lower my blood pressure so I my babies don't have to come out today." Liz couldn't help the part of her that felt like a failure. Like she couldn't do the thing her body was designed for.

"I would if it was within my power." Emily said covering her sister's hand. "You were a nurse, a damn good nurse. No a great nurse." Em said correcting herself. "You know that with triplets the odds of you getting to forty weeks is slim. With your history you never stood a chance. But you got them to thirty-two and the odds are in their favor now." It might sound cold but knowing her best friend Emily got that medical facts would help Liz deal with the guilt more than anything else.

"Yeah." Liz said rolling her neck to loosen the tight muscles. "I would kill for a hot chocolate."

"I'll have one delivered with dinner." Emily promised with a smile. "With lots of whipped cream."

"I plan to breastfeed, so no caffeine just yet." Liz told her friend. "You remember why from your intern rotations?"

"Newborns can't process caffeine until roughly three months. Their new little bodies can't eliminate it so it can build up." Emily recalled.

"A gold star for you." Liz laughed. "I'm going to eat an entire pan of brownies when chocolate is reintroduced into my diet."

"Can I get an invite?" Emily wanted to know.

"Only if you bring your own brownies. I am not going to share." Liz said totally serious.

"Harsh." Emily said laughing. "Fine, I'm going to go out and find the most decadent brownies on the market and eat every single one in front of you."

"They won't be as good as mine." Liz said with a slow smile.

"No, they won't." Emily conceded from the corner of her eye. Liz's numbers were high. Since she was facing surgery that wasn't surprising, but everyone would feel better when they dropped back closer to normal.

Liz just smiled in triumph before her eyes rolled up and she passed out.

"Liz!" Emily was instantly on her feet pushing the alarms to call the staff. "Marco! Call Jason!" She called out instructions as she checked respiration and pulse. The staff rushed in and when they pulled back the blankets to move Liz into a more prone position they saw the growing pool of blood.

Kelly came running in. "Unhook her and call downstairs. I want an OR ready to go by the time I get there. I want my staff here stat!" The doctor started calling out orders. Her crew was all in the building because that was how she liked it on surgical days. "Get Sabrina to monitor my patients." Kelly yelled over her shoulder as she ran to the stairs while Liz was pushed into the elevator. "How was her pulse?" She asked Emily who was right behind her.

"Still high, but lower than the numbers I had seen on the monitors before she passed out." Emily reported as they ran out onto the surgical unit. They both got changed faster than would seem possible and headed to the washroom. "Do not overstep Emily, I will throw your ass out of my OR. I'm going to be focused on Liz and her babies, I don't have time to make you feel better."

"Would it be better if I stayed out?" Emily wanted to be there for her best friend, more than anything. At the same time this couldn't be about her.

"Yes." Kelly said bluntly.

"I'll wait for Jason, and we'll go to the gallery." Emily said drying her hands.

"Good." Kelly walked into the OR, got her gown and gloves then headed to the table where her staff was prepping Liz. "Okay sweetie. Don't stop fighting now." Kelly told her friend. "Eight blade." She asked calling for a scalpel. She'd get the babies out and then find the source of the bleeding.

"What happened?" Jason ran up with Steven behind him.

"I'm going to scrub up." Steven was totally going to use his status to crash the surgery.

"Don't. Kelly will eat you alive." Emily told her boss. "She told me I wasn't welcome, I doubt you will be and this isn't the time for her to be thinking about anything but Liz and those babies. I have no idea what happened. One minute we were laughing and she just passed out. Come on." Emily said taking them into the gallery. "She started bleeding heavily."

The three of them watched as Kelly made the first cut. Monica walked in and stood to the side of her son but didn't speak. In under two minutes the first baby was out. Another three minutes brought the second baby, and three minutes more the final of the Morgan children made an appearance.

Emily took her brother's hand in hers. They still didn't talk as they watched the pace of activity pick up in the rear of the OR where three teams of pediatricians under Maggie's supervision got the babies cleaned up, placed into incubators, and rushed to the door.

Jason placed a hand on the glass like he could reach through and touch his family. His children were on their way to the neo-natal ward but his wife, his heart, was still on the table. He had no idea where he was supposed to be.

"She would want you with the children." Steven said from where he was standing beside Emily.

"I don't want to leave her." Jason was very aware that Kelly wasn't sewing his wife shut. The doctor was still requesting instruments which meant she hadn't fixed whatever was wrong.

"Just because you walk out of this gallery doesn't mean you have left her. She knows where you will be." Emily told her brother. "We'll watch over her while you check on the babies. We need to know what the genders for the other babies are."

"Call me if…" Jason couldn't even finish.

"Go." Emily said blinking back tears. If the worse happened she didn't want her brother to witness it. Didn't want him to have that memory.

Without a word Jason walked from the gallery to go meet his children.

"Pressure?" Kelly called out.

"One hundred over fifty and dropping." The nurse called out.

"Shit!" The doctor was trying to find the source of the bleeding and failing. "Suction!" She said needing the area cleared so she could see. "I can't fucking see!"

"More lap pads!" Piph called out knowing that was what Kelly was going to call for next.

"I may have to keep you Piph." Kelly said trying to get a good look. "Where is the blood I called for?!" She was demanding in the surgery and every member of her team rose to the occasion.

"Coming now." Another nurse said rushing in. "There is no more B negative after this, so if you call for more it will be O."

"I won't call for more. Get that blood set up. Piph." Kelly said looking at the head nurse, the doctor had made a decision.

"Yeah." The head nurse knew what was coming. "Clamp?"

"Clamp." Kelly said holding out her hand for the instrument.

Jason had to be buzzed into the neo-natal unit. Then he had to scrub up and put on booties, and a surgical gown. Gloves weren't necessary because he wouldn't be touching the babies just yet. From the back of the room Dr. Smith waved Jason over.

While he walked through the ward he saw other parents visiting their children. Some were impossibly tiny, so small it seemed a miracle they were even alive. Several had unusual pigmentation to their skin. He knew yellow indicated liver issues, something common with preemies, but one child was an ashen gray color and he had no idea what caused that. All the babies had multiple tubes attached to them, and as Jason got closer to the back of the room he saw that was the case with his children as well.

"I know it looks scary." Maggie said standing beside him. This was a talk she had a lot of practice with. She was the head of the neonatal department at General Hospital. A job that was as rewarding as it was heartbreaking.

"How big are they?" Jason asked his eyes latched onto his youngest children.

"Come closer." Maggie invited leading Jason over until they were standing next to the first incubator. She loved these little boxes. The technology had come a long way since they were first invented. Now the incubators did more than just keep the babies warm, with advancing technology they helped give preemies the best chance of surviving. "Kelly took them out in a different order than they would have been born in, so we now have a new A, B, and C."

Jason just nodded looking down at the tiny infant. "This is my son." The blue tag that said Morgan gave it away.

"Baby A." Maggie said smiling. "He weighs three pounds even. Unlike most babies who go to the nursery down the hall, your triplets should not lose any weight." If they did it was a sign something was wrong.

"The tube in his nose is feeding him?" Jason recalled reading about NG tubes when researching preemies.

"Yes. The other wires do things like register heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and organ function especially their respiration." Maggie figured Liz would go into more detail with her husband. The doctor didn't want to overload Jason with too much information right now. Her experience with other parents let her know he wasn't giving her his full attention at the moment.

Jason nodded moving to the second incubator. "I have a daughter."

"Yes, congratulations." Maggie said smiling. "She weighs three pounds, six ounces and is the biggest of the babies." Like her brother she was a healthy shade of pink. "All three babies have very good lung function, but we will be keeping a close eye on those numbers." Respiratory distress was the leading cause of death for preemies. Even when the babies went home the doctors would be listening closely to their lungs during follow up visits. "They have good brain function as well." Which was an indicator they were getting enough oxygen.

Jason walked over to the final incubator. "Another daughter." His voice was gruff as he blinked back tears. "She's smaller."

"You have a sharp eye. This cutie weighs two pounds and eight ounces." Maggie told Jason. "She yelled all the way upstairs." The doctor said laughing. "Your other two settled down pretty quickly."

"They're beautiful." Jason said looking at his other two children from where he was standing.

"They are. We have them in birth order, so your son is the oldest. Make sure he knows that when his sisters gang up on him." Maggie had a good feeling that the Morgan triplets were going to do just fine. "If everything goes well, then you'll be able to hold them in a few weeks. Right now they can't control their body temperatures so we can't remove them from the incubators, but you can come up and sit with them as often as you like." If Liz had made it to thirty-four weeks then they might have been able to hold their babies the next morning.

"I need to go back downstairs and tell Elizabeth about our children. We have to make final decisions about names." Jason said placing a shaking hand on the top of the incubator. "She is going to want to see the babies as soon as possible."

"You can snap some pictures." Maggie let him know. "To tide her over. When you guys decide on names you can either come up, or call. We will put up new tags so that the staff can start using them." As she watched Jason's eyes took in the room.

"My children are big compared to some of the other babies." Jason commented.

"Don't think about that. I know it sounds harsh, but there is nothing you can do for the other children on the ward. We give everyone the best care possible, your trio need you full attention." Maggie told him. The neonatal unit could be a hard place to visit, Jason had enough to focus on adding guilt to the mix wasn't going to be helpful.

Jason nodded again and walked back to the second incubator placing his hand on the top. He did the same thing with his son, he just wanted his children to know that they weren't alone. That their parents loved them. "I'll be back guys, behave for the doctors."

Maggie had to smile at that. "They are Liz's children, I don't see good behavior happening." She joked. "Cameron can't come visit." She said frowning.

"Germs?" Jason guessed.

"Yeah, at his age he is covered with them." Maggie liked Cameron, he was a happy and fun child. "He can meet his siblings when they are discharged." Either to go home, or if they were doing well down the hall to the nursery. From there they would go home.

Jason took some pictures. "I'll be back up later. If something goes wrong you'll call?" He just wanted to check.

"We will be calling with updates no matter what. Every few hours to the nurses' station on the maternity ward. The nurse on duty will put the call through if you are awake, If you aren't she'll write down the message and pass if along in the morning." Maggie told him the procedure. She didn't want them panicking when the calls came in. "I'm on for the next thirty-six hours, and I only live twenty minutes away if I need to come in."

"Thank you." Jason said looking at his children once more. He would head to the chapel to light some candles for them, after getting an update on his wife.

Kelly and Piph scrubbed clean and watched as the cleaning crew sanitized the OR. Liz had been wheeled out a few minutes ago, heading to recovery. Normally after a surgery like this one the patient would go to ICU, but the maternity ward had more nurses per shift than any other ward in the hospital. When the nurses weren't in the room it was good bet that the members of Liz's family that worked here in the hospital would be. So there would plenty of folks keeping an eye out.

"You did what was necessary." Piph said breaking the silence.

"I know." Kelly said shaking her head. "I just hated to have to make that call." The doctor grabbed a paper towel and dried off. "I need to go find Jason. It would be best if he was there when I talk with Liz."

"You want me to come too?" Piph normally wouldn't.

"No, but you checking in on Liz later wouldn't hurt." Kelly said leaning against the sink. It had been a long afternoon. "Also start thinking of what bribe you want to switch to my service."

"I'm expensive." Piph said laughing. That was such a Kelly statement.

"Me too." The doctor said laughing. "If I can't get it, my very resourceful boyfriend can. I'm totally serious about that." Kelly said before walking out of the washroom.

Piph dried up and headed out as well. She would swing by the chapel before going upstairs and getting a peek at the babies.

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