"Interrupt the pregnancy?" The Queen looked in amazement at Dr. Medisson opposite her. "This is absolutely impossible."
The windows in Catherine's office were covered with thick roller blinds, so despite the sunny day, the light was dim. Gold, sitting next to his wife, automatically took her hand, still staring tensely at the owner of the office.
"Regina, you don't understand." The doctor shook her head. "The syndrome we are talking about is not a disease that she can live with. And the results we have of the screening for risks give us an almost one hundred percent guarantee that she has it."
"So, we still have a chance the girl will be healthy." Mrs. Gold said.
"It's very small." Catherine sighed. "Ninety percent, we are dealing with a serious genetic pathology, in the presence of which the girl will live only for a couple of years. And these won't be the best years in hers and your life".
"But still, there remains as much as ten percent that everything will be just fine.", the Queen objected. "And I'm sure that will be as such. How can my child be sick at all? I don't smoke, I eat right, I do sports…"
"All this has practically no effect on genetic defects." Her conversationalist stopped her. "Mostly, it's the age of the parents that's important. Our body accumulates defective genes over the years and the older you are, the greater the risk that these defective genes to be passed on to the child."
"Oh really?" Regina grinned nervously. "In my previous pregnancy, I was also not twenty years old and everything was perfect with me."
"And this was a great luck." The doctor nodded. "At your age, pregnancy is a lottery. Sometimes you get a lucky ticket, sometimes you don't. Regina, you are forty years old. And your husband even older." She glanced at Gold. "Besides, you have a negative rhesus factor. You need to be prepared for the fact that each pregnancy of yours will have high risks."
"Each?" the Queen specified. "But tell me, Catherine, taking into account all the introductory ones: considering our age, considering that I have a negative rhesus factor, that with each new pregnancy, as you yourself explained to me now, I accumulate anti-Rhesus antibodies that interfere with the normal development of pregnancy and so on - what are the chances I can become pregnant and bear a child again?"
"Well, there's always a chance." Catherine said evasively. "There are stimulating techniques, there are IVF treatments…"
"Which are unlikely to take root." Regina interrupted. "So the answer is no. I will not give up this chance. What do you think?" She turned to her husband.
"Is there no way to find out for sure?" He looked at the doctor.
"We can conduct an invasive examination." Medisson nodded. "It will give a more accurate answer together with an expert ultrasound. Again, this won't be one hundred percent but ninety-nine and nine accurate. Allthough this will only be possible after the twentieth week. Until this time, we won't be able to conduct an ultrasound evaluation."
"That's great!" The Queen was enthused. "So we wait a couple of months and find out for sure. What are we talking about now then?"
"Regina." The doctor began cautiously. "You have to understand, the chances the risks of this screening not to be confirmed are very few. A late termination of pregnancy will be incomparably more traumatic than it would be now. At twenty-odd weeks you'll have to go through an artificial birth. It will be long, difficult, all this time you will be conscious, giving birth to an unviable child. Not to mention all the possible complications that may arise. Stimulated labor is always unpredictable, especially at your age. Massive atonic bleeding with DIC may develop, in which the blood stops clotting - this is a life-threatening condition. And the recovery process after it will also be long and complicated; it won't be easy to start the normal functioning of the hormonal system again after we interrupt the pregnancy in the middle. Interruption will be safer in the early stages.
"What about the girl?" Regina asked. "Will it be painful for her? In the middle of the pregnancy.
"No." her conversationalist shook her head, "I don't think so. With such a diagnosis, its cerebral context will not yet be formed by this time."
"Well, then the decision is obvious," the Queen nodded. "We are waiting for the twentieth week."
"Regina, you don't understand." Catherine repeated.
"No, it's you who doesn't understand.", she interrupted. "We have wanted this baby from the day our first daughter was born. And three years after her birth, we hadn't succeeded yet. And now, when I was finally able to get pregnant again, you suggest that I terminate the pregnancy only because the girl in theory might be unhealthy? No. I don't care how hard it will be. Our daughter should have a chance." She looked at her husband.
"I think we should discuss this in private." Gold said uncertainly, slowly stroking her hand. "Catherine, we listened and understood everything, we will communicate our decision later on." He nodded to the doctor.
"What can we possibly discuss in this situation?" The Queen boiled.
"Regina, please, not here.", he said calmly. "Let's talk at home." He got up and held out his hand.
After a little pause, she silently got up and went with her husband towards the exit.
"Seriously, what else could be the answer?" She asked her husband quietly in the corridor.
"Let's just not rush.", he answered evasively. "We don't need to decide right this second, we can think it over calmly."
"Think about what?" Regina did not let it go.
"We have ten minutes to drive home." He took his wife by the shoulders. "We'll talk calmly there."
"Okay." She fell silent again and they spent the rest of the way in silence.
Not managing to get the key into the lock the first time, Gold finally unlocked the door, letting the Queen go forward.
"Don't worry so ahead of time." Regina turned to her husband after he took off her fur coat. "We need to wait only two months, and then, I'm sure it will turn out that she's okay." She hugged his neck. "Just don't think about it yet."
"I'm not sure we should wait." He freed himself gently from her hands and went into the living room.
Taking a bottle of whiskey and a glass from the mantelpiece, he poured half a glass and drank it in one gulp.
"But you heard Catherine." The Queen followed him. "Nothing will change for the girl during this time. In any case, it won't be painful for her. Not now, not in two months. We are not risking anything."
"Not risking anything." Gold nodded, pouring himself whiskey again. "Besides the fact that you can bleed to death."
"Oh, stop it." Regina smiled, sitting down on the sofa. "What makes you think so?"
"Didn't you listen to Catherine at all?" He warily looked at his wife.
"She's just playing it safe." She shrugged. "Of course, it's much easier for her to do everything now, when there are no risks, than to shoulder on the extra work and extra responsibility. Seriously, Rumple, how can one die due to bleeding in a hospital full of donated blood?"
"Because of bleeding during which the blood stops clotting." Gold specified.
"Well, anyway, it's probably not fatal." the Queen sighed. "Plus, what are the chances that this will happen to me? This is one case out of a thousand or ten thousand. Or how much there are."
"You know, I don't want to find out." He turned away from his wife. "We need to interrupt the pregnancy now."
"I don't believe my ears." Regina gasped in shock. "Is it really you who's saying that? The voice seems to be yours."
"I don't want you to go through all this, in general. Especially with such risks." He slowly approached and sat next to her, holding her hand. "Yes, we wanted this child. But not all our desires come true. Sometimes you have to give something up. We already have two children. And this is twice as more as we could expect. We need to think sensibly. You heard Catherine: we have almost no chances. And in this situation, the risk is not justified."
"You know, I don't want to listen to all this." The Queen grimaced, pulling out her palm. "And I still can't believe that it's you who's saying it. Seriously. Wash your face with cold water, sleep a little – come back to yourself somehow. Because what you are saying is simply unbelievable. How can you even suggest that?"
"Regina." Gold paused, head down.
"Okay, I'm sorry." She put her arm around his shoulders, nuzzling his neck.
He hugged her tightly in response.
"You understand yourself that we have no choice," Regina continued. "Neither I nor you - none of us can simply abandon this girl. This is something we definitely won't cope with. Never. For the rest of our lives, we will think that she had a chance, which we deprived her from. It will destroy us both. Our family. Everything."
"No, that isn't so." Gold objected.
"You know that is so." She slowly kissed his temple. "None of us will ever forgive this: neither ourselves nor each other. Everything will be fine, though." She added after a pause. "Don't wind yourself up. Nothing has happened yet."
Opening the door with her own key and entering the house, Regina Stern stared at Gold in surprise, who was bent with a rag over the baseboard in the living room.
"What are you doing?" She asked, taking off her shoes.
"What does it look like?" Gold asked without turning around.
"Well, I don't even know." The woman went into the living room. "Considering that you have a cleaning lady on Tuesday and Thursday, and today is exactly Thursday, I find it difficult to answer. Why are you rubbing the baseboard?"
"Because she never does." He finally straightened up and turned to his conversationalist, straightening his shoulders. "Just like she never wipes the water faucets dry. Some kind of selective amnesia."
"Perhaps you should change your cleaning lady.", she said.
"It will be so." The conversationalist nodded. "If Regina sees dust on the baseboard and stains on the water faucets. And since she has already fired two of them, I can already imagine what it will be like looking for a new one. It's much easier to wipe off dust and water residues myself."
"I see." The deputy Mayor grinned. "I brought you some more work here." She took out a thick folder of papers from her briefcase.
"And how long did it take you to collect them?" Gold asked, looking around the folder.
"You won't believe it, not at all." Regina laid the documents on the table. "Summertime, time to renew city contracts."
"When do you need them?" He asked.
"Well ... Yesterday." His conversationalist smiled.
"Who would doubt it." Gold sighed.
"Maybe I can help with anything?" Regina asked.
"You can." He nodded. "Wipe the baseboard here and in the dining room." He handed her a rag. "And every faucet you find."
"I can't say I meant exactly that." She nevertheless took a rag.
"You can go to Regina and entertain her somehow until I finish the contracts and go back to the baseboards." Gold shrugged.
"No!" She raised her hands. "The last time was enough for me, I'm afraid to approach her. It's like walking in a minefield. Everything annoys her. I don't know how you can stand it."
"Well, unlike Regina, nothing annoys me, so I'm fine." Her conversationalist grinned. "And you should be more lenient. Three months of bed rest will wear anyone out. Be understanding."
"That's what I am being." Mrs. Stern assured him. "But I'm still scared to go near her again."
"Okay, you know, you can do something else that's useful." He flipped through the document folder. "If you are already free today, it would be nice if you took the children from kindergarten and walked with them so that they would spend themselves out a bit so when they came home, they won't jump around mom."
"That's a thing I can do." she was enthused.
"And don't forget about the baseboard." Gold nodded to her, heading for the stairs. "And about the faucets."
Going up to the second floor, he stood in indecision for some time, choosing between the office and the bedroom, but in the end he went to the bedroom.
"How are you here?" He smiled at the Queen, who, lying in bed, thoughtlessly switched channels on the plasma screen.
"It's still the same.", she answered without enthusiasm, turning off the TV. "Let's go for a walk? I had enough laying in bed for this morning."
"We'll go later." He lay down beside her, kissing her temple. "It's still too hot now."
"It's always too hot for you." the Queen grumbled.
"And for you, too." Gold assured her. "Catherine is not insisting in vain on evening walks."
"Catherine wasn't worth listening at all, from the start." His wife sighed.
"Meaning?", he asked.
"Meaning, if we hadn't conducted any invasive examinations, now I wouldn't have to lie down most of the time.", the Queen clarified. "And we didn't have to do any screenings. All the same: in the end, nothing was confirmed. Only our nerves were exhausted in vain."
"Well, stop it." He kissed her shoulder. "You know that one isn't connected with the other."
"Off course." She nodded. "How could I forget? I'm just forty years old and I have a predisposition to cervical insufficiency, that's the whole point. And the fact that a couple of days before it showed up, Catherine was picking at me with a hefty needle for half an hour had absolutely nothing to do with it."
"Don't start." The husband gently stroked her hand. "Subsequence does not indicate consequence."
"Yes, yes." Regina said wearily. "I remember. It's just forty years.", she repeated. "Why am I talking to you at all? And why did you come at all? To remind me of the forty years?"
"No." Gold answered calmly. "I have come to lie with you and read the contracts of the city hall for this year." He showed her the document folder. "I will finish reading and then we'll go for a walk."
"Get to your reading in your office." The Queen turned on her side, turning away from her husband.
"I don't want in the office, I want here." He slid his hand under the covers, hugging his wife. "Where are the stockings?" He asked, running his fingers over her thigh.
"They annoy me." She grimaced. "It's hot, they're uncomfortable and they put pressure on the legs".
"Well, that's the whole point." Rummaging under the pillows, he pulled out the dense beige stockings with an open toe. "Give me your leg." He smiled at his wife.
"Come on I won't wear them!", the Queen protested. "I don't lie down all the time. I sometimes get up and go back and forth, still. Why do I need them?"
"Don't be capricious." He lightly kissed her temple. "Stockings are needed, but now everything is annoying you."
"You still can't let it go, can you?" She threw back the blanket with a sigh, opening her legs.
"Well, no." Gold agreed, pulling tight hosiery over her legs, not without difficulty. "Do you want me to bring you something in compensation?", he asked after having finished this action. "Maybe you want some ice cream?"
"No, thank you." The Queen grimaced. "I want to be able to go through the door after giving birth."
"It is unlikely one ice cream can affect this.", her husband remarked. "You already eat almost nothing."
"It's not over yet." She grinned. "Next week we have another course of dexamethasone, after which I will eat everything that isn't glued down, as it was the last time."
"For two whole days?" Gold smiled, laying once more next to her.
"Yeah." The Queen nodded absentmindedly. "Listen, something is wrong with her." She put a hand on her stomach. "She has been doing some acrobatic numbers all morning. And now she started again."
"Apparently, she was tired of lying in bed too." Her husband shrugged. "We'll go for a walk and she will calm down."
"Seriously." Regina tensed. "I haven't seen anything like this: neither with her, nor with Charlotte. She has already kicked inside me everything she can reach. Ten minutes of calmness and then she begins to flip over again. I think it's worth a trip to the clinic."
"Anything for just not to lie down?" Gold squinted at her.
"See for yourself." She took his hand and pressed it to her belly.
"Yes." He put down the contract he had just begun to read. "Perhaps you are right. Let's go. Don't get up abruptly." He held his wife by the shoulders, after which he got up and walked around the bed. "Smoothly, as we always do." He helped her sit and then stand up.
They were already met by Dr. Madisson at the entrance to the clinic.
"Regina." She smiled at the Queen. "What happened?"
"Catherine, something is wrong with her." She told her conversationalist her concerns.
"Well, let's take a look." Catherine nodded without a smile, inviting the patient behind her with a gesture.
In the ultrasound room, she silently studied the picture on the monitor for several minutes.
"How far along are you now exactly?", she asked Regina without turning around.
"Thirty-four weeks and two days.", she answered.
"Uh-huh, that's good." The doctor nodded, slowly moving the sensor around.
Then, without looking, she groped the telephone receiver on the table next to her.
"Janie, I need an operating room.", she said, not looking up from the screen. "The third, it seems, was free. What about him? No, Jackson will wait, cancel him. I need it urgently. Regina. We'll have to get her out right now." She turned to the Queen.
"What?" She was amazed. "But she's still too small. She is not ready. We still have to get a steroid course next week."
"Look." She turned the monitor towards the patient. "This is your cervix and it has begun to open. This is the placenta, which is located directly above the cervix. This is where the detachment begins. See the dimming here? This is a hematoma that is forming under the detachment. That's why the girl is so active. She's lacking oxygen due to the fact that part of the placenta is no longer functioning. If we don't take her out now, she will suffocate. And you will have a breakthrough bleeding."
"But she will suffocate in any case." Regina muttered confused. "You yourself said a few days ago that her lungs are not ready yet, that we need another course of steroids."
"We will do everything to prevent this from happening.", the doctor assured her. "Regina, now is her only chance."
"Rumple." She looked at her husband in dismay.
"Everything will be fine." He said automatically, clutching her palm. "I'll be near."
"No." She looked at the doctor again. "She's not ready yet. I'm not ready yet. We can't do it right now."
"I know." She nodded. "But there is no other way. I'm in here." She waved her hand at the nurse with a gurney in the hallway. "We have the best childrens' intensive care units in the city." She turned back to the Queen. "And you already have a very good gestational age. We've had some children with less gestational age, and in the end, everything is in order with them. Don't worry; everything will be fine with your girl."
"No." the Queen repeated. "This shouldn't have happened. We did everything right. I lay there for three months, almost without getting up so that this would not happen."
"Everything will be fine." Catherine repeated.
Ten minutes later, the Queen was already lying on the operating room table with a catheter in her back. In front of her, at chest level, a curtain fell. An anesthetist stood above her, next to him - her husband and David Stern.
"Does it hurt?" Catherine's voice came out.
"No." She shook her head slightly.
"Like that?", the doctor asked.
"No, that either.", Regina answered.
"Fine, then we begin." Catherine nodded.
"Oh my god." The Queen breathed out a minute later. "I can feel exactly how you do it."
"This is normal." Dr. Madisson answered without being distracted. "The main issue is that there is no pain. Is it?" She glanced quickly at the patient.
"No." She confirmed.
"So all is well." She went deep into the process again. "We could have put you to sleep but epidural anesthesia is much safer for a child, especially in your situation, in the presence of hypoxia. The sensations will be a little strange, but there will be no pain."
"I get it." The Queen closed her eyes, squeezing Gold's hand.
"Honey, everything is fine, it will all be over soon." He bended over his wife and rested his forehead on her forehead.
Another ten minutes and the tiny girl was already lying on the table with the neonatologist.
"Why isn't she crying?" Regina squeezed her husband's hand even more, digging her nails in.
"Give her some time." Catherine answered calmly. "For her, all this is also unexpected. Neonatologists, gentleman, can we hear the child already?" She asked without looking, continuing to attend to the wound.
"Just a couple of minutes." Someone assured her.
"Very good." The doctor nodded. "Can you work a little more actively with the suction?", she asked one of the assistants quietly. "I can't see where it's bleeding from."
"From everywhere.", he answered even more quietly. "Atonic."
"You know, in my operating room no one utters such words. Get out of here," Catherine said calmly. "David, take the suction away from him." she nodded to Stern.
Stern obediently replaced the assistant.
"Narcotize." He said only with his lips, looking into the wound and then turning to the anesthetist.
"Regina." He turned to the patient. "Now I will put another catheter in the clavicle area. After a while, you will fall asleep and when you wake up, we will have everything finished. Take a deep breath now…"
The Queen took a deep breath and at the same moment everything swam before her eyes and began to darken.
She woke up from the persistent nasty squeaking of the alarm clock. Without opening her eyes, she fumbled around in search of her telephone, but still couldn't find it. The squeaking continued.
"But where is it?" Regina sighed, finally opening her eyes and seeing her husband's pale tense face above her.
It wasn't the alarm clock that squeaked but the cardio monitor she was connected to. At that moment, all the previous events resurfaced in her mind.
"Regina." Gold leaned towards her. "Thank God you are back."
"Well, I didn't seem to leave," She looked around perplexed. "Where's the girl?" She realized. "What's up with her?"
"She's fine." Her husband smiled. "She's in the children's ward. She is healthy, breathing well by herself but must remain there for several days."
"Good." Regina smiled. "Can I see her?"
"Off course." He hastily removed a phone from his pocket and dialed a number. "David? Regina woke up. Yes…"
Soon, Stern entered the room with a pink bundle in his hands.
"Regina." He smiled at the woman. "How are you?"
"Fine." The Queen shrugged a little. "Come on, give her to me." She impatiently held out her hands for the baby.
"Take your time." Stern helped her up a little, recline on the bed and carefully put the girl on her mother's chest. Holding her by the elbow, he helped her hug her daughter. "Is it okay? Are you holding her?", he asked.
"I'm holding her." Regina said, looking fascinated at the girl. "With your nose, as you wanted." She smiled, quickly glancing at her husband.
"Yes, all my children are like that." He nodded, carefully stroking his daughter on the cheek with the back of his fingers.
"Is she healthy?" The woman turned back to Stern.
"Absolutely.", the doctor assured her. "You will both be home in a week."
"Good." She smiled again, looking at her daughter.
"But now both of you need to rest and recover." He held out his hands for the girl.
"So fast?" Regina asked in frustration.
"You will see each other again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow you will be together already, in the same room." Stern assured her. "What are you going to call her?", he asked, picking up the girl.
"Rachel." Gold answered.
"Rahel." The doctor smiled at the girl and, touching the tips of his fingers to her forehead, said a blessing in a whisper. "Tell mom and dad: "Bye! See you tomorrow!"
"Till tomorrow!" The Queen smiled. "Everything worked out." she laughed happily after Stern hid behind the door.
"Everything worked out." the husband confirmed, kissing her hand. "You did everything just fine. You are simply incredible."
"Well, don't praise me too much." She settled back in bed horizontally. "Now we need another boy, for symmetry, and we can relax."
"No." Gold objected.
"No?" The Queen was surprised.
"I won't survive another pregnancy like this one." He said seriously.
"You?" Regina asked with a grin.
"I have no doubt about your abilities." He kissed her hand again. "But I have already completely turned gray."
"Well, not yet completely." The Queen looked at her husband. "There is still some not gray hair on you."
"No, Regina, absolutely not." Gold said, restraining his emotions. "Neither boys nor girls. Enough. You've had a clinical death today during cesarean."
"Really?" She was surprised. "Strange. I don't remember either the light at the end of the tunnel, or mom and dad who would come to meet me. How could they ignore my arrival?"
"Stop it." Her husband grimaced. "It isn't funny at all. And no symmetries."
"Let's talk about this in a year." The Queen yawned.
"We won't talk." Gold assured her. "Neither in a year, nor in ten."
"Okay, don't get so nervous." Regina smiled. "Go eat something, drink some cognac, you're kind of pale. And I'll sleep a little longer." She wrapped herself in a blanket.
"That's good idea, sleep." He leaned over to his wife and carefully kissed her on the temple. "You know, I love you very much."
"Yes, I do too.", she answered as she was falling asleep.