While writing another part of Krista & Rizzo an idea popped into my head, so I went with this one first. They are getting ready to deliver the third child here. This one's a little longer than usual, and brace yourselves: it's kind of sad…
Krista was in obvious pain as she lay in bed beside her husband in their new house. She'd done this twice before, but was a little worried this time around. Caitlin and Tony were asleep in their rooms, blissfully unaware of what was going on. Rizzo, however, was very conscious of the situation.
As he had with the other two kids, he wrapped his arms around Krista and massaged her abdomen gently. "How's that?" he asked quietly.
She was breathing shallowly and sweating despite the chilly March night. "That helps," she replied.
Rizzo was worried. Krista wasn't due for another month yet, and her contractions were coming awfully close together. "Snowflake, I think we should go to the hospital," he said.
She could here the concern in his voice, and was beginning to share it. "Okay…can your parents watch the kids?"
"You just stay here and relax, and I'll call them right now." He carefully climbed out of bed, grabbing a change of clothes as he headed for the phone. "Mom? Sorry I'm calling so late…"
"What's wrong?" his mother asked. No one called home at 3:00 in the morning unless something was wrong.
"Krista's having contractions…" he began.
"Take her to the hospital," Mrs. Eruzione interrupted. "Your father and I will be over in ten minutes."
"Thanks, mom," he replied. Rizzo hung up the phone and quickly got dressed. When he returned to the bedroom, Krista's face was contorted with pain and he went right to her, taking her hand.
"I think the baby's coming early," she panted.
"My folks will be here in a couple of minutes," he told her, trying to remain calm. "Let's get you dressed and ready, and we'll go as soon as they get here."
He helped her slowly out of bed and took her favorite maternity dress out of the closet. By the time she was dressed, his parents arrived and sent the couple directly out to the car.
They arrived at the hospital as they had both times before, with Rizzo doing his best to stay composed and Krista going through her breathing exercises. The nurse at the front desk immediately recognized the labor pains and grabbed a wheel chair.
"She's not due for four weeks yet," Rizzo told the nurse. "But she's been having strong contractions about five minutes apart."
"Okay, we'll take care of her," the Nurse told him.
They took Krista not to a delivery room, but to the emergency room, where nurses and doctors scrambled to find a fetal monitor and an I.V. stand. Rizzo and a nurse helped her change once again into a hospital gown, and got her connected to the fetal monitor. The on-call OB, Dr. Ellison, came in and examined her, studying the readouts on the monitor.
"Your baby's coming early, Krista," the doctor told her. "And it's breech."
Rizzo, standing beside his wife's hospital bed, took her hand. "Breech?"
The doctor nodded. "It's upside down. A baby can be delivered that way, but it's hard on both the child and the mother, and dangerous, too."
The beeping coming from the fetal monitor began to get faster.
"The baby is already pretty worked up…I think we need to do a C-section very soon."
Krista looked up at Rizzo with anxious eyes and tried to smile. "You're going to be a dad again."
Rizzo squeezed her hand and tried to smile himself. "Yeah. We'll have another little one in just a few hours."
The beeping from the fetal monitor accelerated again, and at the same time the reading on the blood pressure monitor attached to Krista's arm began to drop. Her free hand touched her abdomen as she began to fell lightheaded.
The doctor hurriedly examined Krista again. "She's hemorrhaging…" he told the nurse. "Call the O.R.—we're doing an emergency C-section right now."
Nurses quickly detached monitors and I.V.s and anything else that wasn't portable and wheeled Krista down the hall toward the elevator. Rizzo lost his grip on her hand as they took her out, and the last thing he saw of her was her long hair framing a very pale face.
"Where are you taking her?" he called after one of the nurses.
"Fifth floor…" the nurse called back.
Rizzo was terrified now, but made his way up to the fifth floor and managed a few coherent questions for the nurses at the front desk there. Because this was an emergency, he was not allowed to be in the room when his third child was born, but he found out which O.R. his wife was in and where he could wait for the doctor to come talk to him.
Rizzo paced the waiting room floor for an hour before he couldn't stand it any longer. He called his parents and explained to them what was happening. Then he called Krista's brother Tim.
"Hello?" Tim answered sleepily.
"Tim? It's Mike."
Michael was a common Collins family name and Tim was still half asleep. "Mike who?"
"Your brother-in-law, Tim. In Boston."
That got his attention. "Mikey…what's wrong?"
"It's Krista," Rizzo started, but found he couldn't finish.
"Oh my god, is she okay?"
Rizzo gathered himself together. "She went into labor and the baby's not due for four more weeks…she started bleeding, and they're doing an emergency C-section…" He could hear the fear creeping into his voice despite his best efforts not to let it.
Tim was fully awake now, trying to remain calm himself. "I can be on the next plane to Boston…"
Rizzo shook his head, even though Tim couldn't see him do it. "Not yet, Tim. Just talk to me until they tell me what's going on."
"Okay…" Tim stayed on the phone with Rizzo for another hour before a doctor came out of the operating room.
"Mr. Eruzione?" Dr. Ellison called, coming out of the operating room.
"The doctor's here Tim…I'll call you back in a few minutes." He hung up the phone. "Yes?" He turned away from the phone, trying to read the doctor's face.
"They're taking your wife to the recovery room Mr. Eruzione."
"How is she? Is the baby okay?"
"Your wife lost a lot of blood, and she's very weak, but she going to be fine."
A relieved expression crossed Rizzo's face for a moment. "The baby?"
"The baby was under a lot of stress during the procedure, and he's four weeks early. He's having some respiratory problems and he's pretty small, but he has a very good chance of survival. He's in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit now."
"So you're telling me that I'll have my wife and child home with me soon?"
"Your wife, yes, in a few days. Your son may be staying with us for a while, but I'm pretty confident you'll be taking him home too."
"My son?"
"No one told you?" the doctor asked.
"No," Rizzo answered. "Every time we went in for an ultrasound the baby was turned so that the doctor couldn't tell us the gender."
Dr. Ellison smiled. "Congratulation, then, Mr. Eruzione. You have a brand new son."
Rizzo smiled for the first time that night.
"Your wife is still asleep from the anesthesia, but if you'd like to visit the NIC-U, Sherri can take you there," the doctor said, gesturing to one of the nurses at the desk.
Rizzo nodded. "Okay. Wait! I need to call my parents and my brother-in-law first…" He quickly placed the calls and assured everyone that both mother and baby were out of immediate danger, then turned back to the nurse. "Okay."
She led him down the hall and through a set of double doors to a room of incubators containing tiny babies connected to monitors and I.V.s.
"Do you want to hold him?" the nurse asked, smiling.
"Can I?"
She smiled again. "You'll have to change into scrubs and he can only be out of the incubator for a few minutes."
He nodded obediently and she sent him off to change. When he returned wearing green surgical scrubs, she took him into the NIC-U to an incubator marked "Baby Boy Eruzione". He was connected to a heart-rate monitor and a tiny tube carried oxygen to his nose, so the nurse had to play with the wires and tubing to get them to reach out of the incubator. In a few moments time, though, Rizzo was holding his son in his arms.
"Hey little guy," he whispered softly, tears forming in his eyes. "I hear you aren't feelin' too well…" He sniffed, trying not to break down. "I won't keep you out long, 'cause you need your rest, but I wanted to come and see you." He sniffled again, and a tear slid down his cheek. "I'll bring your mom down soon, too. She's going to want to see what a handsome little boy you are…"
The nurse came back over and helped him put the littlest Eruzione back in the incubator. "You can sit here with him until your wife wakes up," she told him gently, pulling up a rocking chair.
Rizzo sat in the rocking chair—for how long he wasn't sure, but it seemed like an eternity. Eventually, though, another nurse came to get him and took him to Krista's room.
She was lying in bed, pale and weak, looking as though she might break if he touched her. "Hey snowflake," he said walking over to her bedside, feeling tears well up in his eyes once more.
She smiled softly and took his hand. "My teddy bear."
He sat down in a chair next to the bed and squeezed her hand gently. "How are you feeling?"
She noticed the worried expression on his face and thought of their child. "I'm all right," she told him. "Is the baby okay? They won't tell me anything…"
Rizzo smiled, sniffing. "He's okay…pretty small, and they said he's having some breathing trouble. The doctor said it might be a while before we can take him home, but he should be all right."
"He? It's a boy?"
Rizzo nodded, a tear sliding down his cheek.
"And he's really…alive?"
He nodded again, unable to hold himself together any longer. The tears started to run down his face and Krista reached up and wiped them away.
She felt tears welling up in her own eyes. "Oh, honey…"
"I thought I was going to lose you both," he told her, crying freely now. "I was so afraid…"
She drew him to her and he buried his face in her shoulder. She cried with him, stroking his hair softly and holding him in her arms.
Later, after Krista had received approval from the doctors, Rizzo took her down to the NIC-U to see their son. He carefully helped her into the rocking chair he had used earlier while the nurse arranged the wires and tubes around the incubator. There were still a few more tears left in Krista's eyes, and they slid down her cheeks as the nurse laid the baby in her arms.
"He's so small," she sniffled.
Dr. Ellison came in to the NIC-U just then on his morning rounds. "How is our little patient doing?" he smiled.
Krista brushed the tears from her face. "He's alive and breathing, thanks to you," she smiled.
The doctor came over and did a quick examination. "His heart sounds better," he said. "And he looks a little bit pinker."
Rizzo grinned, relieved to be getting good news. "I don't know how to thank you, doc."
"Believe me, it was my pleasure," Dr. Ellison told him. "I'm just happy to have helped."
Krista looked up at her husband. "Our son still needs a name, honey." Her eyes flickered to the doctor.
Rizzo smiled again, reading her thought. "Dr. Ellison, what's your first name?"
The doctor smiled shyly. "You don't have to…"
"You saved my wife and son today," Rizzo told him. "We'd be honored if you'd allow us to use your name for our child."
"It's Thomas," the doctor replied, grinning.
The three adults looked down at the little one, wrapped in his blue blanket with his little knit cap.
"Thomas…" Rizzo repeated, looking down at his wife.
"Michael," Krista added, looking up at her husband. "You and Tim have the same middle name."
Rizzo nodded, kneeling down beside the rocking chair and gently touching Thomas's little head. "Yeah. Thomas Michael Eruzione."
"I wish I could tell you that you can take him home soon, but I'm just not sure when he'll be ready to leave."
"Look on the bright side," Krista smiled, ever the optimist. "If he has to spend some time here, maybe little Thomas will grow up to be a doctor, too."