Straightening the Curves
Chapter Eight: Baby Duke
Bo was carrying Rachel through the lobby of the hospital towards the receptionist desk, carrying Rosco in tow behind him. At the first sign of a nurse, Bo started screaming,
"My wife's in labor, you have to help her!"
Almost immediately, doctors and nurses crowded around Rachel and sat her on a hospital bed.
"How far along is she?" a nurse asked Bo as the doctors helped him place her gently on the bed.
"Seven months!" Bo answered. "Her name's Rachel Duke, an' I'm her husband Bo."
The nurse began scribbling on a clipboard. She pointed her pen at Rosco. "Are you Rachel's father?"
The sheriff puffed himself up, a little insulted at the question. "I most certainly am not, I'm her brother-in-law!"
The nurse paused to stare at the middle-aged man for just a brief second, probably thinking that Bo and Rosco were brothers and was trying to figure out how that was possible. She shook her head and began asking more questions.
"Is she allergic to any kind of medication?"
"Not that I know of," Bo answered, getting fidgety as someone began placing an IV in Rachel's arm. Someone turned her on her side and stuck a shot in her spine, drawing a slight cry from Rachel. Bo started panicking. "What are they doin' to her?"
"An epidural, it eases the pain of delivery," the nurse spoke calmly.
"I'm gonna call your uncle an' Daisy," Rosco whispered, placing a hand on Bo's shoulder as he left. Bo simply nodded, not in much mood to converse right now.
"All right, Mr. Duke, follow us please to the delivery room and let's see if we can get that baby out," the nurse smiled, tucking her clipboard under her arm and escorting him down the hallway where the doctors had begun to rush Rachel.
"She's six and a half centimeters!" a doctor called out. "Everyone get ready, we're havin' ourselves a baby!"
Bo sat in a chair beside Rachel's bed and held her hand, which she squeezed as hard as she could. She couldn't feel any pain but the pressure the baby was causing was killing her. Another contraction hit and she groaned as she felt the pressure increase.
"Contractions are a minute apart," another doctor called out, putting a face mask on.
"Seven centimeters!"
Rachel was sweating furiously. "Bo, I'm scared—"
"It's okay, Rach, you're doin' great. Just breathe in an' out, in an' out."
The doctor got into position. "I see the head crowning! Get ready everyone. Okay, Rachel, now just push. Push!"
Rachel squeezed Bo's hand, gritted her teeth and obeyed the doctor's orders. It seemed impossible. She was already out of breath. She hoped this wouldn't last all night. A nurse began wiping a rag across her forehead to help absorb the sweat and to cool her off.
"Come on, Rachel," the doctor said in a calm voice. "I can just see the eyebrows, keep pushing."
"You can do it, baby," Bo urged her.
Rachel pushed as hard as she could. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally no longer felt pressure and she let out a gasp of relief. She released her grip on Bo's hand and she felt Bo kiss her forehead.
"Congratulations, you two," the doctor announced as he held the reddish baby in a towel. "A beautiful baby girl."
Tears of joy ran down Rachel's face. She couldn't believe that she had finally had the baby.
"So much for Bo Junior," she whispered to Bo.
"Maybe next time," he grinned, giving her another kiss. "What're we namin' her?"
"Chelsea," she said in a tired voice. "I like the name Chelsea."
"We'll get her cleaned up and weighed," a nurse said. "You'll both get to see her very soon."
Rachel and Bo slept peacefully that night in the hospital room, relieved that the anticipation of the baby's coming had passed and that everything seemed to be okay regardless that Chelsea was born two months early. Jesse and Daisy had come by to visit after getting Rosco's call and they all held little Chelsea Duke in turn. Enos had even dropped in to see the new addition. Rosco looked as if he would have loved to hold her but, for some reason Bo couldn't figure out, he denied the offer and left.
The new parents were sound asleep, Rachel in the bed and Bo on the visitor's couch, when a doctor knocked on the door. Bo grunted awake, slipped on a t-shirt, and went to answer. It was the doctor that delivered Chelsea—Dr. Alan Finley.
"Doc?" Bo asked, rubbing his eyes.
"I'm sorry to wake you both," Dr. Finley apologized with a rather upset expression on his face. "But I'm afraid we have some disturbing news about your daughter."
Balladeer: I just knew somethin' was gonna go wrong.
Dr. Finley stood by the bed while Bo sat beside Rachel, who was now awake.
"At first, everything appeared normal with Chelsea, as they usually do. But during the night we noticed that she was turning blue while crying and that her blood pressure was rising."
Rachel put a hand over her mouth and squeezed Bo's hand. Bo asked, "What does that mean? What's wrong with her?"
"I should probably give you a crash course in infant hearts before explaining the problem. In the womb, the fetus receives oxygen from the mother so it has no need for its lungs until birth. The oxygenated blood from the mother bypasses the lungs by going through an opening between the two atria called a foramen ovale. That way the fetus immediately receives the oxygenated blood. When the child is born, the lungs inflate and the baby can take in its own oxygen. This causes a pressure gradient between the two atria and the foramen ovale normally closes up due to this pressure on its own.
"In Chelsea's case however, her foramen ovale has failed to close up on its own. Some blood is able to go from the right atrium to the lungs, but since the foramen ovale is still open, a lot of that oxygenated blood keeps returning from the left atrium to the right and keeps making the loop through the lungs without ever leaving the body. In simple terms, she's slowly suffocating. It might go own for decades, appearing to be asthma, but the best thing to do is to go ahead and go into surgery."
Rachel had tears running down her face. Bo gulped before asking, "What can you do?"
"The best thing to do is go into surgery. We'll measure the diameter and circumference of the opening and patch it up with an alternative substance. I, however, am not allowed to perform the surgery seeing how I am not a cardiac surgeon. I need your permission to allow a colleague of mine, Dr. Larry Reynolds, to operate on Chelsea."
"Yes, of course we give permission!" Rachel burst out. "Anything to save our baby!" Bo nodded in agreement.
"Very well. I'll send Dr. Reynolds to meet with you and discuss the matter further."