Chapter 4: A Baby and You
July 11, 1997
Roberto Mancusi felt helpless as he sat by his wife's bed in the Intensive Care Unit at Chicago Mercy Hospital. His family's contributions might make the nurses bend the rules and let him visit outside of regular hours but they couldn't buy his wife a cure. Nothing could.
In spite of his anguish he almost had to laugh at the surreal reality that, even as she was dying, Claudia had been correct. It was a virus. Well, actually two viruses: Influenza A and Enterovirus D. Unfortunately, viruses could also cause sepsis, septic shock, hypoxemic respiratory failure, and myositis. The list had rolled so smoothly off Dr. Thornhart's tongue that Bobby had wanted to punch him. He hadn't done it of course. Dr. Thornhart might seem like an insufferable academic but the word was that the man who had recently completed his Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship at Rush was the best Chicago Mercy had to offer. If anyone could save Claudia and his unborn child it would be him.
Unborn child? Apparently, Claudia was pregnant. Bobbie hadn't known that. He hadn't had an opportunity to ask if Claudia herself had known that. A part of him almost hoped that she just hadn't known because otherwise it begged the question of why hadn't she come to him and happily shared of their blessing? She knew he wanted children. Perhaps that was the point. He had made it clear to her that he wanted children, yet, he had never asked her how she felt about children. He had just presumed that, because he wanted them, they would have them. He could see now that was a problem. Part of honoring his wife had to include some degree of respect. He was afraid he had failed her there by presuming she shared his views. What if she didn't? What then?
Those questions were without any easy answers. Bobby knew that. If Claudia didn't want to be pregnant, he didn't think he could force her to be. That couldn't possibly be love. But she was pregnant and he couldn't imagine them destroying a life they had created. So, he found himself praying almost as fervently that Claudia would see the pregnancy as a blessing as he was that Claudia and the baby would survive. Perhaps an all-knowing God could fix what he might have just messed up.