I do not own Star Trek, any of the canon characters, nor do I make any profit from my writings. One more chapter to go, the wait is almost over, baby!
Waiting For Baby
After a busy day, Bones had just stripped off his clothes and prepared to jump into the shower. He was looking forward to his pajamas, the latest medical journals, and a hot toddy. However, it was not to be. His comm link buzzed, he had a call from Spock.
"Doctor, I am bringing Nyota to Sickbay. She is experiencing abdominal pain."
"Okay, Spock. I'll meet you there. Try to keep her calm."
As he redressed himself, the good doctor muttered to himself.
"Damn it, little Hobgoblin Junior had better stay put for another couple of weeks if he knows what's good for him."
Christine was on duty and helped Spock get Nyota settled onto a biobed. Bones arrived moments later and began a scan of Nyota's abdomen while Christine monitored the baby's vital signs. There had been two recurrences of the pain since the first one twelve minutes ago.
Bones read the scan data and told the young couple what they already knew.
"Nyota, you're in pre-term labor. However, your water hasn't broken yet, so I'm gonna put you on some meds to stop it and to speed up the little guy's lung maturity. The baby's vital signs are good. If we get the labor stopped, you're going to have to spend the next two days on bed rest. We'll see what happens from there. Any questions so far?"
Nyota shook her head.
Christine brought an IV setup and prepared Nyota's arm to receive it while Bones continued.
"The first medication you'll receive is a calcium channel blocker. It should stop the labor with the added benefit of lowering your blood pressure some. You might feel a bit dizzy and tired, but at least you'll already be in bed. You'll also get betamethazone, to enhance fetal lung development. You'll get daily blood tests to assess fetal lung maturity."
"Spock, go get the things Nyota needs to be comfortable. She's going to be in Sickbay for a few days."
Spock touched Nyota's hand and sent her love and encouragement through their bond.
"Beloved, Leonard will do everything possible to maintain your health and that of our child. Do not worry."
"I'll try not to. I love you. Hurry back."
Healer T'Mena had supplied Sirin with a small portable oxygen unit in case it was needed. So far, Torel had responded well to trioxin injections. Sirin felt that the biggest challenge would be keeping Torel calm and quiet. The child was intelligent and curious, fascinated by the small diplomatic transport they were traveling in.
Trevel, the ship's captain, was quite proud of the small but swift vessel. He enjoyed showing the children the ship's inner workings. He was also the father of a six-year-old and sympathetic to the concerned parents. Trevel was not annoyed when they asked for constant updates for their arrival time in San Francisco nor did it disturb him when they used the comm unit to relay said information to the surgical team that would be waiting in San Francisco. Trevel knew that if his son were seriously ill, he would do the same.
It took several hours for the medications to reach full effectiveness, but in the end, they did their job. Nyota's preterm labor stopped. As predicted, the drugs made Nyota very drowsy, so she had no difficulty sleeping.
Spock, however, was wide awake and sitting in a chair next to her biobed. Bones couldn't sleep either, so he brought in a second chair, a small table, a deck of cards, and two bottles of beer. He set all of this up next to his Vulcan friend.
"Spock, I'm gonna further your education in Terran culture by teaching you a classic card game requiring concentration and memory skills."
"Most intriguing, Leonard. You may proceed."
When Christine came to check on Nyota, she could hardly believe her eyes and ears. Obviously Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock had been up all night and gotten bored.
"Okay, Spock, got any fives?"
The Vulcan shook his head.
"Go fish."
Fatigue won out over excitement and Torel finally fell asleep. The queen-sized bed in Sirin and Rachel's cabin was quite full, as Rachel, T'Lonna, Torel, and Jason were all in it. Jason had draped himself across the bed's foot. Esther slept on the couch with Hannah. Sirin meditated in an armchair, one ear listening to Torel's breathing.
Trevel quietly knocked on the cabin door, bringing Sirin to full attention.
"We will reach the San Francisco Shuttle Terminal in three hours. A police escort will accompany you to the hospital."
"Thank you, Captain Trevel. Your service honors us."
"I am honored to be of service, Healer Sirin."
Nyota had a steady stream of visitors in Sickbay. Her friends all seemed to know that she needed company. She was used to working hard and staying busy. It would be very hard on her if Dr. McCoy insisted that she spend the rest of her pregnancy on bed rest.
Nyota needed something to keep her mind occupied. One simply could not expect such an intelligent woman to spend the next several weeks knitting.
Fortunately, the perfect project was provided by none other than Starfleet Command in the form of a directive from Admiral Komack himself. He knew that Nyota had worked with Spock on the interactive Vulcan and Romulan courses. Now that the Federation would be having more involvement with the Jorians, Erdrusians, and Nalthusians, it only made sense that an interactive Jorian language course be developed.
As Nyota had just spent weeks researching and learning Jorian and its dialects, she was the logical choice for such an undertaking. The work could be done in her quarters and from bed if necessary. Even Bones approved, knowing that a bored Nyota would be tempted to do too much physically. However, like Spock, she could work at an engaging project for hours and hardly move a muscle.
Two days after she had been admitted to Sickbay, Nyota was released. Bones informed her that he would not enforce strict bed rest, but that he wanted her to spend most of the day with her feet elevated. She could move around her quarters cautiously and take the occasional meal in the Rec Room.
Jim had her removed from the watch bill and duty roster, telling her that the Jorian language course had priority, but that she was to work on it no more than four hours a day.
Spock took both his friends aside after getting Nyota comfortably situated in their quarters.
"Jim and Leonard, I wish to thank you both for your care and concern for Nyota and our son. It means a great deal to me."
Bones seemed to blush.
"Just doin' my job, Spock."
Jim smiled at his Vulcan friend.
"Hey, I'm helping to take care of my nephew. You're gonna name him after me, right?"
The look of near shock on Spock's face was priceless.
"Jim, Nyota and I have decided on names from our family heritage..."
"Spock, I was just kidding."
Jim chuckled as Spock looked somewhat relieved. He had provoked two emotional responses in less than a minute.
Considering that it was just after four in the morning when they arrived in San Francisco, the family had quite a welcoming committee waiting for them.
Two vehicles from the Vulcan Embassy were there, one to take Sarek, T'Sela, and T'Shana to the Ambassadorial Residence. The other would whisk Sirin, Rachel, and Torel to San Francisco General, accompanied by a police escort.
Lewis had brought Abuela Corazon with him in the family van. They would take Esther and the other kids to their house. Once they were all tucked in, Esther would join Rachel at the hospital.
Sirin had to give Torel more trioxin while they were en route. He had gotten very excited over his ride in the sleek and shiny vehicle, so much so that he began to cough and wheeze. However, things were under control by the time they met Jack in the Pediatric Pre-Op unit.
The surgical team were well aware of just how special this young patient was, the adopted child of their Head of Orthopedics. None seemed to mind doing the emergency procedure on a Sunday morning. The little tyke had survived atrocities at the hands of the Romulans. The staff would go way out of their way to see that he was happy and comfortable.
A nurse brought Torel his choice of gowns and surgical cap. He selected cartoon bears and orange slipper socks. A special, sanitized stuffed bear would stay with Torel until he was under anesthesia, and then be returned to him post-op. When Torel was ready for the O.R., Jack came and introduced himself.
"Hey buddy. I'm your Uncle Jack and I'm going to fix your chest so you can breathe better. Your dad is going to stay with you the whole time."
"Uncle Jack, will it hurt?"
"You'll be asleep while I'm doing the surgery. You'll have some pain when you wake up, but we'll give you so medicine to help with that, okay?"
"Okay."
"Good. Give your mom a kiss and then we'll get going."
Rachel gave Torel a kiss and a gentle hug.
"I'll see you later, big guy."
As Jack and Sirin wheeled Torel into surgery, Rachel headed to the waiting room, trying not to cry. Esther was there waiting for her and gave her daughter a hug.
"It's amazing how a kid can capture your heart in such a short time."
"Yes, Mom, it certainly is."
Janice had asked Christine and Pavel to meet her for dinner in the Rec Room. Once they all had some food, she clued them in as to why.
"Nyota's taking it easy and working half days in her quarters. It seems that the baby might come a little early. We're gonna have to hold her shower soon. I checked the duty roster. Spock is off on Tuesday."
Christine nodded.
"That does not give us much time, but I guess we can use the same plan we had for Corri La Plante's baby shower, only blue decorations instead of pink. We can hold it in the Rec Room at lunch time. What do you think, Pavel?"
"Eet ees a good idea. Ve need a party. Already ve are bored vith ze planetary surwey! I vill discuss it vith ze kepten today."
Though completely successful, the surgery took longer than expected. Jack could hardly believe that Torel had managed to survive for over a year, let alone continue to work in the mines. The boy's ribcage had actually been concave instead of convex and his chest bore a huge scar, roughly the size and shape of a large boot print.
Such a blow would have killed a Human child, crushing the heart. Fortunately, Torel's heart was located somewhat lower and to the side.
The fact that someone could do such a thing to a child filled Jack with anger. He managed to keep it under control until the procedure was finished. He personally escorted Torel and Sirin to Post-Op and then went to talk to Rachel and Esther.
"Every thing went great. It just took a little longer than expected. Sirin's with Torel in Post-Op. I talked the Head Nurse into bending the rules a bit, Rachel. You can go back there, too."
Rachel gave Jack a bear hug and hurried to the Post-Op unit. A smiling nurse lead her to Sirin and Torel. The little guy was still unconscious, but he was breathing without assistance. He almost seemed to smile in his sleep. Even his color looked better, as his cheeks had a faint green tint.
Jack hurried home to his own little family and the S'chn T'gai-Silverstein kids, reassuring them that Torel was just fine and would come home from the hospital in a couple of days. This brought a round of applause and hugs.
"Good job, Daddy!" said Sonrisa.
"Thanks, Princess. Daddy's gonna go take a nap now."
The kids all insisted on tucking him in and giving him hugs and kisses. When they left the room, though, Jack found that he could not sleep. He was haunted by images of Torel's damaged chest, Sonrisa's broken feet, Karl's malnutrition, and by the knowledge of what might have happened to Krysta if she had remained on Hellguard.
Lewis found him sobbing uncontrollably and comforted him.
"Jack, I know the universe sucks sometimes. We can't change that. All we can do is try to make our little piece of it better. You excel at that and you make us all very proud."
Jack just nodded and hugged his mate.
Nyota's project was enjoyable and challenging. Spock had to act as policeman, making sure that she did not over tire herself or exceed the limitations Jim and Bones had set on her working hours. He even set a timers to give her a fifteen minute warning and another telling her that work must stop.
The young mother-to-be used her down time to catch up on correspondence. She sent messages to all of her family and Spock's. Gaila got a really long one, with the details of an event she had been sorry to miss.
"Hey Gaila, it's Nyota. Yes. I'm still pregnant. I've got three weeks to go. My Jorian language course is coming along just fine. I should have it done by the end of the week."
"I'm glad to here that you decided to stay in Starfleet and that you'll be able to do your refresher training soon. I hope you can get posted to the Enterprise. I miss you and it would be great for my little guy to have a playmate close to his own age."
"We had some excitement last week. On Monday, Spock and I boxed up some unneeded stuff for the storage unit. People have been so generous with baby gifts. Actually they've been a little too generous. I mostly sat on the bed and sorted through things. Spock hauled it all away with Pavel and Hikaru's help. They also mounted Spock's harp and guitar on the wall. That gave us room in the closet and floor space for the baby furniture."
"The next day, we met Len and the Captain at breakfast. Jim actually volunteered to help Spock put the baby furniture together and to move the rest of the stuff I cleaned out of the closet. We had a busy morning, including having to deal with even more gifts arriving from family members. We had planned to have lunch in our quarters when the strangest thing happened. We got a page from the bridge."
"The Captain said he had an emergency situation an emergency situation in the Rec Room that required us both to be present. I was a bit annoyed, as it was our day off. Besides, only Jim Kirk could have an emergency in the Rec Room during a planetary survey mission. But, orders are orders, so off to the Rec Room we went."
"The nature of the "emergency" became clear when we got there. The Rec Room was decked out in balloons, stuffed toys and gifts wrapped in pastel paper. On a table at one end was a cake with blue icing letters, clearing stating "It's A Boy!" People yelled "SURPRISE! " Spock looked stunned and confused, so I explained it to him.
"It's a baby shower, a party held in honor of expectant parents. There are gifts, games, and food. It will be fun, beloved. They've done this because they are our friends. Relax and enjoy it."
"Spock just shook his head over the shower games. Fortunately, as one of the guests of honor, he was not required to play. The attendees had to unscramble a list of popular baby names and guess how long a string it took to go around my middle. They did this by cutting lengths of string off a ball, and then comparing them to one Spock had actually run around my belly. "Cupcake" was the big winner on that. Pavel won the fastest time for diapering a baby doll. The Captain only managed to diaper his own hand!"
"Hamed made Spock's favorite veggie burgers with all the trimmings for lunch. Scotty had spiked the punch, of course, but he had apple juice for me. The cake was delicious, carrot and raisin with cream cheese icing. However, between you and me, I'm dying for a brownie. It will just have to wait because chocolate is an intoxicant for Vulcans, not the best thing to feed your unborn child!"
"After the cake, Christine passed me the gifts to open. Janice wrote down what they were and who gave them, making it a lot easier for me to send the thank you notes. Everything was so beautiful. Gaila, there were so many gifts. We got certificates for over one-hundred hours of free babysitting! Even Spock was moved by the generosity of our friends, especially that of Janice, Christine, and Pavel who planned the whole thing."
"Afterward, Jim and Scotty helped Spock carry everything to our quarters. I had to start the sorting process all over again. I still haven't figured out what to do with all these stuffed animals. Our friends Jack and Lewis keep sending them, even though I've begged them not to."
"Anyway, like I said, we've got three weeks to go. I saw Len this morning and he said the baby's lungs are completely mature, it would be safe for me to deliver any time now. I love you and I'll keep you posted. Spock knows to call you after the delivery."
"Bye for now. Nyota out."