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Chapter 55

"Max?"
He turned around and mustered up a smile as he saw his sister. "Hey."
She pulled him into her arms, her protruding stomach being slightly compressed between their bodies. "How're you holding up?"
"I'm okay," Max answered, unconsciously squeezing his sister harder.
"Have you seen the baby?"
Max nodded, a true smile lingering in his eyes. "She so tiny."
"But she's okay?"
"Yeah."
"That's really good, Max."
"It's too soon to tell if the immunosuppressive drugs have caused any damage, but the doctors are optimistic."
Isabel smiled. "That's really good news, Max."
He nodded, distractedly, while staring into the wall with unseeing eyes.

Max grabbed a nurse that rushed out of the room, his grip tight and demanding her attention. "What's happening?"
"Mr. Evans?"
Tears threatening to spill over, he ignored her question, "Is she dying?"
The nurse turned more fully towards him, seeing the worry in his eyes. "Mr. Evans, there were complications, her heart stopped-"
"I know that god damnit!"
His loud outburst didn't affect the nurse a bit. Having seen numerous of worried fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles, and so on during her 27 years of residency she recognized his anger for what it truly was. Fear.
Speaking calmly, the nurse tried to catch his eyes which were routinely fluttering to the plastic window in the door, trying to see what was going on. "She's bleeding a lot, so the doctors are trying to stitch up the caesarean and they are trying to restart her heart. Mr. Evans, considering your wife's medical history, we were fully prepared for that something like this could've happen. We have the best doctors in there working on her right now."

"How is she?"
Max jumped out of the reverie and looked at the red-eyed Maria who was running down the corridor, with Michael chasing her heels. But before he had a chance to answer, Liz's parents appeared through the swinging doors behind Maria and Michael. With determined strides and an aura of familiarity that someone who have visited a hospital more times than should be allowed, Nancy and Jeff Parker overtook Maria and Michael. Jeff granted Max a look, the father's eyes fearful, while his wife was staring straight ahead, her destination several doors down the corridor.
"Is she okay?"
Max turned to look at Maria and recognized the fear on her face as his own.

He could see the medical staff clearing out of the room, something that didn't make him relieved, but only further heightened his fear. There were two reasons to why they would be clearing out the room. Either they had succeeded and she was okay, or she was dead. He caught the first doctor walking out of the room.
"What's going on?"
"Mr. Evans?" Max sighed internally, but gave the obligatory nod.
"Has anyone informed you of what is going on?"
"I was hoping you would do that," Max said, feeling the sudden need to hit the man in front of him. Could they stop with the politeness already and get to the point?
"Elizabeth's heart reacted to the anesthetics and she had an arrhythmia. The development was fast and her heart stopped."
Max was unaware that he was tightening his fists so much that his nails digging into his skin caused his skin to break. He would look down at his palms two days later and wonder where the wounds came from.
"We were able to resuscitate her. She's stable."
Max's body collapsed against the wall in a trembling sigh. His voice weak, and tears of repressed fear mixing with relief flooding down his cheeks, he whispered, "Can I see her?"
"We have to move her and after that a nurse will let you know when it is okay to visit her."
Max nodded, his eyes reverted back to the window. As his eyes tried to pick up every glance of Liz possible through the nurses milling around, he missed the small sympathetic smile on the doctor's face.

"They say that she is stable at the moment, but that they still need to monitor her closely," Max said.
A trembling, well-manicured hand covered an 'Oh God' and Maria turned into Michael's waiting arms, the built up fear that had been holding her up, keeping her going, diminishing and making her legs weak.
Isabel hugged Max again, thinking that she was doing it for Max without realizing that she was the one needing the comfort more than her brother. It was different for Isabel than it was for Maria. If she had known Liz better she might have formed a stronger bond, a bond that would make her fear Liz's death. But at the moment, all Isabel could think of was her brother and what Liz's possible death would do to her brother. It was the fear of losing him again that made her hug him tightly and the two tears falling on his shoulder were tears of deep-rooted worry - for Max.
Max caught Michael's eyes. "Thank you for looking after Liz."
"Don't mention it," Michael answered, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the heavy gratitude in Max's voice. Michael was happy he had been able to help and to hear that there was a good reason to believe that Liz would be okay caused relief to drown his heart, something that was not visible on his face.

Max looked over in the direction Liz's parents had disappeared to and the suffocating feeling of guilt and inadequacy flooded back up to the surface. He felt torn between Liz and his newborn daughter. Both were floating between life and death and he didn't know who he should visit. Even though the feelings were not completely eradicated, the nurses had made the decision easier for him.

"Mr. Evans?"
Max tore himself away from the plastic window, ignorant to the fact that the image of hospital beds, cables, machines, and scrubs would be forever imprinted on his retina, and looked at the red-haired nurse in front of him.
"Yes."
She extended a slender hand, accompanied by a soft smile, and he took it, needing the physical contact more than he was aware of.
"My name is Anna. I'm the head nurse for your daughter."
"Oh," Max said, feeling as if she was talking to someone else. Talking about someone else's life. It still did not feel real. His daughter's birth did not feel real. How could something that was supposed to be a moment of joy and celebration be transformed into something he wished was a nightmare he would wake up from? Even though it had been difficult to fathom that he was a father when Joshua had entered the world, that situation had been vastly different from the current. Josh had been born the natural way; there had been no complications whatsoever, and Josh, still wet from amniotic fluid, had been placed on top of Tess' chest soon after birth. They had been able to look at the baby, contemplate his smallness and wonder over the fact that they were parents. They'd had time to let everything sink in.

With Liz, it hadn't sunk in. He had been amazed and elated the moment they picked the very small girl out of Liz's womb, but that feeling had quickly disintegrated as Liz's condition had worsened. He was only a father for a few seconds, but Liz had owned his heart for more than a year, and the feelings of fatherhood had quickly dissipated when Liz's heart had stopped, and an indescribable fear of losing her forever had mercilessly put its claws into him. Hearing the tall nurse refer to his daughter frightened him. He had forgotten about his daughter and worse yet, when this nurse had presented herself he feared that she would take him away from Liz. Guilt followed quickly thereafter. It was his daughter, for Christ's sake! He should be elated to hear about her. But all he could think about was Liz. Liz was all that mattered.
"Does your daughter have a name?"
Max blinked, glancing through the window again to see if they were about to move Liz yet. The sooner they would move Liz, the sooner he would be able to see her.
"Miranda."
"Miranda," Anna mused. "That's a beautiful name. Would you like to meet her?"
Her inquire caused him to look at her with mixed feelings of fear and excitement. Fear of leaving Liz. Excitement about seeing his daughter.

Noticing how the man's gaze kept flickering to the plastic window, nurse Anna said, "I'm sorry about your wife."
"We're not married," Max answered thickly, wishing desperately that he had actually proposed to Liz.
"Oh," Anna said. "Has anyone informed you on what's going on?"
Max offered Anna a sideway look. "She's stable, but they are going to move her."
"Yes," Anna said, "They are probably going to keep her sedated for awhile and I'm pretty sure they won't allow visitors during the first hour."
He knew that she was only trying to help, trying to let him know what was going on, but her statement made him want to cry.
"It's up to you, Mr. Evans, but I could take you to Miranda and you could see her, before going back to Elizabeth."
Max looked back at the window, feeling like he wanted to split himself in two. Nurse Anna's message was coming through loud and clear. Since he wouldn't be able to see Liz anyway, he might as well visit Miranda. But something was holding him back, letting the decision sustain its difficulty.

"Will the baby stay in the hospital for long?"
Isabel pulled him back from his memories, forcing him to focus on the present. "Uhm…according to the nurse, premature babies usually stay in the hospital for the remaining time that they were supposed to have spent in the womb. But it really depends on if she is putting on enough weight."
"God, this whole thing feels surreal."
Under other circumstances, Max might try to offer some reassurance by repeating what the nurse had told him, but since the words he had been given had not sound particularly reassuring to him, he decided not to.

As they walked towards the neonatal intensive care unit, Anna informed him of Miranda's condition. She told him that even though Miranda was more or less considered full-term in terms of number of weeks, Miranda, with her 5 pounds and 4 ounces was considered a low-weight baby, and her length of 15 inches was very small. Max wouldn't realize how small until he later laid his eyes on little Miranda. The neonatal intensive care area was intimidating with its buzzing activity. At the beginning, all he could see, and hear, were the machines. Heaters, ventilators, and blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and oxygen monitors. He was attacked by a myriad of beeping sounds, all different alarms for when a value was not right somewhere.
"It can be a bit daunting the first time," Anna said, smiling at him reassuringly, "but you'll learn to ignore it after a while."
Max nodded, his eyes taking in the numerous nurses moving around and next he looked at the small plastic containers, enclosed on all sides, except for the round holes on the long sides, two on each side. He could see how the nurses would put their hands through the holes to touch the small babies inside. His heart lurched at the sight of the babies. He remembered how terrified he had been of possibly hurting Joshua, because he had seemed so small. But this was something else entirely. Some of the smallest ones were the length of his underarm and their faces were hidden behind thick tubes.

Seeing the evident distress on his face, Anna said, "The really small ones have undeveloped lungs and need a tube to help them breathe."
"Miranda?" was all Max was able to say. The sight of the small babies, some not looking quite human in their undeveloped state, was making him nauseous.
"Her lungs are much more developed, Mr. Evans," Anna answered. "She needs some extra oxygen because at this stage her lungs can't get as much oxygen out of the air as her body needs, but that's only through small plastic tubes attached to her nostrils."
Max nodded mutely and almost walked into nurse Anna when she suddenly came to a halt next to one of the plastic incubators. He looked at the incubator, looked through the two sheets of hard plastic at the small baby on the other side.
"Max, meet your daughter."

"Max? Max?"
He turned to look at Isabel, realizing that he had zoned out again. His sister narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing his weary expression and the gray tone of his skin.
"Have you slept at all?"
Max shook his head and opened his mouth to answer, when Maria walked up to them. In the time Max had spent staring at the wall, remembering what had happened the last couple of hours, Maria had gone off to talk to Liz's parents.
"She's awake."
He whipped his head around to look at Liz's best friend and he tried to say something, but Maria beat him to it.
"She's asking for you."

TBC...

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For those of you who are not used to the US system;
5 pounds 4 ounces app. 2380 grams
15 inches about 38 cm