"Doctor Green!" Burke exclaims as he sees me filing some paperwork and looking over some charts. It was getting late at night - almost my home time, as surprisingly, I hadn't been asked to stay on call tonight - although that was about to change. "Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd is looking for you, Mrs Allen went into labour an hour ago, the twins are here."
"What? She's only thirty-two weeks pregnant!" I exclaim, checking my pager as I put down the files and raced to the elevator with him. "Did she say anything?"
"Doctor Shepherd is operating on the boy; he has hydrocephalus and they're in the OR right now. The girl seems to be doing alright, but she needs a little help with her breathing. She's doing fine right now, she's intubated. Karev is looking after the boy and Addison wants you looking after the girl. Your only job is to make sure that she makes it through the night." When we make it to the floor the babies are on, Addison is waiting for us outside of the mother's hospital room. She waves at Burke as he walks in the opposite direction and quickly escorts me to the private room where the girl is.
"Did Burke explain what's going on to you?" She asks and I nod. "Alright. I'm leaving in an hour and I'll be back at seven. You just need to do whatever you can to make sure that she makes it through the night. That her stats stay stable, do whatever you can do to make sure she stays alive."
An overwhelming fear set in as Addison left and I realised the pressure that I was under, that a baby's life, who was just an hour old, was in my hands and that whatever happened to her I was responsible for. I'd never experienced this kind of pressure before and it was scary because I didn't want to let Addison, the parents, the hospital or most importantly, myself down. I took a deep breath and pulled up a chair by the desk that was in front of the baby's incubator where the notes that Addison left me sat. In my head I kept repeating premature life support and what to do if a baby's heart stopped so that if it happened, I'd be prepared.
A few minutes later a nurse incubated the baby boy and was soon followed by Alex, who handed my a cup of coffee before sitting down in the chair in front of the baby under his care.
"Thank you." I say, wrapping my hands around it and I instantly feel the heat radiating from the cup, warming up my hands.
"Don't worry about it, I figured we'd need it. It's going to be a long night." He sighs. "How's she doing?"
"She's having some problems breathing properly by herself so she's intubated. I just have to make sure she makes it through the night until Addison gets back in the morning. What about the boy?"
"The surgery was good, we drained out most, if not all of the liquid. It's just making sure that he makes it through the night, too. We just have to make sure we don't fall asleep."
"Honestly, when she was talking to me and explaining what I have to do tonight, Addison scared me so much that I'm terrified to even blink." I laugh, lightening the mood a little bit. "This...this is so unbelievably scary."
"We're going to be okay," Alex assures and I look at him to see him looking back. "We'll get through this together."
It wasn't until three in the morning that we experienced our first real problem. I had checked on the mother a few times and each time she had been asleep and the father visited before he left. I was sat watching the twins - Alex had gone to get some coffee - when the girl's heart rate dropped and she wasn't taking in a sufficient amount of oxygen to keep breathing. I began to hyperventilate as I quickly opened the incubator and called for a nurse.
"What's going on?" The nurse says, rushing in and looking at the screen.
"Her heart rate's dropped, where's Alex?" I question as I try to feel for a heart beat. He'll know what to do. "What do we do?"
"Doctor Shepherd says you have to figure it out for yourself." The nurse says. I begin to panic even more knowing the baby could be dying and the compressions don't seem to be working.
"Oh God, oh God..." I try desperately to search for the answer, my earlier preparations completely forgotten. "Okay, push her on some epinephrine." The nurse gives the baby some and it's just about enough for a few seconds. "CPAP. We need to put her on CPAP right now." The nurse goes to fetch one and as she comes back, I adjust it to fit the baby and press it on to her and cross my fingers. I nervously look at the nurse who's watching that I'm doing a good job and we wait.
Her levels soon get back up and I sigh with relief.
"Good work."
"Thank you."
Alex came in a few minutes later and I'm sat with my head in my hands, trying to control my breathing. He places a cup in front of me before kneeling to my level.
"Are you alright?" He asks. I look at him and frown, but I nod.
"She stopped breathing... It was terrifying. She almost died because I couldn't figure out that we needed to put her on CPAP." I reply.
"But she's fine now, she's breathing. You figured it out eventually. She's alive because of you, you helped her." He says reassuringly. I nod and he takes his seat back. I keep taking deep breaths and stare at the clock on the wall. 3:10 AM.
"Only four more hours to go."
It's around six forty five in the morning when Derek Shepherd comes in to check on the baby boy after his operation the previous night. I watch as he asks Alex questions about how he went on during the night before he walks over to look at the girl. He admires her over the incubator before he smiles at me.
"Are you alright?" He asks and I nod. He has a concerned look about him and I can sense that he probably knows something.
"Addison told you, didn't she?" He nods. "Yeah... I'm alright." I say as I mess with my engagement ring a little bit.
"Good. Addison will be here in a few minutes." As he leaves Doctor Bailey walks in to check on us.
"Alright... Nice work you two." She says, coming in to look at the babies. "Once you're done here make sure you go and get some rest, I'll come and get you in a couple of hours. I wish I could tell you that you could go home, but we're a little low on people today..."
"That's alright, I can't really sleep at home during the day anyway." The truth was that I didn't really want to go home yet to avoid confrontation with Jack. I already know how it's going to end, anyway, so I might as well prepare for it for as long as I can.
When Addison finally walks in a few minutes after seven, she thanks us and lets us go and we head straight for the on call room with a quick detour to the locker room, to get some sleep.
"I call top bunk." Alex smirks as we walk into the on call room.
"Lucky for you, I wanted the bottom one." I say as I pull off my shoes and my scrubs and pull out my phone. "You don't mind if I call someone, do you?" He shakes his head no. I begin to call Jack and he doesn't answer, but he's left me a voicemail from six this morning.
"Uh, hey, Alexis... I guess we need to talk about last night, so, call me, call me whenever suits you." I turn my phone off and stare at my phone, wondering how he had the nerve to be so rude and snappy with me.
"What's wrong?" Alex asks. He'd sat next to me while I made the phone call and was now staring at me intently.
"My fiancee is a jackass, that's what's wrong." I reply, putting my things on the table next to Alex's things and running a hand through my hair.
"If he's such a jackass then why are you with him? Why waste your time on somebody who's not worth it?" He shrugs.
"It's...complicated, I guess. I just have to figure things out." I say, although I pretty much already had it figured out. He'd slept with somebody else on our anniversary night. It was pretty much over. And even if he hadn't slept with somebody else, he was going to break things off anyway. He obviously wasn't coping with my job and how much time I have to spend at the hospital and he doesn't respect that I'm an intern and this is my job. "We should get some sleep."