Chapter five

AN: If you would like to read this entire story and more, please go to my website: stargateforever .com Thanx!

The afternoon sun beat down on him as he checked the measurements of the concrete foundation. He made some notes on a pad of paper he carried with him. Jack was just putting the notes and the laser measurer into his back pack when he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. He looked toward the sound and saw a Jeep heading his way at break-neck speed. He recognized the driver; it was Teal'c. The Jeep skidded to a stop in the dirt not far from where Jack stood.

"O'Neill! You must come with me! Samantha needs you!" he called out from the open vehicle, his expression showing uncommon concern. Jack ran for the Jeep and climbed inside, tossing his pack into the back seat as Teal'c slammed the truck into first gear and roared off toward town. Jack hung on tightly to the door with one hand, his other hand clutching the seat, not in fear of Teal'c's driving abilities, but fearful of what he would find once he got back to town. Sam wasn't due for three weeks.

"What happened?" Jack asked loudly, trying to be heard above the sound of the engine.

"Samantha and Shan'auc were decorating the nursery, and I was playing with the children in the living room. Shan'auc called out to me. She said that Samantha could not stand. I saw that she was in great pain. I told Shan'auc to stay with the children, while I took Samantha to the hospital. The doctor said to find you as quickly as possible."

"Thanks, T, I'm sure glad you were there!"

To Jack the ten minute drive seemed to take forever, but finally they were pulling up in front of the infirmary.

"You go stay with Mellie!" Jack yelled as he jumped out and ran inside. Teal'c headed over to the apartment building to be with Shan'auc and the girls.

Jack couldn't believe how quiet the place was, even though normally he would have thought that was a good thing. Like Janet Frasier had always told him, a quiet infirmary meant that people were well and not in need of her services. Jack remembered her smile when she'd said it, which reminded him that he needed to contact her. He was certain that, if at all possible, Janet would come to be with Sam.

Finding no one at the nurses' desk in the front lobby, he hurried down the hallway to where he knew the baby nursery was located, impatiently pushing open doors to rooms as he searched for his wife. The rooms were empty. In the nursery he found one woman holding a baby, and he asked her about Sam. She pointed him to the far end of the wing to another desk, and this time there was someone there. A woman Jack recognized was sitting at the desk. It was Sam's OBGYN, Dr. Jane Vernon.

"Doctor! Where is Sam? Is she okay?" he asked. She stood up and walked around the desk, before speaking and taking his hand.

"General." People still were in the habit of calling him that, even though he'd been retired for months. "I'm glad you're here. Sam is experiencing some very strong contractions. But since she isn't due for several weeks, the baby is not in position to be born yet. I see from her records that she had a similar experience with Malinda, but that time they were able to induce labor?"

"Yah, that's right. So what are you going to do? Is there any way to stop the labor? I mean postpone it?" He had been reading a lot of things on the internet lately, including articles about possible birthing problems. He had hoped that none of them would happen with Sam this time, but apparently hoping didn't make it so.

"Yes, there are drugs that will sometimes slow down the contractions, but in Sam's case I'm not recommending that we use them."

"Why not? Wouldn't that be the best thing for the baby?"

"Normally I would say 'yes', but in Sam's case there may be a need to take the baby now. Sam's blood pressure is rising."

"How soon will you need to make a decision?" he asked, his face lined with worry. He knew the risks involved in any surgery, but he also knew that a sudden rise in blood pressure could be deadly. It meant that Sam could have a stroke!

"Very soon. I am going to check on her progress now. You may come inside in a couple of minutes." Jack nodded and followed Dr. Vernon a short distance down the hall, waiting outside the room until she stuck her head out and motioned to him. Then he cautiously stepped inside and walked quietly over to the only bed in the room. Sam looked pale and small as she lay there, lifting one hand slowly toward Jack. He took her fingers in his and squeezed gently, noticing the tear stains on her face.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing going into labor this early?" he asked with a laugh as he continued to hold her hand. It had always been Jack's way to try and bring levity to a serious situation, and this time was no different. His attempt wasn't lost on Sam, but she didn't smile. Instead she looked very worried, which he knew was not a good thing for her or the baby.

"Come on, honey, give me a smile, won't you?" he said, bending down to place a kiss on her dry lips. He had been with her when Mellie was born, but this time she looked very different...more fragile and tired...and that had Jack very worried.

"Sorry, Jack, but I'm afraid there's something seriously wrong!" Suddenly her face morphed into a mask of pain, and Sam cried out. "Ahhhhhh! God, Jack, it hurts! Why does it hurt so much?" she asked, clutching her belly as she bent over in the bed.

Dr. Vernon had been taking Sam's blood pressure, but she dropped what she was doing and picked up the phone.

"Sam, I'm going to have you taken to delivery now. It's time your baby was born," Dr. Vernon said calmly. She gave some orders over the phone. Then she abruptly hung up and came around the bed, waving Jack toward her. He followed her to the door.

"You're going to do the surgery now?" Jack asked nervously.

"Yes, General. I have no choice." And then as she pulled him aside, just as the door opened and two orderlies rushed in with a gurney. As they stood back and watched the men move Sam from the bed to the stretcher she added in a hushed voice, "She's not dilating, and her pressure has risen dangerously high. You can wait outside the surgery. Someone will come out and get you ready, and then you can come inside." When Jack looked at her with a shocked expression, she continued. "You do want to see your daughter being born, don't you?"

"Yah, of course! I just never thought... Is the baby big enough to make it on her own?"

"I think she is. She's probably only about 5 pounds, but that's larger than a lot of babies who make it just fine. General, I know this isn't the way you expected things to go, and surgery sounds kind of scary, but I've performed a lot of these, so don't worry." And then Sam was being wheeled out of the room and down the hallway, with the doctor following along behind. Jack, who felt like he was in a fog, trailed after her.

Jack watched them wheel Sam through the big door, and then he sat outside in the hallway and waited, his mind going back to the day Malinda was born.

It had been the rainy season then, and Jack had carried Sam from his Jeep and into the new hospital, so she wouldn't have to walk in the mud. They had both been thankful that the new building had been completed well before Sam's due date, specially since the baby had decided to come early. They weren't even living together back then, but they had grown very close and were have sex regularly. Jack had been afraid that he'd done something to bring on her early labor, and now he wondered the same thing.

That time the doctor had given Sam a shot of something to hasten the contractions, and after that Mellie had been an easy delivery, arriving in only four hours. Jack had been with her the whole time, coaching Sam through the labor and holding her in the delivery room as Malinda came into the world. He could still remember the pride he felt when he held the baby; even though she was not his biological child, he had already come to love her as though she was.

"She looks like you, Sam," he had told her.

"She looks like her father," she had said, and Jack had to agree that there was something about her nose that did favor Martouf. But Jack didn't say it aloud, and he tried not to think about the father who would never see his daughter, as he laid the pink, squirming infant into Sam's arms.

Suddenly a nurse was there for him, and he stood up. She helped him into a blue paper gown, hat and mask, and then she held open the door to the surgery and urged him to go inside. Jack entered slowly, looking around at the surreal scene. The thing he noticed the most was the blood and the open incision. Jack looked at Sam's face but couldn't see much of it, her mouth and nose being covered with a mask, and there were tubes and lead wires coming from several places on her body. All in all the scene looked like something out of an episode of ER, and it scared the bejeezus out of him.

The same nurse who had helped him get dressed in the sanitary apparel stood next to him and urged him to move closer by placing her hand in the middle of his back and giving him a gentle nudge. Then Dr. Vernon looked up and spoke to him.

"General, your daughter is about to be born. As soon as I lift her out, you can cut the umbilical if you'd like," she said, and another nurse handed him a scissors. Jack held them, his hand surprisingly steady under the circumstance. He had seen many things, including a few surgeries and births in his time, but he'd never seen a baby leave her mother's body in this manner.

Dr. Vernon reached in and worked her hands around the baby until she had a firm hold on its ankles and the back of its neck. Then she turned it slightly and lifted it out through the incision feet first. She laid the infant down across Sam's stomach and cleaned out off her mouth and nose with a sterile gauze pad. Then she showed Jack where to cut the umbilical cord above the clamp. He did as told and then waited while the doctor turned the child over and siphoned the baby's mouth. As soon as she did that, the child began to squall her indignation at the sudden intrusion. Jack's face broke into a big, shit-eating grin, hidden by the mask he wore. 'My daughter sure has a set of lungs on her!' he thought with pride.

A nurse took the baby over to the side of the room, and Jack was asked to leave while they cleaned her up and finished up with Sam. He knew they still had to remove the afterbirth and sew up the incision. Jack went out into the hallway, thinking that everything had happened so fast, it simply didn't seem real! Remembering his vow to notify Janet, Jack used his cell phone to call communications. He asked them to send a message to the SGC, addressing it to General Hammond, Daniel and Janet. Then he sat and waited for news on Sam.

About thirty minutes later...but seemed like hours...Dr. Vernon came over to him.

"Doctor! Is Sam okay?"

"She's fine now. Her blood pressure is in the normal range. She'll be waking up soon, and then you can see her. She will be in quite a bit of pain, and I will keep her partially sedated for the first twenty-four hours. So don't expect her to be very talkative," she warned him.

"Okay. But she's alright, right?"

"She's very alright, General. And so is your daughter. They've got her all cleaned up now. Would you like to hold her?"

"You bet 'cha!" he said, and then he followed her to the nursery.

When he got there he was told to sit in a rocking chair, and then the pediatrics nurse he had spoken to earlier placed his daughter in his arms. The doctor left to attend to other patients, while Jack sat and rocked his new daughter. He decided right then and there that if this was the only child Sam wanted to have with him, that would be okay. At least he had this beautiful little girl. And besides, he never wanted to go through another scare like today. If the experience had taught him anything, it was that living without Sam was simply not an option.

TBC