CHAPTER 93:
About another 25 minutes later, Roman had finally made his way up to a fire station despite being waist deep in snow. He began to frantically yell and bang on the door as well as ringing the bell until someone showed up to let him. "Dear God!" a man said as he let Roman inside. "What in the good heavens are you doing out here!?" "Please, I need help" said Roman while out of breath. "My wife and I helped deliver a coworker's baby. Please we need help." "Ok well where are they at?" the man asked. Roman looked on the man's ID tag. "They're at 5000 Washington Boulevard, Mr. Ellis" said Roman. "Apartment 601! My wife…her name is...her name is April Anoa'i." "Ok son, you stay here while I'll get some help" said Mr. Ellis. "Hurry!" shouted Roman as he collapsed onto the floor from exhaustion. Another firefighter rushed to his side. "Sir!? Sir are you alright!?" he called out. But Roman didn't respond.
Meanwhile, AJ had gone over to check Nikki's progress who by then was becoming ice cold. "This isn't good" she said to herself as she began to check Nikki for a pulse. It was weak. "Come on Leati" she panicked. AJ then carefully picked up the baby who was by now asleep but still breathing and warm and with a good pulse. Nikki was still bleeding. AJ did her best to keep the infant warm by placing him under her jacket given that his mother's core body temperature was lowering. She opened up her blouse to undo her bra and gently placed a breast inside of the infant's mouth to which he quickly began greedily sucking. He was understandably hungry as this was his very first meal. She picked up another towel and wrapped it across her chest in order to further keep the feeding little boy even warmer. AJ held the baby until he stopped feeding and as she finished, she redressed herself, being careful not to disturb him. She continued to hope that help would come soon for them as Nikki's condition continued to rapidly deteriorate. Luckily they didn't have to wait too much longer as about another 10 minutes later, two firemen and a paramedic had shown up at the door.
"Thank God you're here" said AJ as she began to remove the baby from her jacket. "No keep him in there!" said he fireman. "I'm Commissioner Ralph Ellis" said Mr. Ellis. "You're husband Joe came to us and told you that you were here." "Where is he?" asked AJ. "He's meeting us at the hospital to get checked out as he passed out" said Mr. Ellis. "Oh my God! Will he be ok?" AJ panicked. "We won't know until we get to the hospital" said Mr. Ellis. "My partner and I shoveled our way over here. Luckily we're just a few blocks down away and from the hospital".
"She's not doing so well" said the paramedic. "Her pulse is low and her core body temperature is registering at 91…she's hypothermic. We need to get her to the hospital stat otherwise she'll go into cardiac arrest, possibly have organ failure and most likely die." AJ started sobbing. "Nikki!" she cried out in distress. "Ma'am you've gotta remain calm alright?" said the second firefighter. "I'll radio them now" said Mr. Ellis. "Lucas, come help Jerry load the patient onto the stretcher."
"What do I do?" asked AJ. "Keep him as warm as possible and follow me. Conditions out there are treacherous" said Mr. Ellis. AJ nodded as she quickly threw on a pair of shoes as Mr. Ellis opened a closet and placed on AJ's winter coat. "Now hold onto him as tight as you can for dear life alright?" he said. AJ nodded and followed the emergency personal out of the apartment after locking up.
They raced over to the hospital where they had the generator running. "We've got a male newborn infant and a 31-year-old semi-conscious female that's going into hypothermic shock as well as an intact placenta!" said Mr. Ellis. AJ quickly opened up her coat and jacket and handed the baby boy over to a nurse who rushed him away. "He was born at 2:07am!" AJ shouted. "And please take care of him! Take care of the both of them!" she started becoming frantic as she looked over and saw that there was a group of four nurses and one doctor were frantically working over Nikki who by then had officially lost consciousness.
"Oh my God!" AJ said tearfully as her hands covered her mouth. A nurse placed an oxygen mask over Nikki's face as another one was inserting an I.V line into her. "Her veins have collapsed!" said a 3rd nurse. "Then insert it in her neck there's no time!" shouted the first nurse. "Come on Cassie you know what to do already!" "Yes Nurse Emily!" said Nurse Cassie as she got out a second I.V line and began to insert it into Nikki's neck. "Come on let's get her into OR 2! Stat!" shouted Nurse Emily. All of a sudden a loud beeping noise began ringing off from the monitor. "Code blue!" shouted Nurse Emily. "We're losing her!" shouted Nurse Cassie. "Damn it!" shouted doctor. "She's…flat lining! Susan Get crash cart!" A 4th nurse named Sharla began cutting open Nikki's shirt as Nurse Susan raced back over with the defibrillator. "It's charging!" said Nurse Susan. AJ looked up at the monitor to see that Nikki had stopped breathing. "Come on Nikki! Please don't fucking die!" she sobbed. The sight was definitely traumatizing for her to see as Nikki was steadily turning blue. Nurse Emily quickly placed the electrodes across Nikki's chest. "Clear!" shouted the doctor as he shocked Nikki's chest.
The Nurse Emily hurriedly changed Nikki's CPAP mask to a non-breather one so that she could begin pumping actual air into her. The doctor proceeded to quickly shock Nikki's chest again but had no response. "Come on damn it!" he shouted. "It's charging" said Nurse Susan. The doctor rubbed the pads together and then shocked Nikki's chest for a 3rd time and was successful at reestablishing a heartbeat. "Ok we got a good rate here" said the doctor. "120/75" said Nurse Sharla. "Ok tell Dr. Travis that he has his 31-year-old coming patient up there and do it now!" shouted the doctor. "And Emily! Get on her and keep that bag pumping! Make sure that you don't lose that heartbeat!" "Got it doctor!" said Nurse Emily as she hopped on top of Nikki and continued pumping oxygen into her."
AJ kept franticly sobbing as she watched them race Nikki away. "Doctor…is she going to be ok?" she asked. "We don't know yet" said the doctor. "She's lost a lot of blood and she wasn't breathing for about 90 seconds. But I will keep you posted." AJ tearfully nodded as she bit her nails. "Oh my God! Please!" she cried out. "Please God don't take them now!" The fire commissioner approached her. "Mrs. Anoa'i?" he said while attempting to console her. "You did a good thing for your friend and her baby. Without the work of you and your husband they would have surely died." He placed his hand on her shoulder. "All you can do now is hope and pray that she'll get through this." AJ nodded as she continued sobbing. "Is there a church here?" she asked. "Yes" said Mr. Ellis. "I'll walk you there." AJ nodded again as she followed him.
After another 45 minutes had passed, she was finally reunited with Roman in a private room. He was hooked up to a monitor and wrapped up with a heater and a plenty of blankets.
"Leati!" she called out as she ran up to him give a hug. "Thank God you're alright." "I'm fine" said Roman. "I just got a little hypothermia that's all. I should be as good as noon within the next few hours or so since I blacked out for a bit." "You blacked out?" AJ asked worriedly. "Yeah but it's nothing I promise" said Roman. "It's just because I over exerted myself while trekking through the snow but trust me April I'm alright now. How is Nikki and the baby?" "I don't know" said AJ as she removed her coat. "She stopped breathing and they struggled to get her back but eventually…they did." "Oh my God April" Roman said. He looked into her eyes and noticed that they were bloodshot red. "Come here baby" he said. AJ went up to hug him again. "They will be alright. She's in much better hands now, but you and I did a great job but she's in much better hands now and I'm very proud of you." "Thank you" AJ said quietly. "I'm proud of you too. And even though they haven't told me anything yet but I was able to get a call out to alert Brie and Bryan of what happened to her and they were worried sick about her since she ran off yesterday." "She ran off?" asked Roman. "Yeah, they think she might have been having another episode or something" said AJ. "They're not going to be able to make a flight out until tomorrow evening."
"So does John know anything yet?" asked Roman. "Has he been notified?" "I highly doubt it" said AJ. A doctor entered along with a nurse who begun to check Roman's vitals. "So how is he doctor?" asked AJ. "He's going to be just fine" said the doctor. "Oh and I have an update about your friend and her baby." "How…how are they?" asked Roman. "Well the mother was indeed hemorrhaging from an intact placenta and from the fact that she tore significantly" said the doctor. "Oh my God" said AJ. "Is she going to be ok?" "Yes she should be and her breathing is still stable" said the doctor. "We gave her a temporary sedative and she should be waking within the next few hours and I must say that if you didn't get help when you did, she would have died."
"And her son?" asked AJ. "He's fine despite his rather remarkable entrance" said the doctor. "He weighs a healthy 6lbs, 14oz and he was 20 inches long." AJ and Roman did a sigh of relief. "Thank you doctor" said AJ. "Yes and as for your husband we will be releasing him tomorrow morning and he should be make a full recovery" said the doctor as he and the nurse left AJ alone. "Thank God" said AJ. "Yeah I'll say" said Roman. "You did a pretty damn good job AJ. Now Nikki will never hate you again." "Yeah" said AJ as she took a seat next to Roman. "I hope so." "By the way, I think you should shower" Roman said. "Really how come?" asked AJ. "You're covered in blood" said Roman. AJ looked down at her shirt. "Oh…right" she said. "I'll go see if I can get a nurse back to get me a gown or something."
A few hours later, Nikki had turned over in her bed to awaken to find that John was in her room sitting in a chair holding her son. Her vision was still a little blurry but she still knew it was him. "W-what are you doing here?" she asked groggily. "Shh you need your rest" said John softly. "You've had a rough day." "Why are you holding my son?" asked Nikki. "I forgot that you've been out of it for the past several hours" said John. "Just answer my question" said Nikki. "Because Nicole" said John. "He's ours". "What do you mean he's ours?" asked Nikki. "The test results are in that envelope if you wanna see it for yourself" said John. "He's even got the same blue eyes as I do."
"Show me them" said Nikki. John got up and carefully walked over to hand Nikki the envelope and as she finished reading it, she looked back at John. "You see I wouldn't lie to you" he said. "I've never have and never will." "Ok…but what are you doing here? How'd you even get here?" asked Nikki. "Your sister told me and I just took a private flight up here as soon as I could" said John. "Besides the storm is long over." "Long over?" asked Nikki. "Yeah it's almost 7 at night" said John. "How long have I…been out of it?" asked Nikki. "A very long time. I've been here for at least 3 hours" said John. "But the day is still the 11th." Nikki slowly sat up in her bed.
"Ow this hurts" she said. "Yeah because you tore really badly" said John. "Not to mention that you coded." "I…coded?" Nikki asked. "Yes Nicole. You stopped breathing once you got here and they had to essentially bring you back to life" said John. "How the hell do you know that?" asked Nikki. "The doctors told me" said John. "Why would they even tell you something like that?" asked Nikki. "Why are you even here John? You never wanted this baby." "That's not true" said John. "Remember how you never gave me a chance to explain anything? Well now I'm going to explain. The reason I kissed you all those months ago was because I still love you and nothing, not even the paternity of this baby could ever change that. I just…I just didn't know how to tell you that and after you confronted me about what I did to you I just started to feel so much shame. Unbelievable, unimaginable shame." "John…I don't know" said Nikki. "You don't have to know now" said John. "You just gave birth to your son, our son and you need your rest."
"So why are you here?" asked Nikki. "Look Nicole I know that we have had our issues in the past but I just want to let you know that no matter what that I want to be here for you and our son" said John. "I could never really abandon my child and you know that, despite what my feelings were about children I could never do that and yes it may have taken me an insane amount of time to realize all of this…but I wanna make it up to you but more importantly to him because for now on it's all about him now as he's going to have to come first before anything else." "So what you're telling me is that you suddenly had a change of heart?" asked Nikki. "In a way, yes" said John as a nurse entered. "Hello Ms. Garcia, I'm here to see how you're doing again" she said. "Here I'll give you some privacy" said John as he gently placed the baby into the hospital bassinet. "I'll be back."
This left Nikki in a confused state of manner towards John. "How long is…is my son's legs going to be like that?" she asked. "And is he going to have a normal life?" "He'll be like that anywhere between a few days to a few weeks" said the nurse. "And yes he should have a well prognosis. The pediatrician will be back here later on tonight to further discuss this with you and possibly put on a little device to help with that." Nikki nodded. "Am I ok?" she asked. "Yes" said the nurse. "You tore quite a bit and you had an retained placenta and we had to remove that from you and give you a blood transfusion so you're going to be here for a little while longer. Not to mention your heart stopped beating for almost 2 minutes so we'll also need to monitor you for any changes in mood or behavior…besides your noted Psychosis and depression as well as any other changes in regards to your brain function which so far is doing alright." "But…I can still have like a normal life right?" asked Nikki. "Of course Ms. Garcia" said the nurse. "And the doctor overseeing you will also return later on tonight to explain more to you."
Nikki nodded again as she began to wonder about John again. She was thankful that he came to see her and their son, but she was still confused and she wasn't quite sure if it was because of all of the medication she had running in her system.
He later returned back with dinner and even spent a lot of time in her room. She watched John hold their son, feed him, changed him and bond with him until he had fallen asleep while sitting up. By then she had made a simple choice after a long and hard decision to finally fill out the birth certificate. She wrote out everything very carefully and beautifully and in between she looked up at John who was still asleep along with their son. She took a deep breath as she placed the cap on the pen. She sat back and took another hard look at what she had written as she wanted to make sure that she had written everything the way she wanted to and she did. So she signed it. Now all it needed was John's signature.
Nikki placed the certificate down onto the table for it to dry and then she turned back over to face John and their sleeping son and with that she herself began to slowly drift off as well. She was so relieved to hear that her son wasn't Roman's and that he was John's and now that she had learned that she and him were going to be ok, a huge sigh of relief came over her and it was the first time in over 9 months since she felt such serenity.
After a while, John awoke to find Nikki was still asleep. He slowly got up and quietly walked over to pick up the birth certificate and he smiled as he read it. "Well I'll be damned" he chuckled. He picked up the pen and uncapped it and he quickly sighed it before carefully laying it back down, his smile never leaving his face as he walked back over to his chair to watch his little family sleep. "I will forever be grateful and thankful for you and for what you mother did to allow you to get here. I'll always be forever grateful and thankful to April and Joe and to everyone else who helped to make sure that you got here safe and I'll…I'll never forget this day" he said to himself as he shed a tear. "I won't. Happy birthday my beautiful son."
Johnathan Ryan Cena IV
Born February 11th, 2015 at 2:07am
6lbs, 14oz and 20 inches
Mother: Stephanie Nicole Garcia-Colace.
Father: John Felix-Anthony Cena Jr.