Sylvie was walking up the stairs to beautiful Townhome but was so exhausted she couldn't even appreciate it. She set on the stairs and waited. Diego came running out of the house. "Dad sent me to check on you, do you need help?" Sylvie had just hit 34 weeks; she felt like a house, even though she only looked about six months pregnant, she was out of breath. The doctors were having trouble keeping her iron levels and hemoglobin in normal range and she had had pneumonia twice in the last ten weeks which meant she was exhausted and short of breathe a lot and paired with the baby taking up residence under her rib cage she was miserable.
"I'm okay honey, can you just ask dad to come here please." Sylvie tried to talk normally so she didn't scare Diego. She couldn't move, she didn't even think she could make it back to the truck, this was their third house today and she was positive she had over done it.
"Babe, what's wrong?" Antonio stooped down next to her and grabbed her wrist, instinctively checking her pulse, Gabby had taught him how after the second or third scare she'd had. He worried constantly about her; it terrified him to leave her home alone while he was at work. She frequently woke up gasping for air in the middle of the night. Gabby spent every day she was off shift with Sylvie to babysit her and his mom would come over on days when neither could be there.
"I'm done…can't breath…can't walk…need to go home" she was trying to catch her breath between statements. He scooped her up and carried her to the truck.
"Give me a minute, I gotta get Diego and let the realtor know we're leaving." He ran back toward the house.
"I'm going to call the OB emergency number and see what the nurse says to do." Antonio pulled out his phone and hit the number. Sylvie started to protest but gave up immediately. Antonio pulled onto the side of the road and was having a conversation with the after hours reception nurse. "They said take you to the Emergency Room" Sylvie nodded still unable to catch her breathe.
Antonio pulled back out into traffic and hit his lights and sirens on his truck. He called dispatch and let them know he was coming in with sirens and was transporting a patient. He pulled up into the ambulance bay and Dr. Choi and Maggie were waiting for them with a wheelchair. Antonio jumped out and helped get her out of the truck, he jumped back in the truck and moved it up a little and told Maggie he was leaving it there, she nodded at him letting him know it was fine.
They got Sylvie into a room got her on oxygen and started an IV for fluids, OB came down to check her and cleared her. Whatever was happening didn't involve the baby. "We need to stop meeting like this, you know you can just ask me to hang out at Molly's if you wanna see me that bad" Dr. Choi joked with Sylvie, she smiled at him through her mask. "I….like…seeing…you…in….your…scrubs…I ….think….they're…sexy" she teased back gasping between each word. This was the eighth time Sylvie had been in the emergency room in the last ten weeks. Twice for Pneumonia, three times for breathing problems, twice for fatigue, and now today, she was guessing pneumonia again, she was on a roll she thought. "Well let me check you out so we can figure out what's going on this time…at least we know it's not the babyhe said putting his hand on her stomach.
April walked in with a breathing treatment, "Here's the albuterol, do you want her to start it now or wait?" she asked the doctor. "Go ahead, no sense in wasting time"
"So what is it this time Ethan?" Antonio asked returning from taking Diego to the waiting room to wait for Antonio's mom to pick him up.
"Pretty sure it's pneumonia again, I had April start the nebulizer and I'm going to run a couple more tests to confirm but I'm pretty confident so I'm ordering the antibiotics right now, so we can get you out of here asap." Antonio thanked Dr. Choi and set in the chair next to Sylvie and grabbed her hand.
"Hey Sylvie, you're a paramedic remember that an O2 sat of 87 will make you hypoxic, you need to will your self above a 92." She tried to laugh; she knew Ethan was joking with her.
"Antonio can I talk to you in the hall?" he got up and followed Dr. Choi to the hall, Sylvie was falling asleep.
"If she can't stay stable we're going to have to admit her for a longer period of time to try to get this pneumonia under control, this is the third time she's had it in 10 weeks. I'm going to write you a prescription for an O2 monitor and I need it to be constantly monitored, if it falls below 92 again, you get her here fast and we're going to keep her. I'm also going to get her set up with an oxygen machine for home, she is going to need to be on oxygen constantly."
Antonio was starting to get used to this routine, he pulled out his phone and started texting Gabby letting her know what was going on. He then texted Voight and let him know not to call him in for anything, it was pretty much a rule that Antonio didn't get called in after hours unless it was life or death at this point but he wanted to let Voight know what was going on. He started flipping through apps on his phone, trying to find something to entertain himself.
There was a knock at the door and Antonio looked up, it was Dr. Kinney, Sylvie's OB and Dr. Choi. "Hey Antonio, Dr. Kinney just happened to be in the hospital delivering a baby and we filled her in on what is happening today" Antonio nodded his head.
"Can we go down to a meeting room and talk?" Dr. Choi led them out of the room into a room with a table and chairs. "Okay so this is where we're at, your daughter is still measuring two weeks small, it's not a huge concern, I think she's big enough that if she was born today she would be just fine, I would only worry about her lungs." Antonio was confused. "She not being delivered today right?" he asked concerned.
"No, but I do want to try to give her two more weeks, load her up on steroids for her lungs and deliver her then, I think Sylvie has been through enough at this point and I'm scared that if she was to go into labor and she had pneumonia, there might be some major complications or if her 02 sats fall too low again and no one catches it in time she could die, I'm not willing to risk it." Antonio's head was spinning.
"We're going to schedule a C-section for two weeks from yesterday, I don't think it's wise to induce her, I think we just need to get the baby out as soon as possible." Antonio didn't know what to say, "Are you sending her home today or admitting her?"
"She can go home as long as we get her back above 92 but she needs to be constantly monitored, there's an alarm on the 02 monitor that needs to be set for 92 and if it drops she needs to be brought straight here and she's going to go up for an emergency C-section, I think we've reached critical point, do you understand?" Antonio nodded his head, he knew Sylvie was extremely sick but they were actually talking death, he was terrified.
He made his way back to her room and set next to her bed, she was sound asleep, he leaned into her stomach and started talking to the baby, he generally only did this in the confines of their home but he thought this a was a conversation he needed to have with his daughter.
"Sophie baby, it's daddy," he was whispering trying not to wake Sylvie. "I need you to get big and strong really fast, mommy is really sick and they need to take you out early so nothing bad happens to either one of you, I don't think I could survive if something happened to one of you" he felt fingers run through is hair, he looked up to see Sylvie staring at him.
"Hey baby, do you feel any better?" she gave him a thumbs up. "Dr. Kinney came to talk to me, you think you're well enough to talk right now or do you want to wait till later?" she pulled her mask down and said "now is good".
"They're scheduling you for a C-section in two weeks." She shook her head no "it's too early, she's too small" she breathed heavily.
"They're really concerned about you, they said you both could die if they don't deliver her. They're going to load her up on steroids and try to get her lungs to mature faster, she said she isn't concerned with her weight that she will be just fine."
She pulled her mask down again. "What do you think?" he leaned back in the chair, sighed heavily, and rubbed his palms down his face. "I think if I lost you, I couldn't live anymore and that if I had to see you lose her, it would destroy both of us. You have been sick for eight and a half months, you've given up your life and your health for her, you have to be baby sat everyday and I haven't slept in weeks because I lay there listening to you breathe because you stop all the time." She just stared at him, she knew he was right. She took her mask down and whispered okay.
He picked her hand up and kissed the back of it. "They are putting you on an 02 monitor that needs to be constantly monitored and an oxygen machine, Ethan said there's an alarm on it and he wants you brought in if it drops below 92. If that happens they are doing an emergency C-section." She groaned knowing that was a definite possibility. "When can I go home?" she just wanted to go to her own bed, she was exhausted. "We're just waiting on test result, antibiotics, and your sats need to be above 92."