Dana, my closest friend and emergency contact, stood beside me holding a paper cup of ice chips as though it were the only weapon she had been allowed to bring into the room.
She kept telling me to breathe.
I kept insisting that I was breathing.
She pointed out that growling did not technically count.
The joke might have made me laugh under different circumstances, but another alarm sounded before I could answer.
A nurse named Rachel studied the fetal heart-rate monitor and frowned.
Medical professionals should not be allowed to frown silently near frightened patients.
The expression made my stomach tighten more than the contraction had.
“The baby’s heart rate dipped again,” she said.
Dana’s grip tightened on my shoulder.
Rachel adjusted my IV and checked my blood pressure again.
The numbers were still moving in the wrong direction.
“The doctor should be here any second,” she said.
