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The operating room was freezing, but it didn’t come close to the arctic level of cold inside her.
Briar shivered as she lay on her side, a pad wedged between her thighs to absorb the blood still coming out of her as the anesthetist pushed the needle into her lower back. She used the bite of pain to center her, push back the building wall of emotion that grew higher with each passing minute.
“Okay, spinal’s in,” he announced.
The door swung open and the female doctor walked in dressed in scrubs, a surgical mask loose around her neck. “Your friend said to tell you she contacted your husband. He’s on the way.”
For some reason that pushed her precariously close to losing the fight against the tears scalding the backs of her eyes. She could do this alone but she would much rather have Matt here. “Where is he now?”
“I’m not sure.” She glanced at the anesthetist, gave Briar a smile. “Almost ready. Let’s get this baby born.”
It had been less than a minute since the spinal went in but already her lower body was numb and unresponsive when she tried to move. A weird, unsettling feeling. She hated feeling trapped and helpless, and right now she was both.
The team positioned her on her back and began putting up the privacy barrier across her middle that would hide the procedure from her view. She didn’t mind blood and guts, but didn’t want to see her own as they operated.
As she lay there, the numbness in her lower body seemed to creep higher, reaching her lungs. All of a sudden it was harder to breathe.
A burst of panic flashed through her. “I can’t breathe,” she blurted out, breaking into a cold sweat. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t get enough air.
“The sensation you’re feeling is normal,” the anesthetist said behind her. “Just try to relax and keep breathing.”
Relax? Was he fucking kidding right now? Her baby’s life was in danger and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
But she did as he said, struggling through each breath, hating every second of this yet more terrified that her baby wouldn’t make it. Or that it wouldn’t survive long after being born.
That was too horrible to think about. She didn’t know what she would do if the baby died, and Matt... He would be leveled.
She wished he were here. Trinity had offered to come in with her during the operation and the doctor would have allowed it but Briar didn’t want anyone except her husband and if he couldn’t be here then she would do this alone.
The slow blip of the baby’s heartbeat beeped in the background. It seemed even slower than it had a few minutes ago.
Hurry, she urged them, battling the inclination to snap it. She was numb from the chest down. She just wanted the baby out so they could help it.
“All right, Briar. Can you feel this?” The doctor had her mask on now, a surgical shield over her face as she looked at Briar over the top of the blue curtain. A team of nurses stood by, ready to assist and whisk the baby off to the NICU once it was born.
Briar shook her head, unable to feel a thing but the heaviness in her lungs and the fear eating through her carefully constructed control. Each breath was an effort, like she had to force her lungs to inflate every time she inhaled. The shock made everything worse.
In a few minutes, she was going to be a mother. It was so hard to wrap her mind around that, or to move past the fear of what she would do if something was wrong with the baby.
“Okay, then we’re ready,” the doctor said.
Briar braced herself for what was coming, closed her eyes. Almost over. Stay calm. You can do this. Just please let the baby be all right.
Nausea welled up out of nowhere. She opened her eyes. Swallowed repeatedly, willing the sensation to pass, and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering while she worked to breathe. Everything about this was worse than she had imagined.
Motion to the right caught her eye. She turned her head in time to see another nurse push the OR door open. “Hang on, we’ve got a last minute addition to our group,” she said, smiling at Briar.
Hope exploded inside her. Her heart stuttered, and when Matt appeared in the doorway dressed in scrubs and a hair net, she almost gave into the need to burst into tears.
He strode straight to her, his face filled with concern. “Hey, sweetheart.” He bent and kissed her softly, gripped both of her hands in his warm ones when she reached up to him. Then he gave her a smile. “I made it.”
The jagged edge of fear receded. She couldn’t answer, her chest and throat were too tight. Instead she pulled his hands to her mouth and held them there, grateful to be able to have him here as her anchor. The cold and apprehension were still there but now they were bearable with him beside her.
“Here you go, dad,” a nurse said, sliding a chair in behind him.
Matt tugged his mask into place over his mouth and nose and sat behind Briar’s head, joined their hands and resting them on her chest. Somehow he made it seem easier to breathe. She’d been so damn scared until he’d walked in and now she didn’t have to carry the load alone.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he told her softly, rubbing his thumbs over the backs of her knuckles. Calm. Steady as ever.
“I’ve made the first incision,” the doctor announced from the other side of the low curtain. “You doing all right?”
“Mmhmm,” Briar managed, her jaw still shaking a little from shock and cold. It felt like her whole body was quivering.
“Good. Now you’re going to feel some pressure.”
A dozen different emotions all churned inside her. She was still afraid for the baby, but there was also hope and excitement and shock.
She tensed when she felt the pressure on her stomach. It was strange because she couldn’t feel any pain, and knowing she was lying there cut open like a fish was unsettling in its own sense.
“All right, now some tugging. Just keep breathing, you’re doing great.”
Briar looked up at her husband. Matt met her gaze, his clear green eyes visible above the edge of the surgical mask.
Calm. Solid. She drew strength from him, calmed her heart rate. Matt wouldn’t let anything happen to her and the baby. The thought wasn’t logical but she didn’t care. She absolutely trusted him to ensure her safety.
“So, are you two ready to meet your baby?” the doctor said a minute later.
Briar held her breath, her heart thudding hard against her ribs. She dug her fingers into Matt’s hands, felt him squeeze tight. Yes. Yes, I’m ready.
“Suction.”
A sucking sound filled the room. More tugs, more pressure.
“And...it’s a girl.”
The words pinged through Briar’s mind like a ricochet. A girl? She’d been convinced it was a boy, but ohhh...
I have a daughter.
A tiny, thin cry split the quiet. The sound of it twisted her heart, her brain instantly recognizing it as her child. Briar jerked her head up off the table, her gaze locked on the partition blocking her from seeing what was happening. Matt set a hand beneath her head to bolster it.
The doctor lifted the baby up above the level of the curtain. “Here she is,” she announced.
Briar stared, not even daring to breathe. The sight of her daughter was so surreal. Red and wrinkly and so heartbreakingly tiny. So fragile. “Is she breathing?” she demanded.
“Yes, she is,” the doctor said, and lowered the baby back behind the curtain. “She’s a beauty.”
The NICU team took over. Briar dropped her head back to the table and squeezed her eyes shut. Relief and gratitude flooded her. Tears trickled down her temples. She was a mom. She had a daughter. A daughter she couldn’t hold right now because the baby was too fragile.
Matt pressed his cheek to hers. “She’s beautiful,” he said in a choked voice.
Briar nodded and clung to his hands, clamped her lips together and tried to stop crying. At the sound of something being wheeled across the floor, she opened her eyes. The team was pushing an incubator past her. Briar caught one last look at her tiny daughter lying naked on the blanket inside, and then they rushed her out of the room.
A fierce wave of protectiveness rose up, tinged with the sharp edge of panic. If she had been physically able to jump up and run after the baby, she would have.
She reached up and pushed at Matt’s shoulder. “Go with her,” she begged, unable to stay calm. “You need to go with her.”
He wiped the tears from her face. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“No. I’m fine. Go with her.” She was trapped on the table, frantic with the need to be with her baby. She at least wanted Matt there with her, to make sure everything’s okay.
He hesitated, then pressed a kiss to her forehead and got up. “All right. I’ll go check on her and see you when you’re out of recovery. Don’t worry, honey, she’s safe and in good hands.” He kissed her again. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” she said, and he left.
The doctor was saying something to her now, something about what she was doing to close the incisions but Briar was past hearing or caring as she wiped at the tears of relief and exhaustion. She didn’t care about anything at the moment except her helpless baby daughter who had just been taken away from her.
****
Hard to believe this was real.
Matt stood in front of the large viewing window outside the NICU, still dressed in his scrubs while the team of nurses busily tended to his daughter over in the far back corner. He was still reeling from the events of the past twenty-four hours. He was a father now.
His chest tightened as he watched the nurses work on the baby. He and Briar hadn’t even picked out names yet, because they’d thought they had lots more time to do it. They had planned to talk about it this weekend during their getaway.
Whatever they decided on, it needed to be special. Maybe something to honor Briar’s Palestinian or Venezuelan heritage. Something from the life she’d had with her parents before the accident, before becoming a Valkyrie had changed everything. Though he was grateful for the hardships she’d endured too. Without them, he and Briar would never have met.
A nurse checking on a baby closer to the window noticed him standing here. She popped around the doorway to smile at him. “Are you baby DeLuca’s daddy?”
The words hit him unexpectedly hard, like a punch to the ribs. Oh, shit, he was gonna choke up. “Yes.”
“Come on in. They’ve got her all sorted out now, so you can say hi. Just be sure you scrub your hands again as soon as you enter.”
His heart thumped in his ears as he walked into the nursery, washed his hands again and headed for the far corner. Another nurse saw him coming, smiled and moved aside a little. “She’s doing great. Breathing on her own and her initial vitals look good.”
Matt stepped closer, and the sight of his daughter lying there almost snapped the last thread of control he had over his emotions. “She’s so tiny,” he said, his voice rough.
“Four pounds, nine ounces. That’s a good size for a thirty-three weeker.”
Barely over four-and-a-half-pounds. Jesus. Her little diaper came up almost to her chest and they’d put what he surmised must be a feed tube into her nose.
He moved closer to the incubator, mesmerized, dying to touch her. He glanced at the nurse. “Can I...?”
“Of course. You can’t hold her just yet, but you can touch her. Go ahead and get acquainted.”
Matt drank in every tiny detail of his daughter as he reached in to touch her. The thick cap of dark brown hair on her head, the tiny dark eyebrows and lashes.
His hand looked huge next to her, big enough to cradle her entire body in his palm. She had no fat or muscle on her. He was afraid of hurting her, she was so small and delicate-looking.
Moving cautiously, he reached out his forefinger and gently stroked the thick, fluffy hair on her head. So damn soft, like a baby duckling’s down. “How is she?”
“She’s doing beautifully. Her suck/swallow reflex isn’t well developed yet, but that’s normal for this stage. She’ll come along fast, you’ll see. She’s strong.”
“She’s a warrior, just like her mama.” A teensy little Valkyrie, half him, half Briar. God, it was so incredible.
Feeling braver, he reached down to touch one tiny, perfectly-formed hand. She twitched, raised her thin arm and curled those impossibly small fingers around his. Reaching for him. Holding tight, the solid grip surprising him.
A painful squeezing sensation in the middle of his chest stole his breath, his heart swelling so full he didn’t even know what to do with it.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said softly, his voice unsteady. “Happy birthday.”
The baby’s eyes opened a fraction, the gaze hazy and unfocused. But for that split second he was sure she looked at him, and he felt the instant connection between them forge like steel inside him. Unbreakable.
A tissue appeared before his face.
He glanced over at the nurse beside him, not realizing until that moment that he was crying. He wasn’t even embarrassed, too overwhelmed to feel anything else. God, he’d never imagined it would feel like this. That he could be this in love this soon.
“Thanks,” he murmured and quickly wiped at his eyes, completely overcome.
She grinned. “You’re welcome. Moments like this are my favorite part of the job. They more than make the long shifts worthwhile.”
Matt went back to studying his daughter, talked to her some more. God, he wished he could hold her. Cuddle her right to his chest so she could feel his heartbeat. She recognized his voice, right? He’d read that somewhere. “You’re so beautiful. Your mom and I love you so much already. You’ve had kind of a rough start, but everything’s gonna be okay now.” He stroked the back of that little hand with his thumb, drank in every last detail of her, unable to look away.
“I need to check her vitals again,” a nurse said gently behind him.
Matt moved aside but didn’t pull away, his daughter still clinging to his finger. It slayed him.
Reaching beneath his scrubs into his back jeans pocket, he pulled out his phone to take some pictures. He zoomed in on that tiny hand wrapped around his finger and hit the button, convinced it was the most beautiful and amazing picture anyone had ever taken.
“Here, let me get some of the both of you together,” another nurse said.
“Great, thanks.” Matt handed her the phone and posed, didn’t have to put any effort into the smile that was damn near splitting his face it was so wide. Briar wouldn’t be able to come up here for a few hours yet, but he could take this to her along with some video at least. He was so fucking proud of her. She was a fighter, his wife, and the mother of his child. Today she’d given him the most amazing gift in the world.
The nurse gave him back the phone and he sat next to the incubator for another ten minutes before reluctantly pulling free of his daughter’s grip. It tugged at something inside him to leave her, but he needed to see Briar, reassure her everything was fine and make sure she was okay.
“I have to go see your mom now,” he told the baby. “She’ll be anxious to see these pictures and hear what’s going on. But I’ll see you soon.” He stroked her unbelievably soft cheek with his fingertip. “Love you,” he whispered.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her,” one of the nurses said. “And when your wife comes up from recovery they’ll bring her in to see baby.”
Matt nodded. “She’d like that.”
On the way down to see Briar, a million thoughts and feelings raced through his mind. He was so unbelievably grateful he’d been here for this, but his job had almost prevented it. This was what was important. Not his career. Not his team. Not whatever crisis he needed to respond to.
Briar was throwing up into a tray when he entered the recovery room.
Shit. Matt rushed over to wrap an arm under her shoulders to hold her up while the nurse assisted. He laid her back down, took the cloth the nurse handed him and wiped at Briar’s damp face.
“This been going on long?” he asked her, smoothing her sweaty hair back from her forehead.
“Long enough,” she groaned, and reached for his hand. “How is she?”
He couldn’t help but grin. He was so damn proud, totally in love. “She’s perfect.” The most perfect baby ever born, as far as he was concerned. “She’s breathing well, she’s warm, and everything’s working as it should. They’ve got a feed tube in her. She held my finger, look.” He pulled out his phone and showed her all the pictures.
Briar stared at them all, her eyes suspiciously moist. “I want to see her.”
“You will, as soon as they take you upstairs,” he promised. God, he wanted to hold Briar, but she was sick and he didn’t want to hurt her. “I know we didn’t get the chance to talk about this much, but what do you want to name her?”
“I thought she was a boy, so I only picked boys’ names. Did you have any girls’ names picked out?”
“A few, but I changed my mind once I saw her.” He laced their fingers together. “What about something with Rose in it?” Her parents had named her Wardah, Arabic for rose. Her Valkyrie handlers had changed it to Briar.
Something soft and vulnerable flashed in her eyes as she gazed up at him. “Oh. I like that.”
He did too. And after all Briar had been through, she deserved to have something to honor her past. “Rosalie? Roseanne. Rosemary.” No. “Roselynn?”
Her expression brightened. “Roselynn Patricia. After me and your mom.”
It touched him that she would suggest it and include his mom that way.
She reached for his phone again, scrolled through the pictures and stopped on the best shot of their daughter’s face. “Yeah, Roselynn. But Rosie for short. She looks like a Rosie.”
“Rosie,” he said, testing the sound of the name. Yeah, it suited her. “Perfect.”
Briar smiled at him. “Rosie DeLuca.” Then the smile faded and she expelled a hard sigh. “I need to see her.”
Matt leaned over to kiss her forehead, squeezed her hand tight. “Soon. I know it’s hard. You’ve both been through a lot, but the tough part’s all over and I’m here now to look after both my girls.”
He would always be here for them.
