Chapter 58
"I'll pay for the seat. Her husband is on his way from Geoje right now."
"Geoje? That's going to take a while."
The driver clicked his tongue.
After ending the call, Gain turned toward the others.
"The amniotic fluid is yellow. It's stained with meconium."
Oh Dayoung picked up a bundle of suction catheters.
Starting with the thinnest, she fitted them between her fingers one by one.
Ma Seunggu opened his eyes and stood up.
He took the smallest blade from the pencil case he had brought, a premature-infant laryngoscope blade barely the size of a little finger, and attached it to the handle.
He checked that the light at the tip worked.
Then he placed a thin neonatal tube on the warmer's shelf and began folding down his fingers one by one.
His lips moved as he silently repeated the inspection sequence.
"Blade, check. Tube. Suction. Oxygen."
Ma Seunggu pulled the oxygen cylinder into the space between the delivery table and the warmer.
"We've got one cylinder and two people who might need it. Better put it in the middle so we can reach it from either side."
Bae Sora said nothing.
She brought a wheelchair and headed toward the elevator.
"Director, I'll wait downstairs and bring her straight up."
"We'll come with you."
Oh Dayoung and Im Gain followed her.
Ma Seunggu waved them away.
Apparently, he had no intention of going downstairs himself.
***
11:35 p.m.
A taxi stopped in front of the half-raised shutter with its hazard lights flashing.
Under the interior light, the back seat was visibly dark with moisture.
Moon Hyejin's face was pale, and she was sweating heavily.
"Hyejin, you did well getting here."
Oh Dayoung and Bae Sora supported her under both arms and helped her into the wheelchair.
Gain took Hyejin's notebook and read it.
[10:30 p.m. — 4 minutes]
[10:48 p.m. — 3 minutes]
[11:05 p.m. — 2 minutes 30 seconds]
[11:21 p.m. — 2]
The farther down the page Gain looked, the shakier the handwriting became.
The final entry was so large that it occupied almost half the page.
Hyejin had not even written the word minutes.
"Who's paying the taxi fare and cleaning fee?"
"We'll pay you now and bill her husband later."
Gain answered.
The taxi driver looked a little embarrassed.
"There wasn't much traffic this late, so we got here quickly. I won't charge the late-night surcharge. Let's say a hundred and twenty thousand won, including the cleaning."
Moon Hyejin gripped the wheelchair's armrests and curled forward.
She was breathing harshly.
Without taking her eyes off Hyejin, Gain said,
"Here you go."
She took the money from her wallet and handed it over.
Oh Dayoung called out,
"Please give us your business card and a simple receipt too. We need something for our records."
"Here you are."
Moon Hyejin looked up at Gain, still gripping the wheelchair.
"Doctor, it feels like my body is being torn in half."
The taxi driver hurriedly scribbled the amount on a receipt.
Gain took it, folded it, slipped it into her pocket, and turned around.
"Let's go upstairs."
Tears streamed down Moon Hyejin's face.
"My sister was thirty-eight weeks too."
"Follow my breathing, Hyejin. Slowly, just like me."
Bae Sora skillfully calmed her as she pushed the wheelchair.
Oh Dayoung held the elevator.
The doors closed.
Moon Hyejin stared up at the changing floor numbers, clutching her notebook against her chest.
"My sister said they kept telling her everything was fine."
"That's what my brother-in-law told me. Even at the very end, everyone kept saying she was fine."
Bae Sora glanced at Gain.
Gain silently mouthed a message to her.
Don't tell her everything is fine.
Understood.
Normally, Gain would not use divine power simply to comfort or calm someone.
But Moon Hyejin was literally trembling with fear.
When a pregnant woman became severely anxious, the secretion of catecholamines increased.
Those hormones constricted the uteroplacental blood vessels.
As a result, the amount of oxygen reaching the fetus decreased.
I need to reassure her.
Gain crouched in front of the wheelchair until she was at eye level with Hyejin.
"Hyejin, you've arrived safely. We're all here with you now."
She gently took Hyejin's hand and sent a tiny amount of divine power through it.
Hyejin, who had been trembling and crying uncontrollably, raised her swollen eyes and looked at Gain.
"I think I feel a little better. Will my baby be all right?"
"As soon as we get upstairs, we'll listen to your baby's heartbeat. I'll tell you exactly what we hear and how fast it's beating."
Moon Hyejin nodded, then held her breath again.
Gain used her wristwatch to time the contraction.
Fifty seconds.
By the time the elevator stopped, the contraction had ended.
The delivery room was directly in front of them.
Bae Sora wrapped a blood-pressure cuff around Hyejin's arm beside the delivery table.
Gain washed her hands and immediately put on gloves.
"I'm going to examine your cervix. It might be a little uncomfortable."
The cervix was already six to seven centimeters dilated.
On either side of the pelvis were bony projections called the ischial spines.
Beyond them, Gain's fingertips touched something firm and smooth.
The baby's head.
It had descended about one centimeter below the level of the ischial spines.
"Six to seven centimeters dilated, station plus one."
Gain looked at Hyejin.
"Hyejin, you're going to meet your baby tonight."
In obstetrics, the baby's current position was called station +1.
It would take more time for the cervix to open completely and for the head to descend farther, but they were already well past the halfway point.
Although Hyejin was a first-time mother, she had patiently endured nearly fourteen hours of contractions since lunchtime.
Thanks to that, her cervix had been dilating faster than it did in many first-time mothers.
If everything continued smoothly, she might reach full dilation and deliver within the next one to three hours.
While Gain performed the examination, Bae Sora established an IV line.
Oh Dayoung wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around Hyejin's arm.
"I'll turn on the monitor."
Oh Dayoung switched off the warmer.
Only after confirming that its fan had stopped did she turn on the fetal monitor.
Gain removed her gloves and spoke to both nurses.
"The fluid is meconium-stained. Continuous fetal monitoring."
"Blood pressure, 118 over 76. Temperature, 36.9 degrees."
Oh Dayoung removed the cuff and the thermometer from Hyejin's armpit.
Then she secured two transducers in place with belts.
The recording paper began to emerge, and the fetal heart-rate line fluctuated gently up and down.
Ma Seunggu placed his pencil case on his lap.
"Should I prepare for surgery?"
"Not yet."
Gain studied the tracing.
"Baseline is 140. There's variability, and there are no decelerations."
Variability was the slight fluctuation in the fetal heart rate visible on the tracing.
When a baby was receiving enough oxygen, the heart rate naturally fluctuated even within a single minute.
If the tracing became as straight as a line drawn with a ruler, there were three possible explanations.
The baby might be asleep.
Painkillers or sedatives administered to the mother might be taking effect.
Or the brain might no longer be functioning properly because it was not receiving enough oxygen.
The third possibility was the one that required medical intervention.
Gain had prepared for the worst because of the meconium-stained fluid.
For now, however, the tracing was reassuring.
"The baby's heartbeat is normal."
It was a good thing she had already sent a little divine power into Hyejin earlier.
"No need to prepare for surgery?"
Gain shook her head.
"Not right now."
"Call me if anything changes. I'll be right here."
An anesthesiologist would normally wait in the duty room and come out only when surgery was necessary.
Gain was very grateful that Ma Seunggu had chosen to remain nearby.
"Thank you. I'll tell you immediately."
