Chapter Twenty-two

The pediatric orthopedic ward erupted in cheers, the little patients clapping as best they could with their tiny casts and IV lines, shouting and calling out requests in piping, sweet voices.  Blaine loved it.  He loved an audience, he loved children, and he was discovering that nothing was more rewarding than performing his music for little kids.  He couldn't wait until his little Penny and Ari were born and he could sing to them.  He already was singing and playing music for Ari all day, determined that she would know his voice already when she was born.  He swore to an amused Kurt that Ari was dancing already in time with the music he played. 

As the tots clamored for “one more, please, Blaine!” he reflected yet again, as he had more and more often lately, that maybe a career in teaching music would be a good idea.   He could spend his days doing what he enjoyed doing best: share his love of music with children.   Well.  What he enjoyed doing second best.  But nobody would pay him to spend …alone time… with his handsome husband.  And even better, he would be able to get his teaching degree and become certified as a teacher just in time for Ari and Penny to enter kindergarten, and then his schedule would coincide with theirs.  Summers off with his babies … being able to be there for them when they got off their bus together.  Yes, he was almost certain that was what he wanted.  Kurt was still insisting that he try out for NYADA, that he should be a performer, but …

“Another song, Blaine!  Another!” the little girl next to his wheelchair shrieked, waving her pink cast in the air and hopping up and down.

“Okay, okay!  How about a little Katy Perry?” he offered, chuckling and gently strumming the opening chords to his most recent, child-friendly version of “Teenage Dream”.   With all the time he had to spend in bed, learning to play guitar better had been a godsend and helped keep him sane, and to switch things up with his hospital performances.  At the sound, the crowd of children settled down immediately, their eyes shining up at him expectantly. 

“Before you met me, I was all right,” he started, thinking of Kurt, his darling, sweet Kurt, and the way he'd first flirted with him through these very lyrics.   He smiled happily to himself at the thought, when suddenly, he was seized with a violent contraction, so painful he lost his grip on his guitar and it hit the tiled floor with a musical clatter. 

Nurse Joan, who'd brought him down from the labor and delivery unit, was at his side at a moment, and in another moment, he was being lifted onto a gurney, still wracked with pain.  Dimly, he searched his memory for the advice from the Lamaze videos he had watched, again to Kurt's vast amusement.

“Really?  Ina Mae's Guide to a Smart Woman's Natural Birth?  Are you that bored?” Kurt hooted.  “You're not going natural for this birth, Blaine, remember?  You won't need to breathe or count!”

Blaine gave him an indignant glance.  “It never hurts to be prepared.”

Kurt shook his head fondly.  “Okay, Boy Scout, whatever you say.”

Blaine centered himself, and cleared his mind, breathing deeply.  He managed to ride out the contraction with the breathing instructions he had committed to memory, and was relieved when after a minute and a half, the excruciating spasm of pain subsided.   He realized with a start that he being wheeled into an elevator. 

The gurney was wheeled into position and a friendly face leaned over his, silhouetted by the lights at the roof of the elevator.  “Keep calm, Blaine,” Nurse Joan said soothingly.  “We've paged your doctors.  Looks like it's almost time to meet baby Ari!”

The elevator pinged for the obstetrical floor, and he was being wheeled down the hallway past his room, and he saw Dr. Shelley and Dr. Ryan running to meet him, just as another contraction started building.  Everything was speeding up around him, getting louder and more frantic, and he lost track of what was happening as he focused inward, trying to withstand the pain.  When he returned to his senses, he felt a warm liquid seeping through the jeans he'd worn to visit the children's ward.  “I – something's leaking,” he whispered, clutching Dr. Shelley's hand.  “Something's happening - - “

“Just relax, Blaine, you're doing fine,” she reassured him.  “If it's labor, it's fine - - you're 36 weeks, and the baby's lungs are mature.  We'll just do a quick sonogram to see what's going on.”  They wheeled him into the sonogram room.

Blaine nodded, then clenched down involuntarily on her hand as another pain shot through him, up through his entire abdomen.  The nurses quickly undressed him, and he was helped back into a hospital gown.  He blinked, and through blurred eyes saw Dr. Ryan take a swab of the fluid from where it was pooled on his plastic sheet, then run over to the corner of the room, sitting down at a microscope.

“Okay, time for the gel,” Dr. Shelley said, moving quickly, and soon the woosh-woosh sound Blaine was so familiar with, filled the room.

“It's amniotic fluid,” Dr. Ryan called from the corner. 

“There's no fluid left in the sac,” Dr. Shelley said. “Blaine, it's time.  We're going to prep you for the surgery.  Call for the OR team,” she directed Nurse Joan, who ran out excitedly.

Blaine tried to respond, tried to tell them to call Kurt, but another contraction hit him like a freight train, taking his breath away.  He clutched at Dr. Shelley's sleeve, pleading silently with his eyes and pointing feebly toward his coat pocket for his phone.  She smoothed his hair back from his already sweaty forehead.  “You want Kurt, don't you?” she said kindly.  “I've got him on speed dial.  I'll let him know it's time, but we have to take you in as soon as the OR's ready, honey.  If he gets here in time, that's great, but I'd rather not wait now that your water's broken.”  She pulled the phone from her pocket and started dialing.

The tide of pain slowly retreated, and Blaine gasped, “Let me talk to him?”

Dr. Shelley frowned.  “Kurt, it's Dr. Shelley,” she said, and Blaine wiped his face weakly.  “Blaine's water just broke, and I'm getting him prepped for surgery.  Please give us a call and let us know when you can get here.  We expect to start the procedure in a half hour or less, so … we'll see you as soon as you can get here.  Okay.”

She hung up and smiled.  “Went to voice mail.  Let's get your belly prepped for the incision, and some antibiotics in your IV.  The anesthesiologist will be in to talk to you, and then we'll be good to go.”

“He - - he didn't pick up?” Blaine said, worriedly.  “That's not like him.  He - - he's always so good about picking up - - he knows it could happen any time.   Wait - - I need to wait for him.  I don't want to go into surgery until - - oh, God, it's - - it's starting again …”  he tried to keep his head, keep breathing short, shallow puffs of breath as the pain rose and rose within him.  But he couldn't control the panic that was overtaking him about his husband, who had promised to always answer the phone if he or one of their doctors called, and who always had kept that promise before this.  What was keeping him from picking up?   Why wasn't he calling back right away, like he always, always did, no matter what?   He couldn't go under anesthesia without seeing Kurt.  He needed Kurt here.  He needed to know he was all right too.

The staff bustled around him busily prepping him for surgery, onenurse painting his belly with brightly colored Betadine, and another starting to hang a bag of medication, but he held the nurse's hand when she tried to attach it to his hep lock.  “No,” he insisted, through teeth gritted with pain.  He couldn't form any other words or explanation, other than one.  “Kurt.”