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great, but she’s having a bit of trouble, so the nurse is going to give her some oxygen. She said that babies often don’t cry when they’re born by C-section. Makes sense though. Right, Nic? Many times they are sleeping when the doctor reaches in and lifts them out, so they barely make a noise. Ella is in good hands, doll. She’ll be okay.”
    Yet I could see the doubt registering on Eric’s brow. He also felt the unspoken medical diagnoses that had been dancing around us since Ella’s birth. Something wasn’t right, but
what
we did not know. Without needing to say a word to each other, I knew both Eric and I were wondering whether or not the doctors were aware of the problem and not telling us the update — or if they were completely unsure themselves.
    After about two minutes of the nurse working on Ella, a second one joined her. From what Eric told me, they were aggressively rubbing her all over, trying to get her blood moving and her breathing stabilized. Five more minutes passed and the nurses told Eric that they felt Ella should go to the nursery. “It’s just a precaution,” the nurse who had joined Nancy explained. “She’ll be in a better place in the nursery where we have more available to us to get Baby’s breathing under control.”
    It irked me that the nurse wasn’t calling our baby by her name. From the minute she entered the world, we had given her the name Ella, and the nurse had heard us calling her by her
name
.
    The nurse continued, “Dad can come with Baby, if you’d like, or he can stay here with you. Whatever you’d like.”
    â€œOur baby is Ella. Would you mind calling her by name, please? And Eric should go with her. I’ll be okay.” I grimaced, pain starting to hit my body, but not from the staples being punched in by Dr. Marlow. “Go, go, Eric . . . I’ll be fine. Please, I want you to be with her.”
    Eric squeezed my hand and kissed my cheek before hurrying off in his head-to-toe hospital scrubs. He followed the nurses who were wheeling Ella in a baby cart — lined in a multitude of pink blankets — out of the room and down the hall to the nursery.
    Caught up in my own rampant hurricane of thoughts, I didn’t even notice that Dr. Marlow had finished the surgery. I was lifted by a medical team of four onto my hospital bed. They wheeled me into the recovery room, but said nothing. I was grateful for the silence. I couldn’t speak and I didn’t want to.
    After an eternity of waiting, Eric joined me in recovery and told me Ella’s breathing had improved slightly, but still wasn’t where the doctors wanted it to be. They had intubated her, and she was in an incubator.
    â€œDr. Lorel, the pediatrician on call, has ordered blood work so we can better understand what is going on. They said they will come and get us once they have the results.” Eric squeezed my hand again. “Your parents are in the waiting room, and mine are on their way. She’ll be okay, Nic. She’ll be okay.”
    â€œI’m scared,” I squeaked out, interrupting him. The voice coming from my throat wasn’t my own. “And I’m supposed to be holding her right now. She needs her mommy.”
    â€œI know, baby. She’ll be with you soon. Right now she’s in the best spot possible for her. Dr. Lorel isn’t leaving her side. And we’ll know more soon.”
    â€œCan I see my mom?” I asked, suddenly wanting no one but my own mother to hold my hand.
    â€œI’m sure it would be okay, given the circumstances. I’ll go to the nurses’ station to make sure. You sit tight.”
    Eric returned with my mother in tow. She walked straight to my bedside and gingerly took me in her arms, kissing my head, careful not to strain my post-surgery body. “I know, sweetheart, I know. It’s very scary. We’re all scared. But Ella is with the best