Not because it was gone, but because Hannah needed a surgeon, not a ghost from her past.
“General anesthesia now,” I said. “We move fast. NICU standing by?”
“Ready,” someone answered.
“Hannah,” I said, bending close one last time before the mask was placed over her face. “Listen to me. You and the babies are going to fight. I need you to fight.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
For a fraction of a second, I thought she might answer.
Instead, a single tear slipped down the side of her face and disappeared into her hair.
Then she was gone under the anesthesia.
And I began.
The surgery demanded everything.
There was no room for memory when blood filled the field faster than suction could clear it. No room for guilt when the first infant had to be delivered with speed and care. No room for questions when the NICU team rushed forward, tiny blankets open, voices low and controlled.
“Baby A delivered,” I said.
A small, fragile cry broke through the room.
It was weak.
But it was there.
The sound reached somewhere deep in me, somewhere I hadn’t known was still alive.
A girl.
The NICU physician took her immediately.
Seconds later, Baby B followed.
A boy.
He didn’t cry right away.
The silence that followed his birth lasted only moments, but I felt each one like a lifetime.
“Come on,” a neonatal nurse murmured from the warming station. “Come on, little one.”
I kept my hands steady, but my chest tightened until I could barely breathe.
Then the baby gave a sharp, indignant cry.
A sound so small and fierce that several people in the room exhaled at once.
The twins were alive.
But Hannah was not safe yet.
Her bleeding was worse than expected. The placenta had separated dangerously, and her body had already endured too much before she even reached us. She had been working through pain, exhaustion, and God knew what else, until her body simply could not keep carrying the burden alone.
“Pressure?” I asked.
