Page 3 of Stone Vows

He walks away, chin up for perhaps the first time in a long while. He thinks I’ve done him a favor. He thinks that by giving him eighty bucks, I’ve somehow improved his life. He has no idea how much it’s just brought to mine.

Before I go back inside, someone sitting on the bench outside the ER catches my eye. It’s a young blonde woman. A pregnant woman. Sitting alone in the dark. After midnight.

I walk over to her. “Miss, are you waiting for someone? Can I help you with anything?”

She looks up at me with teary eyes and a sodden face. “I . . . I’m bleeding,” she says, nodding to her protruding belly. “But it’s late and the clinics are all closed.”

“I’m going to get you a wheelchair,” I tell her. “You need to be seen right now.”

“But I don’t have insurance,” she says with tentative eyes.

I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. We’re required to treat everyone in the ER.”

“You are?” she asks, looking relieved.

“Yes. What’s your name?”

“Uh, Elizabeth,” she stutters.

“Wait here, Elizabeth. Don’t get up. I’ll be right back.”

I quickly go inside to get a wheelchair and ask a nurse to come with me. I brief her on our way out. “Pregnant woman. Maybe early third trimester. Vaginal bleeding. Name’s Elizabeth.”

I help Elizabeth into the wheelchair, noting there isn’t any blood on the bench where she was sitting. That’s good.

“I’m Dr. Stone, and this is Jessica. We’re going to get you inside and see what’s going on. How far along are you?” I ask, as we wheel her towards an examination room.

“Thirty-two weeks.”

“And when did the bleeding start?”

“Earlier today,” she says.

“Can you tell me how much blood? Was there enough to soak a feminine pad? More?”

“I—I don’t know. I guess I used a couple of pads. It started out light. I noticed a few spots when I used the bathroom. Then it got a little heavier. Am I in labor?”

“We’re going to find out. Have you been experiencing contractions? Or have you had any back pain?”

“No contractions. And my backalwayshurts, so there’s nothing new about that.”

Jessica hands me a chart and I start on it while she helps Elizabeth from the wheelchair into the bed. “You say your back hurts a lot?”

“Yeah, but I think it’s because I’m on my feet quite a bit.”

“Are you a waitress?” I ask.

“No.” She shakes her head, looking embarrassed. “I walk dogs.”

“I see.” I make some notes in the chart.

I tell Jessica, “Order an H and H, coagulation studies, and get her started on fetal monitoring. And page OB to do an ultrasound.”

I turn back to Elizabeth. “Jessica is going to get you into a gown and then we’re going to run some tests to see what’s going on. Is there anyone you’d like us to call for you?”

She shakes her head and looks at the ground. “No. There’s no one.” Then she looks up at me with a forlorn face. “It’s too early, right? Thirty-two weeks is too early to have my baby. So much can go wrong.”

I walk over next to her and put my hand on hers. I notice her skin is velvety soft as I rub my hand on it to reassure her. I look down into her blue eyes, pooling with unshed tears. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure you make it to full term. But if this baby wants to be born today, there might not be much we can do about it. Thirty-two weeks is early, but not too early. Plenty of babies born at thirty-two weeks are healthy. Let us run the tests and then we’ll take it from there. Okay?”

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