Page 31 of A Mommy for His Daughter

Seriously, dude. Get a grip.

“Do you have a moment?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

She slipped inside and shut the door, crossing her arms and frowning as she stood there. “It’s Jennifer Yazzie.”

Derek’s heart sank. “She has intrauterine growth restriction, doesn’t she?”

Evelyn closed her head and nodded.

“Damn,” he cursed. “What’s your course of action?”

“Monitor weekly. I explained kick counts and put her on bed-rest. So far the baby looks to be doing well, but it is small for gestational age. I don’t think it would survive the stress of a vaginal delivery, so at thirty-five weeks I want to get to her Sitka and do a C-section. In the Sitka hospital they have a great NICU and that’s the baby’s best chance. Did she ever have rubella as a child?”

“Jennifer? No, she didn’t have rubella. She was vaccinated.”

“And all the tox screens come back clean?”

Derek frowned. “She’s a good kid…er…woman. She doesn’t smoke or drink or anything like that—as we discussed before.”

“I know, but I’m trying to rule out reasons for intrauterine growth restriction. I think there might be something chromosomal going on, and it could be the baby.”

“You want to do an amniocentesis, don’t you?”

Evelyn nodded. “I want to test the baby’s lung maturity and whether the baby will require blood transfusions. Also, Jennifer is RH negative. I would like to administer Rhogam as she lost her first pregnancy at twenty weeks.”

“Right, I do remember that.”

Evelyn nodded. “So there are a lot of factors that put her in the high-risk category. Not to mention the intrauterine growth restriction.”

“Has she given permission for you to do an amniocentesis.”

“She has, but you don’t have the right gauge needle in stock. Nor do you have Rhogam. Sitka can’t take her—their genetic department is overloaded and they don’t currently have any Rhogam. But Juneau does, so I want to go to Juneau and get what I need, then fly the sample to Sitka, where they’ll test it. I’m hoping you’ll let me off for a day or so to get to Juneau and back. Joe Jr. has a car I can borrow.”

Derek couldn’t believe he was about to offer, but he didn’t want Evelyn driving to Juneau and getting lost. And he had an “in” at the Juneau hospital. He could get everything she needed—including a place to do the procedure.

“I’ll take you to Juneau. I’m going there on Saturday.”

“You don’t have to do that. I can arrange my own transportation. I don’t want you to go out of your way.”

“I’m not going out of my way. I was going there anyways. Tell Joe Jr. to get Jennifer to Juneau by Sunday and I can get you access to a safe site to do the procedure. Sunday is an off day, and you’ll have access to the lab.”

“You can get access to the Juneau hospital?”

“Yeah, an old schoolfriend of mine is Chief of Surgery at Juneau General. I can make a call.”

“What about Mo?” Evelyn asked.

“She’s the reason I’m going to Juneau. My late wife’s parents are there and they take Mo every other month for a couple of days. So, do you want to go? Shall I make a call to the chief?”

Evelyn grinned from ear to ear. “I’ll call Jennifer and Joe right now.”

Derek nodded. “Okay. Tell them to be there Sunday evening and we’ll get the amnio done. Then she can rest in the hospital for a couple of days while the results come. I know she won’t want to stay there if you’ve made arrangements in Sitka. It’s hard for her family to get there.”

“Well, if it’s a danger to the baby the Juneau obstetrician can handle it.”

Derek cocked an eyebrow. “You mean Dr. Pearson? He’s the head of obstetrics.”

Evelyn frowned. “Well, I guess I will have to go back to deliver the baby, then, if she’s told to stay put. I hope Dr. Pearson is around Sunday. I would like to speak to him. Thanks, Derek.”

Evelyn left the room and he shook his head, chuckling to himself as he thought about the fire and brimstone that Evelyn was going rain down on Dr. Pearson’s head if she ever got hold of him.

Another reason why he liked her so much. She didn’t seem to back down or shy away from uncomfortable situations, and she was willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to help her patients. His patients.

If she had been any other obstetrician he knew that she would have just packed the patient off to Juneau or Sitka and had the obstetrical team there deal with it. But not Evelyn. She was so involved in taking care of her patients.

---