A Whole World (Off Kilter)
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy Summary: Cristina stops by the OBGYN office to figure out why her periods are inconsistent, only to be told that it's a lot more complicated than she was hoping it would be. Warnings: Cryptic pregnancy, C-section childbirth, discussions of ddoption, and heavy emotional angst Word Count: 4,531 Ship(s): Cristina Yang/Owen Hunt
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A cold panic shot like ice through her veins as she realized that it had been a long, long time since her last period. Cristina had been put in charge of operating the blood bank so that they were sure that they had enough for an incoming trauma. While she hated talking with people, she was still very good at getting the information from them. The realization had only hit her after she asked one of the donors if she was pregnant, and had to use the memory device on herself to try and figure out an example. Once the initial rush of adrenaline had finished, she handed the questionnaire over to one of the interns and hurried out of the area despite the calling from both people she had just abandoned.
The entire time that she was in the elevator and then in the waiting room after she basically demanded an appointment from the nurse working at the reception desk. She got up and snapped at the intern that brought her to the room, though she barely thought about it for more than an instant. All she could focus on was the fact that her body might have become an incubator without her consent, again. That could mean that she could have another ectopic pregnancy, which would mean another surgery and possibly the loss of another piece of her organs. It could also mean that she was just pregnant, which was something that she didn't want to have to deal with or think about.
Eventually the resident that was working that day came and called her. Once they were in the exam room, Cristina was asked questions about her last period, sex life, and a couple of other questions about her medical history. Once that was finished, she changed into the examination clothes for a transvaginal ultrasound which would tell them more about what was going on than an external ultrasound. She was waiting on the bed with her feet already in the stirrups when the intern finally came back in.
"Just try and stay calm, Dr. Yang. There's a million other reasons that you could have skipped your period other than pregnancy," the resident said softly. She sat down on the stool and then began to prepare the tools she was going to use for her examination.
"What if it's been inconsistent for months?"Â she asked, one hand resting on her forehead while the other grasped at the stiff foam that the examination bed was made out of.
"Then there could be an issue with hormone levels or stress," she replied, still calm and collected. She adjusted the transvaginal ultrasound a little bit more and Cristina shifted on the bed to try and make herself more comfortable in an incredibly uncomfortable situation. She turned the screen a little bit and then turned it towards her patient. "Okay, Dr. Yang, you were right," she pointed towards the image on the screen. "You're definitely pregnant. This part of the uterus is dark and there's the baby."
"Shit," Cristina whispered as she placed her hand over her eyes. "How far along?" She refused to look at the ultrasound and see the baby. She didn't know how she wanted to feel about this yet.
"Um, about eight months," the resident said as she adjusted the ultrasound probe again to be able to see the baby.
"Months? What is this, your first fucking day in the hospital?" Cristina asked as she sat up and removed the probe from herself. "You don't know how to read a fucking ultrasound."
The resident stood up and placed her hands on the other woman's shoulders. "Dr. Yang! Please, I know that this is a lot to deal with but I need to run some more tests to make sure that everything is okay. From what I saw through the transvaginal ultrasound it looked like there might have been some issues," she applied gentle pressure to try and get the other doctor back down onto the bed.
She pursed her lips and then leaned back against the hard foam. There were so many emotions coursing through her being. She couldn't believe that she was pregnant again, from a different man this time, even though they had been taking even more protections this time than she had with Burke. The fact that there may be something wrong with the pregnancy hadn't even crossed her mind as she tried to process everything.Â
The resident that was giving her the exam let her have a moment to put her pants back on while she left to go and get her superior. Cristina was laying back against the exam table with her shirt pulled up and her pants pushed down like she had instructed so many patients to do so before. She stared down at her flat stomach as she wondered how on earth she could have been anywhere past twelve weeks pregnant.Â
"Dr. Yang, I'm Dr. Lucy Fields. I'm a board certified OB/GYN and a maternal and fetal medicine fellow here," she offered her hand to the other woman.
Finally, Cristina felt a drop of fear shoot through her system. If the resident had gone to get her superior, then something must have been really wrong with the pregnancy. "Whatever, just prove your stupid resident wrong. I mean, do I look eight months pregnant to you?"
"I think you'd be surprised about the amount of people who don't show during their pregnancy," she replied as she sat down on the stool. She adjusted the screen of the external ultrasound so that they could both see it. She then spread the gel over Cristina's stomach, pausing just before she placed the probe over her abdomen. "Do you want to page your husband?"
"No," Cristina responded immediately, shaking her head. She knew that Owen wanted kids, but she very much didn't. If he was here then she was going to have to talk about being pregnant when she didn't even know the whole story yet.
"If you're sure," Dr. Fields said as she placed the probe down and began to move it around. She stared at the screen as the baby came back into view, she pointed at the black and white images while having the resident explain what she could see. Eventually she turned back to the patient, and Cristina had to bring herself out of her mind and back to the real world. "I don't want to alarm you, especially since I'm sure this late pregnancy diagnosis is a little bit terrifying, but I'm going to recommend that we deliver the baby by C-section as soon as possible."
"Excuse me?" she asked, her eyes widening a little bit. "I know that Tweedle Dum here said that there might be something wrong with the- the baby but she never mentioned anything like a premature delivery."
Lucy sighed as she glanced towards the screen. "Well, you have a very low amniotic fluid percentage so there's a possibility that your water has already partially broken. There seems to be something wrong with the baby's heart, you can see it here," she pointed to the screen and Cristina looked up from where she had been staring at the doctor. She watched as the heartbeat showing through the doppler on the ultrasound wand began to dip every time she took a breath. "It appears that some of the organs are on the outside of the body, mostly just the heart. The lack of amniotic fluid to cushion a baby this big when you're already showing so little is causing some compressions on the heart and crushing it. So we need to deliver the baby as soon as possible."
The pregnant woman felt her breath hitch in her throat. She pursed her lips for a moment as another tidal wave of emotions washed over her. She was pregnant, and not only was that not something that she wanted, but the baby that she was carrying wasn't even healthy. "Okay, then we should do it," she nodded.Â
"Of course. Marla, please go and page Dr. Hunt. I'm going to bring Dr. Yang to OR one so that we can get started on the procedure. I'm also going to need you to contact peds and cardio," Lucy explained to her resident, who nodded and moved to go do so. The blond then turned back to her new patient, "I know that you probably didn't want to tell him, but trust me, you're going to want him by your side."
Before the resident had a chance to leave the room, the surgical resident called, "Page Dr. Grey as well."Â
Lucy then helped her into one of the wheelchairs so that she could be treated like a patient. She kind of zoned out as she was checked into the hospital and prepped for her C-section, since everything was happening so quickly. People were talking to her and explaining what was happening but all she could do was focus on trying to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. She needed the comfort of her best friend or her husband, but neither of them were there.
The door to the OR banged open and Owen rushed over to her, surgical gown flapping around him since he had very obviously come from one of the ORs next to the one she was being operated on. "Cristina, what's going on?" he asked, glancing towards all of the monitors that were hooked up to her.Â
"Owen," she whispered, her voice cracking before it made it all the way out of her mouth. She reached up blindly for him, the tears slipping down her face and into the hairnet that had been placed on her during the rush to get her to the C-section.
"Hey, hey, I'm here," he whispered as he hurried over to her. He took the stool that was offered to him and then sat down after he took her hand.Â
"Dr. Yang, can you feel that?" one of the nurses asked as she tested whether or not the spinal block that had been put in was working.
She confirmed that the blocker was working and then Lucy had finished scrubbing in, so she walked over to where she was going to be cutting. "Dr. Hunt, I'm glad that you finally made it. Now, Dr. Yang, you're going to feel a slight pinching."
"Why is Dr. Fields the one operating on you?" Owen asked, his brows furrowed together in confusion as he looked away from the other surgeon and back to his wife.
"I'm pregnant, Owen," she whispered, shaking a little bit as she grasped his hand closer.Â
His eyes went wide and even under the mask she could tell that his mouth was hanging open. He looked back towards the surgical drape blocking them both off from seeing her body and then to her again. "W-what? How? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't know," she shook her head as much as she could with the oxygen mask on. "I didn't know that I was pregnant. I just got diagnosed and then they had to bring me to a C-section because the baby has organs on the outside of their body. Please, please Owen, you have to believe me. I didn't know."
"Shh, shh, hey, I believe you, Cristina," he whispered. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead through the mask while rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. "I know that you wouldn't lie to me about something this big. I believe you. Just focus on breathing and getting through this, okay? I'm going to be here for you the entire time."
She continued to cry, moving her head as close to him as she could get. Owen seemed to be able to tell what she was doing and moved so that one of his hands was cupping the side of her face around the oxygen mask while his other hand held her own. "I'm here, you're okay. I've got you. We'll figure this out." He wiped the tears off of her face with the surgical towel that one of the nurses handed to him.
While they were talking, Lucy had been working to deliver the baby. She had opened Cristina up already and then worked on getting the baby out of her uterus. As soon as the baby was removed from the organ, Lucy passed the unmoving newborn to Arizona, who had heard who Lucy was operating on and immediately rushed to help.Â
He opened his mouth to ask what was going on with their baby, but Arizona and Teddy left to go to the operating room next to the one they were already in too quickly. He blinked a few times before he turned back to his wife. Owen ran a finger over her cheek to get the tear leaking down her face. He gave her a small smile through his surgical mask. "Hey, we're parents," he tried to joke.
Cristina whimpered and closed her eyes, turning her head away from him. He felt his heart sink in his chest but went quiet to give her time to process what was going on. Owen stayed with her the entire time that he could, but he had to be pulled away from her as they wheeled her through the hospital back to the maternal recovery wing. A couple of people tried to snag his attention as he followed after her hospital bed, but he quickly waved them away in favor of being able to support his wife and hopefully get some information about his child.
He sat down beside the bed that his wife had been placed onto. Lucy came by a while later to check on her vitals and make sure that everything was okay, but for the most part they just sat in complete silence. Owen stayed by Cristina's bedside the entire time while holding her hands and encouraging her to take sips of water.
Eventually, there was a knock at the door and Arizona walked in. Her smile was bright and chipper as she shifted the chart in her hands so that it was by her side instead. "Hey! First congratulations, you had a boy!" she said, waiting for a reaction from the couple before she continued.
Cristina turned her head to the side so that she was staring out towards the window of her recovery room. Her hands were shaking just a little bit, something that they never did. She grasped the edge of her blanket so that it was clenched tightly in her hands so that her knuckles turned white. The heart monitor that she was hooked up to began to beat a little bit faster which showed that she was panicking just a little bit. Her husband, however, felt his heart flutter with joy upon hearing that he had a son. Owen's face lit up in a brilliant grin for just a moment before he noticed his wife's reaction. He cleared his throat, standing up from his chair.Â
Meredith appeared in the edge of the doorway just then, her chest heaving as she had sprinted across the entire hospital as soon as she had been able to check her phone after the surgery that she had been in. "What happened?" she asked worriedly, glancing between all of the doctors gathered in the room.
"Right on time. Meredith, can you sit with her and watch her? I'm going to talk with Arizona outside," Owen said. He reached out and brought the other blond into the hospital room, gesturing for her to go over to her best friend while she then motioned for the peds surgeon to leave.
As soon as they had disappeared, Cristina broke down again. She released the blanket that she had been clenching in her hand and moved up to her face. The tears that she had been trying to repress, failing just a little bit in the OR, finally began to pour down her face. She couldn't curl up in a ball like she wanted to because of the brand new scar on the bottom of her stomach. "M-Meredith," she sobbed, reaching her hand out for her best friend.
"Hey, hey, I'm here," she whispered as she quickly sat down on the edge of the bed. She reached out and touched the other woman's arm, unsure what level of physical comfort this breakdown was going to require. "Cristina, what happened? You're kind of scaring me."
Cristina began to furiously wipe at the tears running down her face. "I was working in that stupid blood drive and then I realized that my period had been totally inconstitent for months so I go up to OB to try and figure out if anything is wrong and they tell me I'm eight months fucking pregnant," another bout of sobs took over her ability to speak.
Meredith's eyes widened in surprise at what her friend was saying. She reached out and carefully wrapped her arms around her best friend. The other woman was still talking, but her words were so garbled by her tears that Meredith really didn't know what she was saying. She was able to pick up on certain terms, like 'hurt' and 'heart' but other than that she was still very much in the dark. So instead of trying to pry and get more information, she just moved up onto the bed so that Cristina was right by her side and laying almost on her. She pet the other woman's hair to keep it out of the way of her tear tracks and let her cry her heart out.
Outside, Owen was talking to Arizona about the condition of the child that had gotten his wife so upset. The blond doctor looked towards the door as they finished walking out, her eyes wide and a bit confused. Owen ran a hand over his head as he glanced around the hall to see who was around. "Please don't talk about the baby around Cristina. If you have medical news or need consent for procedures or anything, talk to me," he said. When Arizona looked a little bit baffled, he continued, "She's been through a lot. Neither of us knew that she was pregnant and she has made it very clear to me that she didn't want kids. This is a lot to deal with and she's going to need time. Any news that you have is going to go through me if I tell her about him at all," he said.
"Woah, okay. I do think that you should tell her the news about her baby. I mean, I know that Cristina wasn't planning to be your wife but you do need to tell her about his medical history so you can both make a medical decision for his health," Arizona objected.Â
Owen sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. This whole situation was horrifically awful for his wife, so he was pushing himself forward without processing like he did when he was in surgery but it was also pretty massive for him. "Please, just do this. I know my wife."
The blond pursed her lips but she just nodded. She flipped open the chart and then the two of them went back and forth as she explained what had happened to the baby and what they had done to correct it. Owen asked her questions and then gave her the decision of how they wanted to progress. Once that had finished, he finally returned back to his wife.
It had been a couple days since the surprise delivery of their son. Cristina had basically returned back to herself after the first night, though Owen didn't know how much of that was dissociation from what had happened and how much of that was her just going back to her normal self. She was bullying interns into bringing her charts so that she could know what she had to come back to once her medical recovery was finally over. She had also been letting Meredith get her up and help her walk around, but wouldn't let anyone other than her do it.
Owen lingered in the doorway with his arms folded as he watched her flip through the pages of the chart in her lap. He took a deep breath as he walked over to her, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Hey, you."
"Hey," she looked up and smiled. "How was your shift?"
"It was fine. Nothing too big happened. I helped stitch up a couple of kids and let one of the interns assist me on a basic trauma surgery," he shrugged.Â
She let out a small groan as she leaned back on the bed. "I would give anything to even get an appy. I'm so sick of being stuck in this stupid bed," she rolled her eyes. "But Lucy said that I could be released either today or tomorrow depending," she smiled.
He smiled as well, leaning in to give her a soft kiss. "That's great news! But I have something serious I need to talk to you about."
The happy look dropped off her face and she nodded, waiting for him to start. Owen took a deep breath as he grabbed her hand. "I know that this wasn't something either of us expected to happen, but we do need to talk about what we're going to do with him."
She sighed, casting her gaze down to where their hands were combined. "OwenâŚ"
He reached up and brushed a piece of her hair back behind her ear. "I know that you don't want to be a parent. You can really speak your mind to me, I won't get mad and we'll have a calm rational discussion."
Cristina pursed her lips for a moment, shrugging. "I don't want to be a parent. I was already upset that this had taken so much time away from my getting surgeries and working for my boards. I don't want to have to cut down on my time in the hospital like Mer had to. Work is just a higher priority for me."
"Okay, I understand," Owen said. His heart was aching in his chest as he thought about just how badly he wanted to be a parent. But at the same time, he knew that with all of his issues he couldn't do it by himself and he loved her more than he loved a future they didn't even have yet. "Then we'll put him up for adoption. He'll make another family very happy."
"Thank you for understanding," she whispered as she leaned forward and kissed him once more.Â
He nodded. "I love you, rest up so that you can get back to work soon, okay? I know that you're going to be even worse when we actually get home and you have to stay in bed without interns to bully."
"Mm, I'll still bully them, just over the phone instead," she shrugged. He chuckled softly, giving her another soft kiss before he was paged and had to rush off to surgery.
He was able to lose himself in the work that he had to do. Multiple massive traumas came in so for the next fifteen hours, until the early yet reasonable hours of the morning, he was in surgery or a trauma room while patching up patients and getting them where they were supposed to be. He hadn't even had a moment to eat anything, let alone sleep like he had been planning to before he had to give away his son. He stopped by Cristina's room for just a moment, to make sure that she was still comfortably sleeping after he had finished with the last patient in the ER.
Finally, he had a moment to visit the NICU where his son was staying. He had been in there off and on since the baby was delivered and stable enough for visitors, but he had been so busy with the emergency room and checking in on his wife to make sure that she was okay that he hadn't even been able to inform them of what they had decided.
Owen wrapped the pink disposable gown around himself before he walked through the sealed doors. "Hey little guy," he whispered, bringing his hand into the incubator. He let the infant wrap his tiny fingers around his finger and he felt a small smile grace his face. He rubbed his thumb over the tiny little fingers a couple of times.
"Owen!" Arizona chirped. She walked up behind him so that she was standing beside the incubator as well, though her hand was on the top instead of inside while touching the baby. "I heard that Cristina was going to be released soon. You should be happy to know that he will also be able to go home in the next couple days if he can pass the car seat test."
The redhead took a shaky breath as he withdrew his hand from the incubator. "Actually, we've, um, we've decided that we're going to give him up for adoption. Neither of us knew that we were going to be parents and we're not ready."
"Oh," her shoulders deflated and her smile faltered for just a moment. "Well, I'm sure he'll make another family very happy."
He remembered when he said those exact words to his wife, less than a day ago. He was going to have to talk to his therapist again, something that he hadn't done since the shooting. "I want to be involved in the adoption process. I want to make sure that they're a good family and look through applications to see the best option."
"Of course," she nodded as she walked off to go and call social services.
He watched her go before he looked back at his son. "You hear that, little guy? I may not be able to be your dad, but I am going to make sure that you have the most loving, adoring family ever. They are going to love you so much and you are going to have the ideal childhood." The baby blinked at him, adorable little blue eyes staring into his very soul. He wouldn't get to know what color his son's eyes would be forever, but he did know that he could already see the shape of Cristina's eyes on the infant's face.
He heard someone walking through the NICU but assumed that it was another one of the parents to visit their kid, so he didn't turn to look. When the individual cleared their throat he was quickly able to identify her as his wife. "Cristina," he took his hand out of the incubator and turned to face her. "Hey, did they discharge you? We can get going home, maybe pick up some coffee on the way since I'm dead on my feet," he chuckled, trying to move in front of the incubator since he didn't know what her reaction to the baby would be.
She looked into his eyes for just a moment before she looked back down to the edge of the incubator. "Can I see him?"
