Until the End of Time by Danielle Steel

ambulance. He said his wife was hemorrhaging and told them she was three months pregnant. He knew as he looked at her that there was no way the baby could have survived it, and all he wanted now was to save Jenny. He wanted to tell the operator it was a matter of life or death, but he didn’t want to scare Jenny if she heard him. She looked like she was dozing or slippinginto unconsciousness, and he shook her and told her to talk to him while they waited for the ambulance.
    Her eyelids looked too heavy for her to keep open, and her face was getting grayer by the minute. Their bed was filled with blood, and he was covered with it now too, as he ran to grab a towel, wiped it off his legs and hands, and put on his clothes, while still trying to rouse her. The ambulance arrived eight minutes later, and the paramedics rushed into action. They put her in a pressurized inflatable bodysuit to try and slow the bleeding, ran an IV into her arm, and had her on a gurney and out the door in less than two minutes. Bill pounded down the stairs behind them and jumped into the ambulance next to her before they could stop him. They had the siren on, and Jenny was no longer conscious as they drove through the city careening around corners with all lights flashing. They took her to Lenox Hill Hospital and rushed her into the emergency room, where they asked Bill for her blood type, cross-matched her immediately, and gave her a transfusion on the way to the operating room. A doctor shoved a clipboard at him and told him where to sign the surgical release form, and gave him a serious look as Bill handed it back to him, all within seconds.
    “Is she going to be okay?” Bill asked, choking on a sob, and the doctor hesitated just long enough to terrify him.
    “It’s not looking good,” he said honestly, not wanting to lie to him. “She’s lost a lot of blood. She would have bled out in another five minutes. We’re pretty close here. We’ll do what we can to save her. She already lost the baby.” Bill nodded. He would mourn their baby later—right now all he wanted was to save his wife.
    “Do everything you can!” Bill shouted at the doctor as he rushedoff to join the team working on her. Bill sat alone in the waiting room for three hours until a nervous new father came in, waiting for his wife to deliver. He complained that he wanted to be in the delivery room with her, but a nurse told him with a disapproving look that it was not allowed. The young man tried to strike up a conversation with Bill, who was beyond talking to anyone, and five minutes later a nurse came to move Bill to a small private room, where he could wait alone for news of Jenny. The nurses had already been told that they were fighting for Jenny’s life and her condition was poor. They offered Bill a cup of tea or coffee, which he declined. He just sat there, waiting and praying in silence.
    Half an hour later, two doctors in surgical pajamas, wearing caps and masks, came to talk to him, with grim expressions.
    “Is she—” Bill looked like he was about to pass out as he met their eyes.
    “She’s alive,” they told him quickly. “Your wife had an ectopic pregnancy. It’s rare, but it happens. The fetus was developing in her fallopian tube, instead of her uterus. Sooner or later that creates a life-threatening situation for the mother. The baby must have been growing very slowly, she should have had some pain and cramping as a warning. She’s conscious now—we asked her, and she said she didn’t. Simply put, under pressure from the growing fetus, the tube explodes and creates the kind of hemorrhaging you saw tonight. The baby isn’t viable in that situation and probably never was. And nothing she did caused this. It’s an anomaly that occurs. It sounds like she’s a very active person, so maybe she missed the early signs. Many women die when an ectopic explodes, the way it did tonight. She’s very lucky. She lost the tube and the ovary on one side,