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“Hey babe, does Mia feel a bit warm to you?” Maya asked as she changed the baby’s diaper and made faces at the smiley 11 month old. It was late december, they had almost made it through flu season without any incidents, keyword: almost .
Carina made her way from the bathroom, in only a bra and unzipped pants to come feel the baby. It was 6 am and she was getting ready to leave for the hospital while Maya was getting ready to go to the station.
“Mm, not really, it’s probably from being asleep,” Carina hummed as she felt the baby’s head before kissing it, “Plus, with babies their attitudes are more important than fevers or stuff like that and she seems pretty happy,” Carina tickled the little belly and got the cutest little laugh.
“Alright, maybe I’m just hallucinating,” Maya agreed before grabbing an outfit for Mia.
After getting the baby dressed and in the high chair, Maya started coffee as Carina came out, also dressed, and ready to go appearance wise.
“Ah-ba!” Mia giggled and reached towards Carina who had started to bring over a bit of chopped up apple, a sippy cup with almond milk, and some toast. Carina ate the half of the apple she hadn’t given Mia and made faces while watching the baby excitedly eat her breakfast.
Carina had been so caught up with the little (now sticky) baby, that she didn’t notice Maya walking over until she felt a light kiss on her head and heard a mumbled, “I’m gonna go get ready, bye, I love you” then a louder, “Bye, Passerota, have fun at daycare!” Mia recognized the nickname and giggled before looking back down at her cut up toast and getting distracted.
Within 10 minutes, Mia had finished her food, been covered in a coat, scarf, glove, and hat, and been in the car seat, finishing her milk while Carina got herself bundled up, yelled to tell Maya she loved her and headed out the door.
During the drive Mia fell asleep. Kind of uncharacteristic for the almost 1 year old, but she had peeped a lot during the night so she was probably just sleepy.
“Andrea!” Carina yelled as she saw her brother also walking into the building. She had just gotten out of the car holding Mia and her diaper bag and was trying to grab her own bag to bring in.
“Cosa?” Her brother ran over to see the sleeping baby who Carina didn’t have the best grip on and the open car door that Carina was trying to grab something else from.
“Puoi portare qualcosa (Can you carry something)?”
“Certo, prendo la bambina, (sure, I’ll take the baby),” Andrew answered and carefully grabbed the sleeping girl from his sister. The baby stirred a bit before just resting her head on Andrew’s shoulder and settling back into sleep.
“Is she feeling okay?”
“I think she’s going on another sleep strike, last night she didn’t sleep a lot so she’s probably just overtired,” Carina shrugged as she grabbed her stuff and started walking with her brother towards the building. They got caught up on their way to daycare because some nurses saw Andrew with a baby and couldn’t help but fuss over him.
“Bring a man anywhere with a baby,” Carina mumbled after she heard a nurse say, “You’re gonna make such an amazing dad some day!” All he was doing was holding her, but Carina just shook her head.
“Not to ruin the mood,” Carina cut in, a lot of the nurses just now noticing her, “but Maria has to get to daycare and Andrea and I have rounds soon.”
This caused everyone to check their watches, noticing it was getting close to 7, running off to get ready for the day to truly start. As always, they took Mia’s temperature to make sure she wasn’t sick. They did this every morning to try to limit the spread of illness throughout the daycare since the kids were always all over each other.
“99.9, she’s feeling okay?” The caretaker, a young man named Finn, asked quietly.
“Yep,” Carina popped the P, thankful Mia wasn’t half a degree higher and she didn’t have to bring her home.
“Okay! You too have a great day,” He smiled and took the sleeping Mia from Andrew and put her in one of the cribs.
Carina’s day was full, with patient after patient, she had been finishing up an ultrasound when she got a call from Finn.
“One minute,” She smiled at the expecting mom who was 14 weeks pregnant to answer her phone, “Ciao.”
“Dr. DeLuca, are you able to come grab Mia?”
“Uhm, not really, I’m with a patient, is she okay?”
“She just threw up and we took her temperature, it’s 102.9. She’s the 6th kid so far this week, there’s a bug going around up here.”
“Merda, okay, thank you,” She hung up and bit her lip, “I’m gonna have a resident come finish up here, there’s a bug around daycare and my daughter got it, so I have to go grab her.”
The patient just nodded and watched as Carina tore off her gloves and got a 4th-year interested in OB to finish up as she called Maya and headed towards the daycare.
“Hey, ‘s everything okay?” Maya’s voice rang through her ears.
“Yeah, uhm are you busy today?”
“I mean, I’m at work, kind of,” Maya joked and Carina rolled her eyes even though her wife couldn’t see it.
“Mia is sick, she threw up and has a fever, but I have a lot of patients today, I’m hoping I can pass her off to you for the day and try to reschedule or get my patient’s for tomorrow other doctors,” Carina heard nothing on the other side of the line for a while, “Bambina, are you okay?”
“Mia’s sick!?”
“Nothing bad, at most the flu, there’s something going around daycare.”
“Okay, uhm, I can take her for the day I guess, can you drive her to the station?”
“Si, we will be there in about 10 minutes, I’m gonna grab her now, bye love you.”
“Love you too,” Maya said before hanging up. Carina hung up right as she got to the door to find Mia outside with Finn who had taken the 11 month old outside as she played with Leo not very enthusiastically, the toy a little bit stained.
“We tried to get the throw up out, but he’s gonna need to get washed,” the caretaker smiled shyly.
“Thank you, for trying, once she’s asleep we’ll get him all washed up,” Carina smiled as she picked up the almost one year old. Mia could take a few steps at once, but she wouldn’t be able to walk to the car, luckily Carina didn’t have to carry her stuff this time. The usually 5 minute car ride to the station felt like hours, Mia was crying in the car, which she usually never did. Carina did just want to pick up the baby who was obviously unhappy and not feeling great, but she also was driving and they were so close to the station so it didn’t really matter.
Maya was outside waiting for them and rushed over, when Maya got to the car, Carina had already gotten out and was trying to get the screaming baby out of the carseat.
“What happened? Is she okay?” Maya asked worriedly.
“Si, she just is sick. Hopefully she’ll fall asleep soon and when she does could you throw Leo in the wash? She threw up on him,” Carina explained as she got Mia up who instantly stopped crying once being held and handed her to Maya.
“Think she’ll fall asleep soon? I have some paperwork I wanted to finish up,” Maya asked as the baby who was clingy to her neck started to feel heavy.
“No Lo so, but it’s a bug running through daycare so maybe just take her home so the station doesn’t catch it,” Carina commented and Maya thought for a moment before nodding slowly.
“Ah my next patient is already at the hospital. I’ll see you guys tonight!” Carina promised and ran back into her car before heading back to the hospital.
Maya looked at the baby who was already breathing heavily, almost asleep before walking inside.
“Is my favorite niece coming to visit?” Vic asked loudly and started to walk towards them and Maya shushed her aggressively but it was too late, Mia’s head popped up and she started crying again, her head immediately finding Maya’s chest again as she did so.
“She’s not feeling great,” Maya commented and Vic’s eyes went wide before she mouthed “I’m sorry” profusely and walked away. Mia was still whining a bit but she had been a little quieter and was feeling heavy again, hopefully almost back asleep.
Mia felt really warm- too warm. Maya wanted to run her back to the hospital, have Hayes make sure she was okay. Maybe if she threw up again, Maya would take her.
She ended up taking her laptop to her office, and lying down with the baby on her chest and the laptop to her side. She used her left hand to slowly bounce the baby and her right hand was slowly typing away. This worked for about an hour until the alarm went off about a fire downtown, waking the, now screaming, baby up and shocking Maya who had been in somewhat of a rhythm.
She rushed to find Andy, the fast movement, however, didn’t get along with the baby’s upset stomach and the little girl puked all over Maya.
“Bishop we have to- oh,” Miller cut himself off when he saw Maya’s predicament.
“Tell Herrera she’s in charge for the rest of the shift, I’m gonna get this one home,” Maya mumbled and turned around to walk towards her office. She didn’t have a stroller and she’d run to work, so she was gonna have to walk the 3 miles to grey-Sloan, carrying a sick baby who was covered in throw up just so she could use Carina’s car to drive the 9 miles home from Grey-Sloan. She had a pack and play set up in her bunk because Carina and Mia spent the night or came to visit at least a once a week and Mia needed somewhere to nap/sleep, so she put the baby in the pack and play, changed into her casual clothes and put her uniform in a bag with Leo to be washed at home.
On the walk to the hospital, all Mia did was fuss and throw up (it only happened once but Maya looked like a disaster, carrying a fussy baby, throw up over them both, no stroller, and two bags, one plastic and one the baby’s diaper bag, in hand).
When she finally got to the hospital, she decided to head down to the ER with Mia to have her get checked out. Since they were there anyways it made sense. Plus she just felt super warm and was worrying Maya.
Some of the nurses recognized Maya, and before she knew it she was sitting on a bed with Mia asleep against her as Dr. Hayes came over to examine her.
“Is Carina gonna be joining us?” He asked as he carefully took the baby from Maya and laid her down on the bed.
“Uh, no, I don’t know if she knows we’re here,” Maya admitted boyishly and the pediatric surgeon looked at her with a mix of confusion and judgement before looking back at Mia.
“It seems to just be the flu,” he smiled and gave the now awake (and somewhat disoriented) baby back to her mommy.
“Is there like a scan you guys can do to make sure? A blood test or an abdominal CT to make sure she’s fine?” Maya questioned and the doctor sighed.
“Maya, first time parents are always like this, she’s fine, I promise, just give her a day or too.”
“Please,” the blonde insisted, “just a blood test to make sure there’s nothing abnormal!”
“Insurance won’t cover it,” the surgeon warned and Maya nodded and informed him she knew so he sighed and drew the blood from the tiny body.
About an hour later, Carina was going to pick up blood for one of her patients, she usually sent a nurse or an intern to grab it, but she’d been with this patient with 2 miscarriages and a stillborn, she wanted to be the first to know if this woman was actually pregnant.
“Dr. DeLuca,” the technician smiled, “I’m assuming you’re here for Mia’s bloodwork?”
“Mia’s what?!?” The brunette asked suddenly, charts slipping from her arms.
“She’s in the ER- I assumed you knew-“ before the technician finished Carina was sprinting to the ER, when she got into the busy area, she found Maya at bed 7, waking around and bouncing the sleeping baby.
“Is she okay? What happened?” Carina asked before she even reached them, turning a few heads towards them.
“She keeps throwing up, I had Dr Hayes check her out and he said it was the flu but she just seems so sick I had to make sure and-“
Maya was cut off by Carina's sigh of release.
“Dio mio, Maya I was seriously worried!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
After about another hour, Carina insisted Mia was fine while running between patients and her favorite girls. Finally, she got Maya in a spare outfit the doctor kept at the hospital and got Mia and Maya set up in the car.
“You both are gross and sleepy, go home, I managed to get someone to come in a bit early to cover the last 2 hours of my shift, I’ll have Andrea drive me home, so I’ll see you guys in a few hours,” Carina kissed Maya’s head softly before closing the door to the car, waving goodbye and heading back into the hospital.
When Maya got back, she realized both her and Mia spelled terrible, she quickly went into the bathroom and started to run a bath before taking Mia out of everything but her diaper. Once the water was warm enough, Maya put Mia in the bath, only to get the baby to scream at her and start crying. After panicking for a bit and trying to calm both herself and MIa down, she realized that the baby wasn’t crying while being held so much against her original plan, Maya put the baby in the bath and let her scream for a bit, took off the clothes she had borrowed from Carina and got into the bath with the baby who laid her head on her mom’s chest and instantly calmed down.
After Maya washed both herself and the baby, getting the throwup out of her head and off of Mia’s face and hands and body and everywhere. The water was kind of cold because Maya had wanted to get the gremlin’s fever down, causing goosebumps on both her skin. Eventually, after about 30 minutes, Mia had fallen asleep so Maya slowly stood up and wrapped the baby in a little puppy towel with a cute little hood and grabbed her own towel before putting Mia on the bed, throwing a diaper on her and going to drain the bathtub.
A few minutes later, Maya got herself in pajamas and laid down, placing Mia back on her chest and bouncing her softly. Within an hour, Maya had fallen asleep too.
At around 6, Carina walked through the door to an unusually quiet house. “Maya,” she called out only to be met with a whole lot of nothingness. She walked into the nursery to find it empty before heading to her and Maya’s room where she heard loud snoring, Mia on Maya’s chest, both of them snoring.
Mia was only in a diaper, her forehead flushed and her body covered in sweat against Maya’s thin tank top. Carina smiled and went to grab the baby who stirred a little bit, and instantly rested again against Carina's chest.
“Oh, Passerota,” Carina mumbled and kissed the baby’s forehead softly, “you feel so warm.”
The Italian heated up a bottle for the baby and when it was done, she laid on the couch and tried to see if the sleeping baby wanted it. She hadn’t been having a lot of bottles recently but being sick Mia hadn’t really eaten today and it worried Carina so she wanted to try.
She put the bottle against the baby’s mouth and she quickly suckled on and started drinking the bottle, still asleep. After about 5 minutes, Mia woke up, threw up all over Carina and the couch before starting to scream. Carina sighed and cleaned the baby’s face before bringing her back to Maya, who was rudely awoken by the baby’s scream but took the baby, looked at her wife, and tried to settle the sleepy, sick, screaming baby and go back to sleep.
“Come join us in bed,” Maya mumbled sleepily, already almost back asleep.
“One minute, I have to shower and clean up,” Carina brushed some hair from her wife’s face before grabbing some clothes and taking a quick warm shower.
She pulled off the vomited on couch cushions and threw them in the wash with Leo and all the thrown up on clothes before hopping into bed in only her her underwear and cuddling up with Mia and letting one of her legs wrap around one of Maya’s, her arm loosely over Mia, her hand pressing against Maya’s waist.
The next morning, Carina felt her hand be thrown off of Maya’s waist. She sat up only to notice the pounding headache and lay back down. Within a few moments, she felt Mia crawling on top of her before the baby settled on her chest and babbled something.
“It’s been quite the 24 hours hasn’t it, Passerota?” Carina mumbled against Mia’s head. Mia babbled something else before silence filled the room. Silence of everything other than quiet gagging from the bathroom. Carina got up with Mia to find Maya over the toilet, throwing up.
The next week was a lot, with all of them catching the flu and then Mia being fine while her mamme still felt terrible. Turns out taking care of a hyper 11 month old isn't easy when you and your wife are sick. Maya isn’t quite sure how they survived it.