was probably a Braxton Hicks contraction and not the real thing, Kate reassured herself, but the fact that Lucy had felt it even when half asleep was a worry.
Kate glanced at her watch to note the exact time. She hoped Lucy didn’t take up regular moaning because then she’d have to start thinking the unthinkable.
Please. She didn’t want a premature baby born hours away from hospital in the back of an ambulance truck.
Closer to Derby might be okay. For about half an hour even the tiniest babies usually managed with warmth from the mum, and she could offer oxygen, but longer than that they had a tendency to crash. The risks increased dramatically for breathing difficulties, let alone all the other things that could go wrong.
She’d never enjoyed her stints in the special care nursery, no doubt because it had been too close to her own skeletons in the closet, and she knew premature babies became ill from lots of things. She knew that sometimes they didn’t make it.
Like hers. Like the child she’d never even seen, for all those reasons she’d never been given, and the memories she didn’t have that she’d blocked out successfully until now, until Rory had returned and allowed them to crowd her mind again.
Kate chewed her lip. ‘How long do you think the trip’s going to take?’ She had a fair idea of the answer; she just needed to ask it out loud and to share the anxiety that was building as she jammed the untimely images from the past back into their hidden cave.
‘Five hundred kilometres to go, at say fifty an hour is ten hours plus stops and moments of unusual interest. We’ve done two.’ Rory looked up for the first time in a long time and caught her eye in the rear-vision mirror. ‘I can shorten it by an hour but the ride will be rougher. Getting nervous, Kate?’
Understatement. Not about the labour—just the baby. ‘Maybe we should have stayed at the clinic and had Lucy’s baby there. At least we’d have electricity and more hands.’
‘But they said ship her out.’
‘I know. The problem is there’s a real risk if Lucy’s blood pressure continues to climb.’
Not to mention the haemorrhage risk, Kate thought, but didn’t say it out loud in case Lucy woke up. Already placental vessels would be damaged and weakening from the constant high pressure of blood. If one of the vessels burst it would pour blood between the placenta and the uterus, then mother and baby would be in big trouble. Like Kate had been. She’d have to watch Lucy for pain that didn’t come and go.
‘I think she’s starting to contract,’ she said quietly to Rory. ‘Still irregularly, but the Nifedipine doesn’t seem to be holding her.’
Rory frowned. ‘Are you saying nature wants that baby out and she might go into labour?’
‘Most likely. I’m all for that.’ Kate grimaced. ‘Just not on the road.’
Rory looked up at her again through the mirror and, while his face remained serious, his sincerity shone through. ‘That’s why you’re with her. I’ve got faith in you. And I bet Lucy does too. Everything will be fine.’
It was a platitude. An attempt to ease her strain. He was a very experienced paramedic and ambulance officer, a professional at calming people in stressful and extreme situations.
And it was the phrase he’d said to her many times over the years in her hours of need.
That first day at school…As the boss’s daughter, she’d been left alone and lonely until big Rory McIver from Year Two took her hand and showed her where she could sit. ‘Everything will be fine,’ he said and something in his eyes and the caring tone of his voice allowed her to believe him.
That week her mother and stillborn baby brother died…When everyone else avoided her, not knowing what to say. When her father banned her from a final farewell at the funeral and Rory sought her out and held her and helped her make a special garden with a wooden cross where she would go to talk to her mother that no one else knew about. ‘Everything will be fine,’ he said.
Rory, listening the hundreds of times she was upset by her father’s uncompromising stand on her behaviour and mixing with the hired help. He was always able to reassure her. Big things became manageable when she told Rory.
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