face disappeared from her line of sight. ‘Where’s our Obs consult?’
‘Here.’ A female voice who sounded rather nervous.
‘This is Anne Duffy,’ Sue said. ‘O&G registrar.’
Maybe Luke had picked up on the nervousness. ‘Have you got a theatre available? We’ve got a cord prolapse here. She’s fully dilated but still in stage one. We’re looking at either an emergency C section or an operative delivery.’
‘No.’ Anne sounded young as well as nervous. ‘We’re in the middle of a C section for triplets. It’s got most of our staff tied up for a while but it shouldn’t be too long until one of the consultants is available. Is the baby distressed?’
Maybe it was her imagination but Ellie thought she heard Luke sigh. ‘Have we got that foetal monitor hooked up yet?’
‘Yes. Baby’s heart-rate is one-thirty. No, hang on...one-ten... It’s dropping...’
Ellie could feel her own heart-rate increasing. This was suddenly getting very serious. If the baby’s heart-rate was dropping, it meant that the head was finally putting too much pressure on the cord despite the interventions. The clock was ticking now...
And something else was changing.
‘I need to push,’ she said.
‘Don’t push.’ The registrar definitely sounded nervous now. Terrified, even? ‘Take deep breaths. Try and go limp. Relax your pelvic floor.’
If Ellie had had any spare breath right then, it might have come out as an incredulous huff. Just how much experience had this junior doctor had? She fought the urge to push, her face scrunched as tightly as possible against the pain.
‘Heart-rate’s down to eighty,’ someone said.
‘Not too long isn’t good enough.’ There was a different note in Luke’s voice now. He had made a decision and was taking control. ‘Lay out the forceps kit, please. Can someone put out an urgent page and get a paediatrician down here, stat? Anne—take over here. Two fingers on the baby’s head and upward pressure, okay?’
‘Got it.’
‘Have you done a forceps delivery?’
‘I’ve assisted with one.’
‘Ellie? Can you hear me?’
‘Y-yes.’ Her voice came out sounding oddly croaky. Frightened...
Luke was crouched right beside her now, his face only a few inches from her own.
‘We need to get your baby out as soon as possible. You’re fully dilated and with the help of forceps we can do it. I’ve done a long stint in obstetrics and have experience in assisted delivery. Are you happy for me to go ahead?’
There was nothing about this that Ellie was happy about. But there was something in those eyes that gave her something to cling to.
Confidence. Hope...
She nodded, giving her consent.
‘We can give you some Entonox but there’s no time for any other pain relief to kick in. It’s going to be a bit rough. I’m sorry...’
He was sorry. He looked as though he would take that impending pain himself rather than inflict it on her. Ellie closed her eyes to hold back tears but she nodded again. ‘It’s okay...’
She could feel the tension in the room around her. Hear the clatter of instrument kits being unrolled onto a stainless steel trolley. She felt her body being moved so that she was lying on her back, sterile drapes being folded around her and listened to the instructions Luke was issuing as her legs were lifted and supported.
And he talked to her all through it, too.
‘I’m giving you a bit of local for the episiotomy. You’ll feel it sting for a moment.’
It stung a lot but Ellie knew it was only the start. She sucked on the mouthpiece giving her the inhaled pain relief.
‘I’m inserting the first blade, now. And the second. And I’m locking them. When the next contraction starts, I’m going to need you to push—as hard as you can, sweetheart.’
Sweetheart?
The word cut through the fear and pain. It was just a word that should have evaporated into the ether the moment it had been spoken but it didn’t. It echoed in her head and sent ripples through her body. It was something warm and caring and lovely in the middle of something horrific. And when the instruction to push came moments after the next contraction started she pushed with every ounce of strength she could summon.
And maybe she found more strength than she knew she had because, in the wake of being abandoned by the person she cared about most, he’d called her sweetheart...
It only took two contractions, a minute apart, with her pushing as if her life depended on it and Luke pulling with the baby’s head cradled between the blades of the forceps and she could feel the baby coming into the world.
‘It’s a boy, Ellie,’ someone said.
She knew that. Marco and Ava had known that, too. They’d already picked out a name. Carlos.
Her train of thought vanished as she became aware of the silence in the room. There was no baby crying. And nobody else was saying anything, either. The silence was shocked. And shocking. Ellie jerked her head up to see a tiny, limp body that someone was rubbing briskly with a towel.
A woman she didn’t know—the nervous young registrar, perhaps—saw her looking.
‘It’s okay, Ellie. We’re doing everything we can for your baby.’
Tears that had been building for too long exploded from Ellie as she let her head drop back down.
‘But he’s not my baby,’ she sobbed. ‘And now nobody wants him...’
WHAT?
Surely he hadn’t heard correctly?
For a split second, Lucas froze, completely distracted from what he was about to do.
Nobody wanted this baby?
One of the department’s senior nurses, Sue, was right beside him.
‘This was a surrogate pregnancy,’ she told him quietly. ‘But I have no idea what’s gone wrong.’
Lucas couldn’t give a damn about what might have gone wrong. There was a knot in his chest that felt like anger.
He knew what it was like to be an unwanted child. To face a world where you were not worth enough for anybody to want you.
No more than a blink of time had passed but
