a baby for several years, there had been a certain sense of security in knowing that such an experienced man had been nearby.
‘How long will it take you to get her into Theatre?’ She glanced across at the clock on the wall above the filing cabinets to confirm the time while she contemplated her course of action. ‘I’ll go straight there and start to scrub.’
‘Ten minutes, tops. I’ve already warned Theatre to get ready,’ Sally informed her, then added, ‘Leah, make it as fast as you can, please. I’ve got a really bad feeling about this one.’
The butterflies in Leah’s stomach became helicopters with those parting words. Sally was an experienced midwife not prone to panicking at the slightest hitch. If she was worried, then there was something to worry about and even though she could have taken the case on herself, Leah knew what she had to do. With mother and babies’ lives at stake, this was no time for egos or hospital politics.
‘Hello, Switchboard, I need to contact one of the consultants urgently, and I don’t have his home number,’ she announced briskly, her fingers crossed that the computer had already been updated ready for David ffrench’s commencement today at a more civilised time. It only briefly crossed her mind that his insurance cover might not start until he was officially on duty. ‘It’s David ffrench…two f’s. He’s the new appointment to Obs and Gyn.’
It took several more precious minutes to persuade the person on the other end that if they made the connection to the outside line, they wouldn’t actually be breaking his right to confidentiality.
‘H’lo?’ said a husky voice right in her ear, and every nerve quivered with the knowledge that she’d just woken him up, that he was probably lying in his bed—totally naked?—with his dark hair all rumpled and…
‘Mr ffrench?’ she squeaked, and had to clear her throat before she could continue, gabbling in her embarrassment at her unruly imagination. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you when you haven’t officially begun working here, but could you possibly come over to the hospital? There’s an emergency Caesarean…multiple birth…And I think I’m going to need you. Oh, this is Leah Dawson.’
‘Foetal distress?’ he demanded, already obviously firing on all cylinders, much to Leah’s envy. She still hated being woken in the middle of the night, even after all these years in the profession. ‘How many weeks gestation and how long has the mother been in labour?’
‘I don’t know much more than I’ve told you,’ she admitted. ‘But it was Sally Ling, one of the most experienced midwives in the department, who called me, and she knows what she’s talking about. Chas—Charles Westmoreland—isn’t available because he’s already dealing with a problem delivery,’ she added, anticipating his next question.
‘I can be there in ten minutes. Get her into Theatre,’ he said tersely, and before she could utter a word of thanks, he’d broken the connection.
Leah could have wasted energy feeling snubbed by his abruptness, but all she was conscious of was relief that he was on his way. Now it was time to get moving.
‘Have you got any more details for me?’ she demanded over her shoulder as she began the scrubbing ritual, the cotton of the theatre greens feeling very thin and insubstantial after her jeans.
Sally’s head appeared round the corner, her dark curls already trying to escape from the disposable cap.
‘Mum tried to tell me that she’s thirty-eight, but I’d say she’s much closer to sixty.’
‘What?’ Leah gaped at her, hands suspended in mid-scrub. ‘You’re joking! She probably just looks a bit…shattered after carrying a double load around for so many months.’
‘You could be right,’ Sally said dubiously. ‘See what you think when you see her. Ashraf’s not too happy about any of it. We’ve got absolutely no previous notes and she’s being extremely cagey about where she had her treatment, and he’s in charge of her anaesthesia.’
‘Not another one!’ exclaimed David as he joined Leah at the sink. He’d obviously heard enough of the conversation as he’d come in to pick up on what was happening. ‘We had one like this at my last post. Apparently she’d had extensive cosmetic surgery so that she could use her niece’s passport for identification as she was well beyond the age limits for properly regulated IVF. We never did find out where she’d been treated and we nearly lost her to eclampsia.’
‘Oh, boy, am I glad I invited you to this little party,’ Leah groaned. ‘By the way, should I make the introductions? David ffrench, new head of our little domain, meet Sally Ling, midwife extraordinaire.’
‘I take it this is what’s called being thrown in at the deep end,’ David commented as he took his turn at having the ties fastened at the back of his gown, then held his hands out for gloves.
‘We wouldn’t like you to think you were going to be bored here, so we thought we’d lay on a bit of entertainment,’ Sally quipped, taking another look into the room behind her. ‘I think Ashraf’s nearly ready for you to begin, but he doesn’t look happy.’
‘Too right, Ashraf’s not happy!’ exclaimed the man in question, his dark eyes firmly fixed on the array of monitors grouped at his end of the table. ‘Some things are just not right.’
‘Is there a problem with her anaesthesia?’ Leah heard the sharp edge of concern in David’s voice.
‘You mean, apart from the fact that her blood pressure’s too high and her lungs aren’t the best?’ he said wryly. ‘No, what I meant was that I reckon we can add at least twenty years to the age the patient’s given us, and a woman in her fifties or sixties should be looking forward to grandchildren, the way nature intended. There are sound physiological reasons why there should be age limits for IVF. And it’s a multiple birth!’ he finished, the words almost completely incomprehensible as his accent became stronger and stronger in his passion.
‘You’ll get no argument from me,’ David said grimly as he painted the grossly swollen abdomen preparatory to the incision. ‘And to turn up obviously intending to leave us completely in the dark about the details of her pregnancy…!’
He didn’t bother finishing the sentence, but Leah knew he didn’t need to when everyone in the room knew just how much that omission could affect the outcome of what they were doing.
‘Is everybody ready?’ he asked, and Leah threw one last look around the assembled staff. Apart from those grouped around the operating table, there were two teams waiting in the background with the high-tech Perspex incubators for the other two tiny individuals who would hopefully be joining them in the room soon. What they were going to do if both babies needed high-dependency nursing was another problem entirely. There were never enough beds or specially trained staff to cope, and they would need to do some serious juggling with the babies already in the unit to cope with just one seriously sick preemie. A second one would probably have to face a life-threatening dash to whichever NICU had the nearest free HDU bed. She’d probably have to spend several hours on the phone begging and pleading…
But that was in the future. First they had to deliver the babies.
‘Ready,’ she confirmed as she turned back to the table. Those striking eyes were waiting for her, somehow all the more potent for the fact that they were all she could see of him above his disposable mask. For just a second it almost felt as if the two of them had made some sort of silent connection but then he had his hand out ready to receive
