‘Don’t worry,’ Maggie added, to soften the blow. ‘We’re going to take very good care of both Kathy and the baby.’
* * *
A medical team, including Fizz Wilson, was waiting on one side of the Royal’s rooftop helipad to take over Kathy’s care as soon as they landed and lifted out the stretcher.
‘Third stage happened en route,’ Maggie told Fizz. ‘Oxytocin was administered on scene after the birth but I would estimate blood loss with the delivery of the placenta was still around three hundred mils with ongoing but slower loss now. She’s on her second litre of normal saline. Blood pressure’s one hundred and five over fifty.’
‘I feel fine,’ Kathy said. ‘Just a bit tired, that’s all.’
But Fizz took note of the low blood pressure and the urgent need to control any ongoing bleeding.
‘Let’s get moving,’ she instructed the ED staff with her. ‘Maggie, can you bring the baby, please? We’ve got a paediatric team waiting for him downstairs.’
Maggie followed Kathy’s stretcher with Joe walking beside her. ‘I could get used to this,’ she said.
‘What? Having full-on cases with successful outcomes? That’s two today.’ Joe was smiling. ‘I could get used to it, too.’
‘No... I mean this...’ Maggie looked down at the tiny sleeping face visible amongst the folds of blanket in her arms. ‘Carrying a baby around. I think I want one.’
Joe made a shuddering sound. ‘Rather you than me, mate. Hey...’ He increased his pace as the stretcher was slotted into the rooftop elevator. ‘Is there room for us in there, too?’
They squeezed in.
Fizz was right beside Maggie. She had her gaze fixed on monitor screen of the life pack, taking in as much information about Kathy’s condition as she could, but she slid a quick sideways glance at the baby a moment later.
‘Any problems?’
‘Not at all. He was a bit flat to start with but he picked up quickly. Apgar score was ten at ten minutes.’
Fizz was smiling as she turned back to her patient. ‘He’s so cute,’ she told Kathy. ‘Have you decided on a name yet?’
‘I like Aiden,’ Kathy said. ‘But Darren wants him to be Patrick, after his dad. We decided we’d wait and see what suited him more.’ She twisted her head, trying to see her baby’s face. ‘I think he looks like an Aiden, don’t you?’
Maggie smiled. ‘Aiden’s a great name.’ But so was Patrick, she thought. One of her favourite boy’s names, in fact. She wondered if Fizz and Cooper had already started discussing possible names for their baby or if they knew whether it was a girl or a boy.
The elevator doors opened again as they reached the ground floor and Fizz stayed by the head of the stretcher as it was swiftly rolled towards a resuscitation area in the emergency department. Kathy would have no idea that her doctor was pregnant, Maggie thought. And here she was, with baby Aiden or Patrick still in her arms. It was baby overload today, that was for sure.
Her head was still full of it when she and Joe finally got to take a break and sat down in the staffroom of the Aratika Rescue Base.
‘I haven’t finished the paperwork for the post-cardiac arrest case yet, let alone for the birth,’ Maggie sighed.
‘It won’t take too long,’ Joe said. ‘I’ll do the cardiac one.’
‘Because it’s half-done already?’
‘No. Because you’re the one who wants a baby. This way, you get to enjoy the case all over again.’
‘Hmm...’ Maggie shook her head. ‘It could have turned out to be not very enjoyable at all. I was so relieved the moment I felt that shoulder start to move.’
‘I’ll bet.’ Joe pulled the folder of paperwork towards him and took a pen from the pocket of his overalls. ‘Keep it in mind when you choose the father of your baby. You’re so short, it might be wise not to marry a solid, over six foot tall farmer like Kathy did.’
‘Five foot four is not short. I’m average,’ Maggie countered. ‘And I don’t even know any farmers. Or any potential baby daddies at all, in fact.’
‘They’re out there. In droves. You just haven’t been looking.’
‘That’s because I got fed up with relationships that were going nowhere fast.’
Including the one she’d been in with Richard, years ago, when Maggie had first started working at the rescue base. One that had had a promising start but had ebbed into being nothing more than flatmates. Friends. And it hadn’t been enough for either of them.
‘Maybe that’s because you go into them expecting them to be going somewhere. That can scare guys off, you know. It would scare the hell out of me, that’s for sure. In fact, it’s precisely why I’m currently single again.’
Maggie snorted. ‘It’s a baby I want. A partner would be a bonus, of course, but I’m running out of time to jump through all those hoops.’ She was only half joking. It really did feel like she was running out of time, given how many dead ends she had already come up against in the search to find someone to share her life with. ‘And who says you have to marry someone to have a baby, anyway? You might marry someone and end up being a single mother anyway—like Laura.’ Her flatmate had escaped what she suspected might have been an abusive relationship years ago when her son, Harrison, was only a tiny baby.
‘So you’re going to do the independent professional woman thing and go to a sperm bank or something?’
Maggie blinked. ‘D’you know, I hadn’t actually thought of that.’
‘Why not? You read about people doing it all the time. Especially older, professional women who choose not to get married or realise they’re running out of time. People just like you. And it seems like a great way to get a designer baby. You could practically choose its hair colour and how smart it’ll be.’ But Joe was frowning now. ‘Of course, you’re going to provide the other half of the genes so it might just come out with blonde hair and blue eyes and to be not very...’ His lips twitched.
Maggie threw her pen at him. ‘Are you trying to tell me that I’m not very smart?’
Joe had already caught the pen. ‘I was only going to say you’re not very tall.’
Maggie narrowed her eyes. ‘Not sure I believe that. And what did you mean by “something”?’
‘Huh?’
‘You said a sperm bank “or something”.’
‘Oh...’ Joe picked up his coffee cup and took a swallow. ‘You could just pick someone you liked the look of, I guess, lay on the charm and lure them home and hope that he’s not too careful about birth control.’
‘Joe... How irresponsible would that be?’
‘Irresponsible
