The Midwife's Christmas Baby. Kate Hardy

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       CHAPTER ONE

      Saturday 3rd December

      ‘EXCUSE ME, PLEASE. I’ll be back in a second.’ Ella held her breath and made a dash for the door. This was hardly professional behaviour, but it would be better than throwing up in front of the poor mum-to-be and her partner.

      She made it to the staff toilet with seconds to spare. And then, weirdly, as she leaned over the bowl, she stopped feeling sick.

      Huh?

      If she was coming down with the sickness bug that was sweeping its way through the hospital and leaving all the departments short-staffed, she should’ve been throwing up right now. Big time. But the queasiness that had left her feeling hot and sweaty in the consulting room seemed to have vanished.

      She frowned. The last thing she’d been aware of was how strong the dad-to-be’s aftershave had been.

      Sensitive to smells and feeling sick...

      Had any other woman listed those symptoms, Ella would’ve suspected early pregnancy. But she knew that she couldn’t possibly be pregnant. Her doctor had given her the bad news more than five years ago, after her ovarian cyst had ruptured. Between the cyst and the endometriosis that had dogged Ella and caused her to fall behind in her studies, her Fallopian tubes were in a bad way and she’d been told she’d never have children of her own.

      How ironic that she’d specialised in midwifery. Cuddles with a baby she’d just delivered, or with a friend’s or cousin’s child, were all she would ever have. But after a lot of heartache and tears she’d come to terms with the situation. She loved her job. Trying to find a Mr Right who wouldn’t mind that she couldn’t ever give him a baby of his own—well, that was just being greedy and expecting too much.

      She splashed water on her face, took a deep breath and returned to the consulting room to finish the antenatal appointment with her parents-to-be.

      But when exactly the same thing happened at her next antenatal appointment, Ella began to wonder quite what was going on.

      She and Oliver hadn’t used protection, the night of the Hallowe’en masked ball. But she’d thought it wouldn’t matter.

      Of course she wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t be.

      As for the fact that her bra felt a bit too tight and her breasts felt slightly sore... That was purely psychological. Her imagination was simply running riot and coming up with other pregnancy symptoms. There was no way this could be a miracle baby. No way at all.

      But, now she thought about it, her period was late. A quick mental count told her that it was two and a half weeks late. She hadn’t had time to notice because they’d been so short-staffed and busy in the department lately. Actually, that was probably the reason why her period was late in the first place; she’d been rushed off her feet and working crazy hours, so it wasn’t surprising that her menstrual cycle was protesting.

      ‘Ella O’Brien, you’re being a numpty,’ she told herself crossly. ‘Of course you’re not pregnant.’ All the same, during her break she took one of the pregnancy test kits from the cupboard. Just to prove to herself once and for all that she was being ridiculous, and then she could get on with the rest of her life.

      She peed on the stick, then waited.

      A blue line appeared in the first window, to show that the test was working properly.

      And then, to her shock, a blue line appeared in the second window.

      But—but—this couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. How could she possibly be pregnant?

      She sat there staring at the test, in turmoil, emotions whirling through her.

      The test result was clear: she was expecting a baby. The one thing she’d been told would never happen, by specialists she’d trusted absolutely. From what they’d said, the odds were so stacked against her falling pregnant, she’d have more chances of winning a huge prize on the lottery.

      Though in some ways this felt better than winning the lottery. A baby. The gift she’d never dreamed she’d ever be able to have, except from the sidelines. Although she’d smiled and been genuinely pleased whenever one of her cousins or one of her friends had announced she was pregnant, a tiny part of Ella had mourned the fact she’d never know the joy of being a mum. And now she was actually going to be a mum. Have a baby of her own. For a moment, sheer joy flooded through her. Despite almost impossible odds, she was going to have a baby. A Christmas miracle.

      But then panic took over. What about her career? She’d already lost a lot of ground during her studies, thanks to the combination of her dyslexia and the pain of the endometriosis. Some days, the pain had been so debilitating that she hadn’t been able to sit through lectures, and she’d had to borrow notes from friends instead of recording the lectures, and struggled as the words danced across the page. Even when her doctor had finally found some medication to help deal with the pain, things hadn’t got much better, because then she’d had the ruptured cyst...

      She’d worried that if her tutors knew the truth about her illness, they’d make her drop the course. They knew about her dyslexia and they’d already given her so much help, letting her record lectures so she could listen to them and absorb the knowledge that way. She couldn’t possibly ask for yet more help. It’d be greedy and selfish. Ella almost gave in to her parents’ suggestion to forget all about being a midwife and go home to Ireland. But then she’d had a work placement and she’d loved working on the ward so much. It had made her more determined to follow her dream of being a midwife, so she’d struggled on and scraped through her exams.

      And СКАЧАТЬ