Pregnant With Her Best Friend's Baby. Alison Roberts

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      It was an effort to keep her voice this calm, especially as Kathy started sobbing. ‘Baby’s shoulders are just a bit caught behind the bones at the bottom of Kathy’s pelvis.’

      Darren put his arms around his wife. ‘It’ll be okay, hon. These guys know what they’re doing.’

      ‘Why is this happening?’ Kathy cried. ‘After all this time and it’s been so hard...it’s not fair...’

      ‘It could be a positional thing,’ Maggie said. ‘Or maybe your baby’s a bit bigger than the scan suggested. Don’t worry, we have several ways we can help.’

      And less than five minutes in which to do so.

      Joe was right beside her and they were able to talk quietly for a few moments as Darren tried to comfort and reassure Kathy as she sobbed.

      ‘We can only spend about thirty seconds on each manoeuvre to deal with shoulder dystocia,’ Maggie said. ‘I know the protocol but I’d like to get some expert obstetric backup on the radio.’ She lowered her voice even further. ‘We need to be prepared for a neonatal resuscitation, too.’

      Joe reached for the radio clipped to his belt but he was still listening to Maggie. ‘We’ll try the McRoberts manoeuvre first. If that doesn’t work, I’ll need you to provide traction while I put on some suprapubic pressure.’

      Maggie turned to Darren. ‘Help me move Kathy down towards the end of the bed,’ she told him. ‘And, Kathy? I want you to pull your knees up to your chest and then push as hard as you can with your next contraction.’

      Even as she was encouraging Kathy to push and telling her how well she was doing, Maggie’s brain was racing through the next steps, which would mean applying pressure to try and move the baby’s shoulders both externally and then internally. If that didn’t work she would have to follow guidance from one of the consultants in the maternity wing of Wellington’s Royal Hospital. She didn’t want to have to think about the more drastic measures that might need to be taken or the risks to both baby and mother.

      Joe caught Maggie’s gaze as the sounds of the effort Kathy was putting into pushing began to fade into exhausted groans. Maggie nodded and they shifted positions, with Joe gently taking hold of the baby’s head and Maggie moving to the side of the bed where she could feel for the position of the baby’s shoulders.

      ‘You’re going to feel me pushing this time as well,’ she told Kathy. ‘We need the biggest push you’ve got this time.’

      ‘I can’t,’ Kathy moaned. ‘I can’t do it...’

      ‘Yes, you can.’ Darren was lying across the top of the bed, holding both of Kathy’s hands. ‘Hang on tight...you’ve got this...’

      Maggie could feel the curve of the baby’s back beneath her fingers and then the lump of the tiny shoulder. She locked her hands by weaving her fingers together and then put the heel of one hand just above the shoulder. As Kathy’s next contraction gathered strength and she started to push, Maggie pressed down on the baby’s shoulder. Joe was applying traction. At one point during the tense thirty seconds of effort, Maggie and Joe held eye contact with each other. They co-ordinated a rocking motion as Kathy’s contraction began to recede and, finally, Maggie could feel the movement beneath her hands as one shoulder and then the other was freed.

      ‘Keep it going,’ she urged Kathy. ‘Just a little bit more... Baby’s coming... Push, Kathy...push...you can do it...’

      And there was the baby, in Joe’s hands. Looking...alarmingly limp. Maggie reached for the clamps and sterile scissors from the birthing pack roll. They needed to cut the cord fast if resuscitation was needed.

      ‘Is he okay?’ Kathy was trying to push herself up onto her elbows. ‘What’s happening...?’

      ‘He’s breathing,’ Joe told her. ‘And starting to move. I’m just going to check his heart rate.’

      The baby was moving and screwing up his little face as though he wanted to cry but couldn’t find the energy yet. They were both good signs but his colour wasn’t great, with his extremities a dark shade of blue, and Maggie wasn’t sure that his breathing was adequate. Joe wasn’t looking too worried, however. He was smiling down at the baby as he dried it off with a soft towel.

      ‘Hey there, little guy. You going to tell us what you think about all this?’

      Maggie had the cord clamped and the scissors in her hand but, if an urgent resuscitation wasn’t needed, she didn’t have to rush.

      ‘Darren? Do you want to cut the cord?’

      ‘Apgar six at one minute,’ Joe told her. ‘Heart rate is over a hundred but the resp rate is on the slow side and he’s pretty blue.’

      By the time Darren had cut through the cord, the baby was starting to make sounds. The first warbling cry came a few seconds later and Kathy burst into tears and held out her arms.

      ‘Can I hold him? Please?’

      Again, Maggie and Joe shared a glance. And a smile this time. This situation was under control now with the emergency delivery successfully managed. Kathy still needed careful monitoring because she was at more risk of a postpartum haemorrhage after the complication with her baby’s delivery, and she needed to transfer to an obstetric unit as quickly as possible. But keeping the baby warm was also a priority and the best way to do that was to have him skin to skin with his mother and to cover them both with warm blankets.

      It was Maggie who scooped up the infant to place him in Kathy’s arms and, as she felt the weight of the newborn in her own arms and against her own breast, she felt oddly close to tears. Because it was a reminder of that ache of emptiness she’d been so aware of earlier when she’d been thinking of the baby her friend Fizz was going to have?

      No. These were more like tears of joy. How precious was this new life? Especially this one, after giving them all a fright on his way into the world, but all babies were just amazing and the joy of being part of a delivery was something that would never grow old.

      This was more than a purely professional satisfaction, however. Maybe there was an echo of that ache of longing. Of the emptiness. Not in her arms that were still full of this new life but somewhere further down in Maggie’s body—in the space where a baby of her own might grow one day.

      Her smile was definitely a bit wobbly as she helped Kathy move her clothing and gather her baby onto her chest.

      ‘He’s just gorgeous,’ Maggie murmured, stepping back to let Darren get close to his wife and baby for a few precious minutes of family bonding time as she and Joe got packed up and ready for the transfer to hospital.

      Darren sounded a lot closer to tears than Maggie was. ‘Looks just like his daddy, I reckon,’ he said. ‘How ’bout that?’

      Maggie checked her watch as she rapidly assessed the baby again before turning away to give this brand-new family just a moment of relative privacy. ‘Apgar score eight at five minutes,’ she told Joe.

      He nodded, grinning, and then stripped off his gloves and unclipped his radio. ‘Andy? We’ll be ready to go inside ten minutes. Crank up the central heating in the cabin, we’ve got a baby to keep warm on the way home.’

      Darren СКАЧАТЬ