The Consultant's Christmas Proposal. Kate Hardy

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      Usually.

      Then again, he didn’t usually live with her. OK, so they weren’t sharing a room. Weren’t sharing a bed. Other than that, they were living together as stand-in parents. Arranging things around the kids, like any other couple with a family. They’d even be making Christmas decorations together with Billy this year…

      He reined in his thoughts. If he didn’t watch it, he’d do something stupid. Like kiss her. Or sweep her off her feet. And then he’d lose her for good. No, he’d stay with the softly-softly approach. It would work, in the end. He just knew it.

      ‘See you in the morning,’ he said, and headed for his room before he gave in to temptation.

      By the time Toby had showered and changed next morning, Saskia had already fed the children, strapped the car seat into Toby’s car, made a pot of coffee and found out from Vancouver that Paul’s operation had been a success.

      ‘You’re seriously scary,’ he said, accepting a cup of coffee gratefully. ‘And I love you for it.’

      ‘Good.’ A horn beeped outside and she looked out of the living-room window. ‘Yes, that’s my taxi. I’d better go.’ She kissed the children goodbye. ‘Be good for Uncle Toby,’ she told Billy. ‘I’ll see you both this afternoon. And I’ll see you…’ she waved at Toby ‘…some time at work, so we can synchronise our duty rosters. Lunch?’

      ‘I’ll ring you,’ he promised.

      ‘Ciao.’ And she was gone.

      Toby tried to stifle his disappointment. As if she’d been going to kiss him goodbye, as well as the children.

      But it would have been nice.

      Odd, odd, odd. Saskia was used to not sharing her breakfast table. No crumbs or cereal on the floor, no spilled milk all over the table, and she could do the crossword and listen to the news on the radio in peace without having to make conversation with anyone else.

      But it had been…well, nice. Helping Billy to smear butter and Marmite on his toast, having Helena blowing raspberries at her, seeing the children’s faces light up as soon as Toby had walked in. It had never been like that when she’d grown up. Just a succession of nannies and then her parents, who’d insisted on complete silence at the breakfast table while they’d read the newspaper or a case brief.

      She shook herself as she realised that they were at the hospital and the cabbie was waiting for the fare. Now was not the time to start fantasising about having a family. She had a job to do.

      She paid the cabbie, gave him an extra tip to make up for her dozy behaviour, took the stairs to the maternity unit and started her ward round. No complications on the ward, so she did a quick round of the delivery floor.

      ‘Saskia, I’m glad you’re here. I could do with a second opinion.’

      Saskia went straight onto red alert. Georgina Wilson was their senior midwife, and her instincts were always spot on. ‘What’s up?’

      ‘Clare Fellowes. First baby, due eleven days ago. We induced her yesterday morning with prostaglandins—two lots—and she was only just three centimetres dilated at a quarter to one this morning.’

      Usually induction meant a fast labour—this one was unusually slow.

      ‘Larissa broke Clare’s waters at six this morning. It doesn’t seem to have speeded up her labour at all.’

      ‘OP?’ The best position in labour was when the baby faced the mother’s back. In OP, or occipitoposterior presentation, the baby faced the mother’s front, so the head didn’t press down as efficiently on the cervix, the baby’s head needed to rotate further and labour tended to take longer.

      ‘Yes. No sign of meconium.’ Meconium was the baby’s first bowel movement, a thick, greenish-black substance made up of bile, mucus and intestinal cells. If the baby passed it into the amniotic fluid, it generally indicated that the foetus was in distress—and sometimes the baby could inhale it when he started to breathe, when it would block his airways.

      ‘That’s good. What’s the baby’s heart trace doing?’

      ‘Slightly tachycardic, with late deceleration.’

      This told Saskia that the baby’s heart rate was faster than normal, then dropping after the peak of Clare’s contractions—a sign that the baby wasn’t getting enough oxygen. ‘Have you taken a blood sample from the baby’s scalp?’

      ‘Just about to. I’ve put the mum on her left side and given her some oxygen.’

      ‘Well done. Let’s stop the oxytocin and do a blood sample.’ Saskia frowned. ‘If it’s not good, we’re looking at a section. Does it say anything in her birth plan?’

      ‘The usual. She wants a normal birth with minimal pain relief, hubby to cut the umbilical cord, and she’d rather not have an episiotomy if she can help it.’

      Saskia winced. ‘Please, don’t tell me she’s been going through a labour this long on just gas and air or a TENS machine.’

      Georgina shook her head. ‘When it was obvious she was in for the long haul, we talked over the idea of an epidural.’

      ‘I hope she went for it. Giving birth is a tough enough job—why add to it by struggling with pain when we can help?’

      Georgina smiled. ‘You’re preaching to the converted.’

      ‘Yeah, I know.’ Saskia smiled back.

      Saskia introduced herself to Clare and her partner, explained what she was about to do and that it wouldn’t hurt the baby at all, and took the blood sample. To her dismay, the pH value was 7.21, lower than it should be. Saskia examined Clare and realised immediately that the labour simply wasn’t progressing as it should have done.

      ‘Clare, you’ve done really well to get this far,’ she said gently. ‘You’ve had a tough first labour and you’ve been really heroic about it. But your baby’s starting to show signs of distress, and his blood’s slightly acidic. I’d recommend that you have a Caesarean section.’

      ‘But…we wanted a natural birth.’ A tear trickled down Clare’s face. ‘A normal one.’

      ‘Sometimes you need a bit of extra help. It’s your choice, but your labour’s very, very slow and you’re tired. The longer it goes on, the more the baby’s at risk of having problems. At the moment, I’m concerned he’s not getting enough oxygen.’

      Clare swallowed. ‘Does it mean I’ll have to have a general anaesthetic?’

      ‘Not if you don’t want to. You’ve already got an epidural, so we’ll just top it up a bit for the operation. Your partner can still come in with you to hold your hand all the way.’ She smiled at Clare’s partner. ‘And you can still cut the cord, if that’s what you want to do.’

      ‘And the baby’s going to be all right?’ he asked.

      ‘If we deliver soon.’

      Clare nodded. ‘All right.’

      ‘Thank СКАЧАТЬ