Jennifer Worth - Call The Midwife - A True Story Of The East End In The 1950S

“I think we’ll push off, now,” said the registrar to his colleague.” I’m very glad to see you. The mother is to be nursed at home. Good luck with the baby.”

They left, but the GP remained.

The paediatrician looked at the baby and gasped.

“Think he’ll make it, sir?” asked the young doctor.

“We’ll have a damn good try,” said the paediatric registrar. “Fix up the oxygen, and the suction, and heat up the incubator.”

The team got busy.

The paediatrician leaned over Conchita to take the baby. You could not tell whether she was asleep or semi-conscious, but the muscles of her arm tightened, and she held the baby fast.

He said to Len, “Would you tell her to let me have the baby, please? I’ve got to examine him, before we can transport him.”

Len leaned over his wife and murmured to her, trying to loosen her hand. It tightened, and her other hand came up to cover the first.

“Liz, luv, you tell yer mum we’ve got to ’ave the baby, to take to hospital.”

He shook her gently, trying to waken her. Her eyes flickered, and opened a little.

Liz bent over her and spoke to her in Spanish. None of us could tell what she said. Conchita opened her eyes more, and tried to focus on the little creature lying on her chest.

“No,” she said.

Liz spoke to her again, more persuasively and urgently this time.

“No,” said her mother.

Liz tried a third time.

“ Morirá! Morirá! ” (He will die.)

The effect on Cochita was dramatic and immediate. She opened her eyes wide, desperately trying to focus on the people around her. She saw the equipment and the white coats. I think her clouded brain took it all in and she struggled to sit up. Liz and Len helped her. She looked wildly round at everyone, thrust the baby down between her breasts, and folded her arms over him.

“No”, she said. Then repeated louder, “No.”

“Mama, you must,” said Liz softly. “ Si no lo haces, morirá .” (If you don’t, he will die.)

Conchita’s face was blank with anguish, but something was going on in her mind. One could almost see her struggling to get her thoughts under her command. Struggling to think, to remember, she held her breasts and the tiny baby fast, and glanced down at his head. The sight of it must have been the catalyst that brought it all together for her. Her mind seemed to clear, and a fierce, determined look came into her huge black eyes.

She looked round at each of the people in the room, her eyes finally clear and focused, and said with perfect confidence: “ No. Se queda conmigo .” (He stays with me). “ No morir á.” Then, with more emphasis: “ No morir á.” (He will not die.)

The doctors didn’t know what to do. Short of tearing her arms apart with brute force, which Len would not have allowed, and grabbing the baby, there was nothing they could do.

The paediatrician said to Liz, “Tell her that she can’t look after it. She hasn’t got the equipment or the know-how. Tell her the baby will be taken to the finest children’s hospital in the world, and will have expert treatment. Tell her he cannot live without an incubator.”

Liz started to speak, but Len stepped in, and showed his true strength and manliness. He turned to the doctors and nurse.

“This is all my fault, an’ I must apologise. I said the baby could go to hospital without consultin’ my wife. I shouldn’t ’ave done that. When it comes to the kiddies she must always ’ave the last word, she must. An’ she don’t agree to it. You can see she don’t. An’ so the baby’s not goin’ nowhere. He’ll stop ’ere with us, and he’ll be christened, an’ if he dies, he’ll have a Christian burial. But he’s not goin’ nowhere without ’is mother’s consent.”

He looked at his wife, and she smiled and stroked the baby’s head. She seemed to understand that he was on her side, and the battle was over. She looked at him with confident love, and said quietly, “ No morir á.”

“There you are,” said Len buoyantly, “he won’ die. If my Connie says that, then he won’t die. You can take it from me.”

And that was that. The doctors knew they were defeated, and started to pack up their equipment.

Len graciously apologised a second time, thanked them for the trouble they had taken, and said again that it was all his fault. He offered to pay for the expense of the ambulance, and the time of the medical and nursing staff. He offered them a cup of tea in the kitchen. They declined. He gave them one of his winning smiles and said:

“Go on, ’ave a cup. Yer got a long journey and it’ll warm yer.”

He had such an engaging way about him, that everyone agreed to accept the hospitality, even though they were cross about the wasted journey.

He and Liz helped the team downstairs with all their equipment, and the GP and I were left alone. He had hardly spoken during the past three hours or so, and I liked him for this. We knew that we had a huge responsibility, and that both mother and baby could still die. Conchita’s condition had been serious, but now, with the loss of two pints of blood, it was critical.

“She must have blood,” said the GP. “I have taken a sample for cross-matching, and as soon as the blood bank can supply it, I will set up an I.V. We will need a district nurse to stay with her while it is going in. Can you Sisters provide one?”

I told him I was sure of it. He said, “I’m going to start antibiotics at once, because she is breathing only into the upper lobes. I would like to listen to her chest, but I doubt if she will let me, because of the baby.”

He was right - she wouldn’t. So he drew up an ampoule of penicillin and injected it into the thigh.

“She must have one ampoule I.M. for seven days b.d.,” he said, as he entered it on the notes, and wrote out a prescription.

“Now I’m going to try to see about this blood. That’s as much as I can do at present. Frankly, nurse, I don’t know what to do about the baby. I think I will have to leave it to you and the Sisters. They are sure to have more experience than I have.”

“Or me,” I said. “I have never handled a premature baby before.”

We looked at each other with shared helplessness, and he left. Bless him, I thought. He hadn’t had any sleep for God knows how long; it was about 5 a.m., it was a filthy morning; and now he was leaving, on foot in thick fog, to try to get the blood sorted out. No doubt he had a surgery at 9 a.m. and a full day’s work after that.

I was so tired I could scarcely think. The adrenalin had been pumping all night, and now my body was drained. Conchita was sleeping; the baby could have been alive or dead for all I knew. I tried to think if there was anything I could do, but my brain wouldn’t work. Should I go back to Nonnatus House? How could I get there? The policemen had gone, and I couldn’t face the prospect of cycling alone in the fog.

Just then Liz came in with a cup of tea.

“Sit yerself down, luvvy, and ’ave a rest,” she said.

I sat down in the armchair. I remembered drinking half a cup of tea, and then the next moment it was daylight. Len was in the room, sitting on the bed, brushing Conchita’s hair and murmuring sweet nothings to her. She was smiling at him and the baby. He saw me waken and said, “Feel better now, nurse? It’s ten o’clock, an’ it said on ve news tha’ the fog’ll start to lift today.”

I looked at Conchita who was sitting up in bed, the baby still between her breasts. She was stroking his little head and cooing to him. She looked pathetically weak, but her skin colour and her breathing had improved. Above all, her eyes were still focusing and she looked collected. The delirium from concussion had quite gone.