Fiona McArthur - A Month To Marry The Midwife

The parents disentangled their locked gazes and Sam heard their indrawn breaths. The father jerked up the scissors Ellie had put instantly into his hand and she directed him between the two clamps as she went on calmly. ‘It happens when they fly out.’ A few nervous sawing snips from Dad with the big scissors and the cord was cut. Done.

‘Dr Southwell will sort you, Josie, while we sort the baby.’ Swift said it prosaically and they swapped places as the baby was bundled and she carried him to the resuscitation trolley. ‘Come on, John.’ She gestured for the father to follow her. ‘Talk to your daughter.’

The compressed air hissed as she turned it on and Sam could hear her talking to the dad behind him as automatically he smiled at the mother. ‘Well done. Congratulations.’

The baby cried and they both smiled. ‘It all happened very fast,’ the mother said as she craned her neck toward the baby and, reassured that Swift and her husband were smiling, she settled back. ‘A bit too fast.’

He nodded as a small gush of blood signalled the third stage was about to arrive. Seconds later it was done, the bleeding settled, and he tidied the sheet under her and dropped it in the linen bag behind him. He couldn’t help a smile to himself at having done a tidying job he’d watched countless times but couldn’t actually remember doing himself. ‘Always nice to have your underwear off first, I imagine.’

The mother laughed as she craned her neck again and by her smile he guessed they were coming back. ‘Easier.’

‘Here we go.’ Swift lifted the mother’s T-shirt and crop top and nestled the baby skin-to-skin between her bare breasts. She turned the baby’s head sideways so his cheek was against his mother. ‘Just watch her colour, especially the lips. Her being against your skin will warm her like toast.’

Sam stood back and watched. He saw the adjustments Ellie made, calmly ensuring mother and baby were comfortable—including the dad, with a word here and there, even asking for the father’s mobile phone to take a few pictures of the brand new baby and parents. She glanced at the clock. He hadn’t thought of looking at the clock once. She had it all under control.

Sam stepped back further and peeled off his gloves. He went to the basin to wash his hands and his mind kept replaying the scene. He realised why it was different. The lack of people milling around.

Swift pushed the silver trolley with the equipment and scissors towards the door. He stopped her. ‘Do you always do this on your own?’

She pointed to a green call button. ‘Usually I ring and one of the nurses comes from the main hospital to be on hand if needed until the GP arrives. But it happened fast today and you were here.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘Back in a minute. Watch her, will you? Physiological third stage.’ Then she sailed away.

He hadn’t thought about the injection they usually gave to reduce risk of bleeding after the birth. He’d somehow assumed it had already been given, but realised there weren’t enough hands to have done it, although he could have done it if someone had mentioned it. Someone.

As far as he knew all women were given the injection at his hospital unless they’d expressly requested not to have it. Research backed that up. It reduced post-partum haemorrhage. He’d mention it.

His eyes fell on Josie’s notes, which were lying on the table top where he’d dropped them, and he snicked the little wheeled stool out from under the bench with his foot and sat there to read through the medical records. The last month’s antenatal care had been shared between his father and ‘E Swift’. He glanced up every minute or so to check that both mother and baby were well but nothing happened before ‘E Swift’ returned.

* * *

An hour later Sam had been escorted around the hospital by a nurse who’d been summoned by phone and found himself deposited back in the little maternity wing. The five-minute cottage hospital tour had taken an hour because the infected great toenail he’d been fearing had found him and he’d had to deal with it, and the pain the poor sufferer was in.

Apparently he still remembered how to treat phalanges and the patient had seemed satisfied. He assumed Ellie would be still with the new maternity patient, but he was wrong.

Ellie sat, staring at the nurses’ station window in a strangely rigid hunch, her hand clutching her pen six inches above the medical records, and he paused and turned his head to see what had attracted her attention.

He couldn’t see anything. When he listened, all he could hear were frogs and the distant sound of the sea.

‘You okay?’ He’d thought his voice was quiet when he asked but she jumped as though he’d fired a gun past her ear. The pen dropped as her hand went to her chest, as if to push her heart back in with her lungs. His own pulse rate sped up. Good grief! He’d thought it was too good to be true that this place would be relaxing.

‘You’re back?’ she said, stating the obvious with a blank look on her face.

He picked up the underlying stutter in her voice. Something had really upset her and he glanced around again, expecting to see a masked intruder at least. She glanced at him and then the window. ‘Can you do me a favour?’

‘Sure.’ She looked like she could do with a favour.

‘There’s a green tree frog behind that plant in front of the window.’ He could hear the effort she was putting in to enunciate clearly and began to suspect this was an issue of mammoth proportions.

‘Yes?’

‘Take it away!’

‘Ranidaphobia?’

She looked at him and, as he studied her, a little of the colour crept back into her face. She even laughed shakily. ‘How many people know that word?’

He smiled at her, trying to install some normality in the fraught atmosphere. ‘I’m guessing everyone who’s frightened of frogs.’ He glanced up the hallway. ‘I imagine Josie is in one of the ward rooms. Why don’t you go check on her while I sort out the uninvited guest?’

She stood up so fast it would have been funny if he didn’t think she’d kill him for laughing. He maintained a poker face as she walked hurriedly away and then his smile couldn’t be restrained. He walked over to the pot plant, shifted it from the wall and saw the small green frog, almost a froglet, clinging by his tiny round pads to the wall.

Sam bent down and scooped the little creature into his palm carefully and felt the coldness of the clammy body flutter as he put his other hand over the top to keep it from jumping. A quick detour to the automatic door and he stepped out, tossing the invader into the garden.

Sam shook his head and walked back inside to the wall sink to wash his hands. A precipitous human baby jammed in a bikini bottom didn’t faze her but a tiny green frog did? It was a crazy world.

He heard her come back as he dried his hands.

‘Thank you,’ she said to his back. He turned. She looked as composed and competent as she had when he’d first met her. As if he’d imagined the wild-eyed woman of three minutes ago.

* * *

He probably thought she was mad but there wasn’t a lot she could do about that now. Ellie really just wanted him to go so she could put her head in her hands and scream with frustration. And then check every other blasted plant pot that she’d now ask to be removed.

Instead she said, ‘So you’ve seen the hospital and your rooms. Did they explain the doctor’s routine?’

He shook his head so she went on. ‘I have a welcome pack in my office. I’ll get it.’

She turned to get it but as she walked away something made her suspect he was staring after her. He probably wasn’t used to dealing with officious nursing staff or mad ones. They probably swarmed all over him in Brisbane—the big consultant. She glanced back. He was watching her and he was smiling. She narrowed her eyes.