Louisa Heaton - Pregnant By The Single Dad Doc

She still had that long, wavy black hair. It concealed her face now, as she concentrated on getting a butterfly needle into the crook of the baby’s arm.

‘Adjust the angle. A little lower. That’s it.’

The needle slid into position and she attached the vacutainers to get the required blood samples.

She had steady hands. That was good. And she’d found the vein first time, which was sometimes hard to do on babies because they were so small.

He watched her finish off and cover the needle entry point with a small wad of cotton wool that she taped into position. ‘Okay, get those sent off to Pathology as soon as you’ve filled in the patient details.’

Ellie gave him a brief smile and he watched her walk away to the desk. Why couldn’t he stop staring at her? Just having her there was remarkable, but he found himself wanting to be closer. To touch her. Make sure that she was real.

He’d made the right decision in leaving her years ago—he knew he had. There’d been no other choice.

That was years ago. Nothing you can do about it now except give her the best education you can.

She looked up, caught his eye, and he gave her a brief smile. Fate had thrown them back together again, and if that wasn’t some sort of sign that this was a chance for him to make amends then he didn’t know what was.

He’d set her free once. Now he would do so again. But this time when she left in a few weeks she would thank him.

‘THIS IS LILY MAE BURKE. Born at twenty-seven weeks, she weighed one and a half pounds.’

Ellie gazed down at the tiny baby swamped, it seemed, by wires and tubes, wearing a yellow knitted hat that was almost too big and a nappy that seemed the same. Her eyes were covered by gauze pads and a tube was taped to her mouth, with a thinner one running into her left nostril. She looked lighter than a feather, but she was sleeping peacefully. Someone had placed a pink teddy in the far corner of her incubator.

‘What happened?’

‘Her mother went into an early labour at twenty-one weeks. They were able to stop the contractions and she went home—only to wake one night a few weeks later to find her bedsheets soaked through and with the urge to push. We couldn’t stop the labour a second time.’

‘Was it cervical insufficiency?’

‘We believe so.’

‘How’s the mother?’

‘Jeanette is here most days—you’ll probably meet her later. We’ve been getting them to do some skin-to-skin therapy, which they both seem to enjoy.’

Skin-to-skin was something Ellie wished she’d had the opportunity to do—one thing for Samuel before he...

The thought almost made the tears come, but there was no room for that here. She needed to hold it together.

Logan moved on to the next incubator. ‘This is Aanchal Sealy. A twin born at twenty-eight weeks. He’s the bigger twin and suffered from Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome. Do you know what that is?’

Ellie nodded. ‘A condition that can affect identical twins who share a placenta. One twin gets more blood volume than the other.’

He nodded. Pleased. ‘That’s right. And alongside Aanchal is her sister Devyani—the smaller twin.’

‘By how much?’

‘Two whole pounds.’

‘That’s a lot.’

‘It is. Do you know the mortality rate?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Sixty to one hundred percent. Do you know the dangers for each twin?’

She thought for a moment. Before coming here she’d tried to read a few of her textbooks and learn about some of the more common conditions she might come across. ‘Er...the bigger twin could have heart problems.’

‘That’s right. What kind?’

‘Heart failure.’ She tried to sound sure of her answers.

‘Good—you’ve been doing your homework.’

‘Did the mother have surgery before the birth to try and adjust the blood-flow?’

‘Yes, she did. An umbilical cord occlusion to try and ligate the cord and interrupt the flow of blood between the two foetuses. It has an eighty-five percent survival rate, but a five percent chance of causing cerebral palsy.’

‘Does Aanchal or Devyani have cerebral palsy?’

‘We can’t be sure just yet.’

Logan moved on to the fourth and final baby in this room.

‘And this fine fellow is Matthew Wentworth, born at thirty weeks. He’s had a few problems with his oxygen levels, so we’re keeping him in a high-flow oxygen box.’

Matthew was much bigger than the others. He almost looked healthy in comparison, but she knew that looks could be deceptive.

She looked about the room—at the equipment, the machines. It was all so overwhelming. So frightening.

Samuel had never made it to a room such as this. But she wished that he had. Because if he’d made it there he might have had a chance.

These babies—they all had a chance at life. Hope was still alive for each and every one of them, and she envied them—then felt guilty for doing so. The parents of these babies probably wished they’d never had to come here, and here she was wishing she’d had the chance to. Wasn’t that terrible?

Logan’s dark brown eyes were staring into her soul, as if trying to read her, and she had to look away. The intensity of his gaze was too much. He’d looked at her like that before, but back then she’d been able to settle into his arms, or kiss him, or squeeze him tight. Not now, though.

How did he cope with this? Seeing all these babies who could grow up with disabilities, knowing how hard their lives and the lives of their parents might be. How did he cope, knowing that? Where did he find the strength?

What if there was an emergency? What if one of the many alarms on these incubators started to sound? What then? Would she be able to stay and watch as they tried to fight for a child’s life?

I can do this. I’ve already survived the worst that life can throw at me and I’m still standing.

‘How do you do it?’ she asked him. ‘Deal with this every day?’

‘It’s my job.’

‘I know...but why choose this as a specialism?’

He looked around them at the incubators, at the babies, his gaze softening as he stared at their tiny bodies. ‘They’re so helpless, these babies. How could I ever walk away from them? Choose something else? They can’t talk—they can’t say what they need. You have to know. You have to be certain of what you’re doing and have conviction in your actions. These babies need us. Once I’d spent a rotation here I knew I wouldn’t ever want to do anything else.’

He had a faraway look in his eyes and she got the feeling that he wasn’t just talking about the babies here. He meant something else. Something she wasn’t privy to.

Would she always be a stranger in his life now? Or would her time here create a friendship between them so that they could go back to talking to each other about anything, the way they’d used to?

She’d missed him so much after he’d left for medical school. He’d broken her heart, and as well as losing her boyfriend she’d also lost her best friend. There’d been so much she’d missed telling him in the days after he’d broken it off. And she’d hated that empty feeling she’d felt inside because she couldn’t just pick up the phone and tell him what was going on in her life.

‘It’s lunch. You should take the opportunity to eat whilst you can. I’d like you to have enough strength for surgery this afternoon.’

‘I’m going into surgery ?’

‘Just to observe. We’re hoping to help the gastroschisis baby get all her organs back in her abdomen, where they should be.’

She nodded. ‘That’s brilliant news.’