A Month to Marry the Midwife

by Fiona McArthur

  ‘Hmm...’ he murmured noncommittally. ‘But I do feel better after the shock of that.’

  She grinned. Couldn’t help herself. ‘So you’re ready for the walk around now?’

  He stood up, picked up the biscuits in the napkin, folded them carefully and slipped them into his pocket. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Ellie decided it was the first time he’d looked normal since he’d arrived. She’d remember that coffee trick for next time.

  ‘So this is the ward. We have five beds. One single room and two doubles, though usually we’d only have one woman in each room, even if it’s really busy.’

  Really busy with five beds? Sam glanced around. Empty rooms. Now they were in with the one woman in the single room and her two-day-old infant. Why wasn’t she going home?

  ‘This is Renee Jones.’

  ‘Hello, Renee.’ He smiled at the mother and then at the infant. ‘Congratulations. I’m Dr Southwell. Everything okay?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, doctor. I’m hoping to stay until Friday, if that’s okay. There’s four others at home and I’m in no rush.’

  He blinked. Four more days staying in hospital after a caesarean delivery? Why? He glanced at Matron Swift, who apparently was unworried. She smiled and nodded at the woman.

  ‘That’s fine, Renee, you deserve the rest.’

  ‘Only rest I get,’ Renee agreed. ‘Though, if you don’t mind, could you do the new-born check today, doc, just in case my husband has a crisis and I have to go at short notice?’

  New-born check? Examine a baby...himself? He glanced at the midwife. Who did that? A paediatrician, he would have thought. She met his eyes and didn’t dispute it so he smiled and nodded. ‘We’ll sort that.’

  Hopefully. His father would be chortling. He could feel Ellie’s presence behind him as they left the room and he walked down to the little nurses’ alcove and leaned against the desk. It had been too many years since he’d checked a new-born’s hips and heart. Not that he couldn’t—he imagined. But even his registrars didn’t do that. They left it to Paediatrics while the O&G guys did the pregnancy and labour things.

  ‘Is there someone else to do the new-born checks on babies?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘You’re it.’

  He might have a quick read before he did it, then. He narrowed his eyes at the suspicious quirk of her lips. ‘What about you?’

  Her hair swished from side to side. He’d never really had a thing for pony tails but it sat well on her. Pretty. Made him smile when it swayed. He’d faded out again.

  ‘I said,’ she repeated, ‘I did the online course for well-baby examination but have never been signed off on it. One of those things I’ve been meaning to do and never got around to.’

  Ha. She thought she was safe. ‘Excellent. Then perhaps we’d better do the examinations together, and at least by the time I leave we’ll both be good at them. Then I can sign you off.’

  She didn’t appear concerned. She even laughed. He could get used to the way she laughed. It was really more of a chortle. Smile-inducing.

  The sound of a car pulling up outside made them both pause. After a searching appraisal of the couple climbing out, she said, ‘The charts are in that filing cabinet if the ladies have booked in. Can you grab Josie Mills, please?’

  When he looked back from the filing cabinet to the door he could hear the groans but Swift was already there with her smile.

  He hadn’t seen her move and glanced to where she’d stood a minute ago to check there weren’t two of her. Nope. She was disappearing up the hallway with the pregnant woman and her male support as if they were all on one of those airport travellators and he guessed he’d better find the chart.

  Which he did, and followed them up the hall.

  Josie hadn’t made it onto the bed. She was standing beside it and from her efforts it was plain that, apart from him, there’d be an extra person in the room in seconds.

  Swift must have grabbed a towel and a pair of gloves as she came through the door, both of which were still lying on the bed, because she was distracted as she tried to help the frantic young woman remove her shorts.

  In Sam’s opinion the baby seemed to be trying to escape into his mother’s underwear but Swift was equal to the task. She deftly encouraged one of the mother’s legs out and whipped the towel off the bed and put it between the mother’s legs, where the baby seemed to unfold into it in a swan dive and was pushed between the mother’s knees into Swift’s waiting hands. The baby spluttered his displeasure on the end of the purple cord after his rapid ejection into a towel.

  ‘Good extrication,’ Sam murmured with a little fillip of unexpected excitement as he pulled on a pair of gloves from the dispenser at the door. Could that be the first ghost of emotion he’d felt at a birth for a long while? With a sinking dismay it dawned on him that he hadn’t even noticed it had been missing.

  He crossed the room to assess the infant, who’d stopped crying and was slowly turning purple, which nobody seemed to notice as they all laughed and crowed at the rapid birth and helped the woman up on the bed to lie down.

  ‘Would you like me to attend to third stage or the baby?’ he enquired quietly.

  He saw Swift glance at the baby, adjust the towel and rub the infant briskly. ‘Need you to cut the cord now, John,’ she said to the husband. ‘Your little rocket is a bit stunned.’

  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.

  Then she was back and diving in where she’d left off. ‘The plan is you come to the clinic two hours in the morning during the week, starting at eight after your ward round here at seven forty-five. Then you’re on call if we need you for emergencies, but most things we handle ourselves. It’s a window of access to a doctor for locals. We only call you out for emergencies.’

  ‘So do you do on-call when you’re off duty?’ He glanced at her. ‘You do have off-duty time?’

  Ellie blinked, her train of thought interrupted. ‘I share the workload with the two other midwives, Trina and Faith. I do the days, Faith does the afternoons and Trina does the nights. We cover each other for on-call, and two midwives from the base hospital come in and relieve us for forty-eight hours on the weekends. We have a little flexibility between us for special occasions.’

  ‘And what do you do on your days off?’ She had the feeling he was trying to help her relax but asking about her private life wasn’t the way to do that.

  She deliberately kept it brief. Hopefully he’d take the hint. ‘I enjoy my solitary life.’

  She saw him accept the rebuke and fleetingly felt mean. He was just trying to be friendly. It wasn’t his fault she didn’t trust any man under sixty, but that was the way it was.

  She saw his focus shift and his brows draw together, as if he’d just remembered something. ‘Syntocinon after birth—isn’t giving that normal practice in all hospitals?’

  It was a conversation she had with most locums when they arrived—especially the obstetricians like him. ‘It’s not routine here. We’re low risk. Surprisingly, here we’re assuming the mother’s body has bleeding under control if we leave her well enough alone. Our haemorrhage rate per birth is less than two percent.’

  His brows went up again. ‘One in fifty. Ours is one in fifteen with active management. Interesting.’ He nodded. ‘Before I go we’d better check this baby in case your patient wants to go home. I borrowed the computer in the emergency ward and read over the new-born baby check. Don’t worry. It all came back to me as I read it.’

  He put his hand in his pocket and she heard keys jingle and wondered if it was a habit or he was keen to leave. Maybe he was one of those locums who tried to do as little as possible. It was disconcerting how disappointed she felt. Why would that be? Abruptly she wanted him to go. ‘I can do it if you like.’

  ‘No.’ He smiled brilliantly at her and she almost stumbled, certainly feeling like reaching for her sunnies. That was some wattage.

  Then he said blithely, ‘We will practise together.’ He picked up a stethoscope and indicated she sho
uld get one too.

  Ellie could do nothing but follow his brisk pace down the corridor to Renee’s room. So he was going to make her copy him. Served her right for telling him she’d done the course.

  In Renee’s room when he lifted back the sheet, baby Jones lay like a plump, rosy-cheeked sleeping princess all dressed in pink down to her fluffy bloomers. Ellie suppressed a smile. ‘Mum’s first girl after four boys.’

  ‘What fun,’ he murmured.

  He started with the baby’s chest, listening to both sides of her chest and then her heart. Ellie remembered the advice from the course to start there, because once your examination woke the baby up she might not lie so quietly.

  Dr Southwell stepped back and indicated she do the same. Ellie listened to the lub-dub, lub-dub of a normal organ, the in-and-out breaths that were equal in both lungs, nodded and stood back.

  He was right. She’d been putting off asking someone to sign her off on this. Before Wayne, she would have been gung-ho about adding neonatal checks to her repertoire. A silly lack of confidence meant she’d been waiting around for someone else to do it when she should really just have done this instead. After all, when she had the independent midwifery service this would be one of her roles.

  By the time they’d run their hands over the little girl, checked her hips didn’t click or clunk when tested, that her hand creases, toes and ears were all fine, Ellie was quite pleased with herself.

  As they walked away she had the feeling that Dr Southwell knew exactly what she was feeling.

  ‘Easy,’ he said and grinned at her, and she grinned back. He wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, he was delightful.

  Then it hit her. It had been an action-packed two hours since he’d walked in the door. This physically attractive male had gone from being a stranger standing in her office, to coffee victim, to birth assistant, to frog remover, to midwife’s best friend in a couple of hours and she was grinning back at him like a smitten fool. As if she’d found a friend and was happy that he liked her.

  Just as Wayne had bowled her over when they’d first met. She’d been a goner in less than an evening. He’d twisted her around his finger and she’d followed him blindly until he’d begun his campaign of breaking her. She’d never suspected the lies.