She could feel the tension ebb away under her fingers as she squeezed the woman’s shoulder gently and hoped to goodness this baby was a decent size because the tummy beside her didn’t look that big.
‘When is your baby due?’
‘I don’t know.’
It wasn’t an answer she wanted to hear but there was nothing to do about that now. ‘Have you seen a doctor at all while you’ve been pregnant?’
‘The doctor would tell my parents.’
Who must be very well known? Or perhaps it was a small town?
Mentally Kelsie grimaced. There are doctors out there who don’t know your parents, she thought, but tried again.
Obviously money wasn’t a problem if she could hire a single compartment on the Orient Express. It had taken Kelsie three years to save up for this trip so the issue wasn’t financial.
‘Have you been well?’
‘Until today when the pain started.’
‘And do you remember when your last period was?’
‘Non.’ Anna’s eyes widened again and she began to hyperventilate.
Kelsie put her hand back on the young woman’s shoulder and talked her through that contraction as well. It seemed to last longer and be more powerful than the previous one, which was never a good sign on a train, Kelsie thought resignedly.
She was so young. As young as she had been when she’d left Connor. She could remember what that felt like. Terrifying. ‘Does the father of your baby know you’re pregnant?’
‘Non. But I go to tell him.’ Her eyes grew rounder. ‘In Paris. He is meeting me.’
He might meet more than you if the contractions get much stronger, Kelsie thought, and decided it was time for reinforcements.
She shifted on the seat so the girl could see her face more clearly. ‘Anna, I am a midwife. A nurse for babies. You understand?’
The girl nodded. ‘I think perhaps you may have your baby in the next few hours. We have to get you to a hospital until after your baby is born.’
Vigorous shaking of the head ensued. ‘No. I will be in Paris in five hours. I will wait.’
Kelsie smiled. I wish, she thought. ‘Your baby may not wait.’
More head-shaking. ‘Leave me. I will not get off the train!’
Kelsie could almost understand her reluctance. It was dark. Midnight or later. Goodness knew where they were and if anyone spoke a language this girl understood if she did get transferred to the nearest hospital. And how hard would it be to be transferred out again after the baby was born?
But the reality was it was a very tiny cabin. And this was a train! ‘Look, I believe babies of healthy young women are generally born healthy. But if something did go wrong you have no back-up plan. No way to save your baby if he or she needed emergency help. No way to save yourself if you needed help.’
She pushed away the thought of Connor a few carriages away. Just because they had an obstetrician on board, it didn’t mean they had anything else.
Anna shook her head violently and then began to breathe rapidly again as the next contraction built and Kelsie saw the wildness enter her eyes. It seemed Kelsie might just need back-up very soon.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered as she leaned forward and pressed the call button for Wolfgang. Perhaps he could talk some sense into their friend.
This contraction didn’t seem to want to end and Kelsie suspected Anna could be almost ready for second stage. It seemed they’d need Connor after all. She doubted they’d make a hospital unless there was one beside the railway track and around the next bend. She could manage the actual birth but wanted someone else here in case the baby did something out of the ordinary.
There was a knock at the door and Kelsie stood up to open it. Wolfgang’s hat was skew and his top button undone.
‘I need you to find Dr Black. Is the train anywhere near a hospital? Anna is having a baby.’
Wolfgang looked more horrified than worried for Anna. ‘Mon Dieu. My seats. The carpet.’
‘We’ll try to be as clean as we can,’ Kelsie said dryly. ‘Or you could get the doctor and maybe Anna off the train.’
Wolfgang nodded frantically. ‘Of course. At once.’ He wrung his hands, spun back to her as if to ask another question, and then spun away again to hurry off in the direction of the front of the train.
Kelsie shook her head. She never could understand why people went strange when babies were coming. Surely he knew it was too late now to wish it away. Best to just deal with what came and worry about it later, she thought prosaically.
Anna was breathing heavily again and this time, at the end of the long contraction, Kelsie heard the little catch and hold of breath that signalled the change to second stage.
Uh-oh! Kelsie glanced around the compartment, swept the towel from the hidden wash stand table and rested it on the ridged oil heater against the window to warm. At least she could have something to dry the baby, if nothing else.
The most important thing was to keep the baby warm, after the carpets, she thought wryly to herself.
Anna’s nightgown had tiny buttons all the way down the front. It would do. ‘You’ll have to take off your knickers. Panties.’ Anna looked helplessly at Kelsie. ‘Underclothes.’ Kelsie pretended to pull off her underpants.
She had a horrible thought that surely Anna knew where babies came from? It seemed she did when comprehension flitted across the girl’s face. A small mercy.
Another contraction arrived just as she accompanied this feat with huge modesty and this time Anna’s expulsive breath frightened both of them.
‘What is happening?’
‘Your baby is getting ready to come.’
‘But it cannot. We are not yet in Paris.’
‘Not sure that mindset did much for you not being pregnant either,’ Kelsie muttered, and bumped her elbow painfully on a wall. ‘These cabins are pathetically small.’ She’d bet Connor and his grandmother had a double suite each.
She shifted the pillow from the door side of the bed to the window end. If Anna lay down again the table would be a problem to access and she might just need some room.
Anna moaned just as Wolfgang arrived back with a plastic sheet and two raincoats. Kelsie refused to take them as she helped Anna to breathe calmly.
‘Where is Dr Black?’ she shot over her shoulder.
‘Coming.’ Wolfgang thrust the first raincoat at her. ‘For the bed,’ he implored.
‘Okay.’ Kelsie glanced at the distraught man. ‘We need you somewhere more comfortable, Anna. Do you want to stand up? You might find the contractions easier to bear if you work with them.’
Anna shook her head doubtfully. ‘I don’t want to move.’
‘Do you have pain in your back?’ Kelsie asked patiently.
Instinctively Anna’s hand went to the small curve in her spine. ‘Oh, yes.’
‘Then standing will help that and also help your baby to present the easiest way for your birth.’
‘Oh. I see.’ she struggled to her feet with Kelsie’s help, and Kelsie slid the raincoat under the blankets to protect the seats while she was up. Anna stayed doubled over, leaning on the tiny table, as the next pain arrived, but she was listening to Kelsie’s instructions.
The young woman seemed to have found an inner calm that Kelsie hadn’t expected, though she shouldn’t have been surprised—women continued to amaze her all the time in her work. ‘You are doing so well. Wonderful.’
‘I feel less frightened,’ Anna whispered, and Kelsie patted her arm.
With the contraction easing, Kelsie urged Anna to straighten her back into the full upright position before the contraction rolled on, and a sudden startled expression appeared on the girl’s face as a thin trickle of pink water ran down her leg and onto the blue carpet in a growing puddle.
Kelsie shot an amused glance at Wolfgang, who gasped in horror then looked at her accusingly, before all the blood slowly drained from his face and he crumpled to his knees in a dead faint, blocking the
corridor.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WHAT IS GOING on here?’ the voice of authority arrived before the face did, and Kelsie gave Connor a cool glance as he poked his head around the door as much as he could without stepping on the unconscious Wolfgang.
Kelsie frowned at him. The last thing they needed here were loud voices.
‘Anna is having her baby,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘You are here in case I need a hand.’
His eyebrows shot up but his voice was low. Teasing. ‘Shouldn’t you be the one giving me the hand?’
She raised her own brows. ‘Catch thirty babies a year, do you?’
‘More than you’ve had breakfasts.’ He grinned. ‘But I can be your support person.’
The past shimmered between them and the tension lessened in the tiny cabin as they both smiled. It seemed Connor didn’t have control issues about this and the thought warmed as well as reassured her.
Connor was about to step over Wolfgang when he changed his mind. ‘Give me a minute while Max helps me move our sleeping friend.’
Kelsie looked up from rubbing Anna’s back and saw a tall, distinguished-looking older gentleman nod before he turned away.
Wolfgang moaned and tried to sit up. His eyes rolled towards the much larger puddle on his immaculate blue carpet and then he slumped unconscious again.
Then, bizarrely, Wolfgang’s head dragged along the carpet with little bumps as Connor and the boutique manager pulled him unceremoniously out of the doorway by the ankles and he disappeared from view.
Connor stepped back to the now unimpeded doorway. He raised one dark eyebrow. ‘Status?’
‘Anna’s been having contractions since Venice, due date not known, no medical care, on the way to her unsuspecting baby’s father in Paris. Her waters broke three minutes ago… ’ she gestured to the puddle ‘… much to Wolfgang’s dismay, and I think we’re almost ready to push.’
‘Succinct.’ Connor couldn’t help admire the calm way Kelsie had managed the transfer of information. And the situation. He saw her glance with a measuring look at Anna. ‘I haven’t been able to assess the position of the baby.’
Their eyes met and he nodded and tried not to look at the wrong woman because Kelsie’s blue gown was knotted at the waist and the soft swell of breast could be seen between the folds.
He looked away to her face and couldn’t help thinking she looked so different from the soft and languorous woman he’d left an hour ago. She still looked amazing but there was decision and assurance in every line of her body.
Back on task, he reminded himself. ‘We’ll assume this baby knows the rules.’ He turned to someone behind him. ‘Can we get another light, please, Max? Or even a torch in case we need it.’
Connor glanced back along the corridor as the man hurried away. ‘Max has seen a lot on this train in the last twenty years,’ he said to Kelsie, but didn’t mention that apparently that included flirting with his grandmother if the interrupted conversation they’d been having had been what he’d thought it was.
Anna breathed through another contraction and the subtle expulsive effort confirmed Kelsie’s diagnosis. He would be right up there with agreeing with her assessment of the situation.
Kelsie looked up when the contraction had eased. ‘Do you have a doctor’s bag?’
He smiled wryly. ‘I’m not the sort of doctor who carries a bag to catch babies away from hospitals.’ He shrugged. ‘So what have we got on the plus side?’
‘Catching babies outside hospitals is right up my alley. And there’s two of us.’
He felt his mouth curve. Working with Kelsie was different from what he was used to. ‘Great pluses.’
She went on as if ticking off the points. ‘Anna is focused and healthy, so baby should be healthy too. And at least it’s warm in here.’
All good points. ‘So what can I do to help?’
‘I need you to take the baby if needed. Get your helper to find us some cord for tying off and scissors to cut the cord. And maybe a dish or a bag for the afterbirth.’
He nodded and spoke to the other porter, who was helping poor Wolfgang to sit up and then turned back to see if he could do anything else.
Kelsie had that far-away look in her eyes that he’d seen in midwives who could almost disappear in a room they became so unobtrusive, only to soothingly reappear when the woman needed them.
He waited until she refocused and passed her requested items across, and she put them on the small table by the window.
She looked back at him and smiled as if she was very glad he was there. He was conscious that his whole chest seemed to swell. What was it about this woman that touched him so much? Whatever it was, he’d better work out how to put up a force field or he’d be standing outside a registry office on his own again.
‘Thank you. That’s lovely.’ Her voice was soft. ‘I can concentrate on Anna. We don’t have anything if she decides to bleed, though, but there’s no reason she should.’
Connor wondered if she’d said that for Anna’s benefit, his benefit or her own. So he agreed in case she needed reassurance. ‘Of course she should be fine.’
It all happened very quickly after that. Anna was still standing when Kelsie peered under the hem of the nightgown, much to Anna’s embarrassment.
Kelsie murmured, ‘So, it is a breech. I wondered. We have our first tiny foot, and now the second has appeared.’
Trickier, Connor thought, but not a disaster, especially if Kelsie was right and both feet had come down together.
He kept his voice low and matter-of-fact, a mirror of Kelsie’s, so they didn’t alarm the mother. ‘Of course it is. Nothing straightforward about a baby that wants to be born on a train.’ He lowered his voice even further so that only Kelsie heard. ‘Do you want to swap places?’
Kelsie thought about that and appreciated he’d given her the choice. She liked that. But now the birth was a little more complicated he was the more experienced here and they both knew it. She’d delivered a breech birth before but this was no time for glory and not the place to practise.
‘Maybe.’
He slid in behind her and she edged away to allow him past so that he was in front of Anna. Kelsie took the towel to dry the baby after birth and spoke in Anna’s ear. ‘The doctor is taking over now. Everything is fine.’
Anna nodded, too intent on the overwhelming sensations to care, as her uterus contracted again and her baby shifted.
Connor looked up at Kelsie. His voice still low and slightly amused. ‘I know what you midwives are like. Don’t worry. I’m an advocate for breech babies knowing what they want to do without my interference, too.’ He held up his fingers. ‘So I’m keeping my hands off.’
Kelsie felt a glow of relief, and pride, and confidence. This was Connor, her Connor, and he’d matured into a caring and skilled man. Maybe he had even recovered from some of his control issues, she thought with a smile, and couldn’t help wondering what the future held for them. For the first time she wondered if some time in the future they might even meet again. She hoped so.
He spoke gently to Anna. ‘If you can stand the change, it would help if you were to sit on the edge of the seat, Anna. Right near the edge so baby’s toes can dangle. We won’t lift your skirt until we need to.’
Kelsie slid one of Wolfgang’s raincoats onto the floor and Connor knelt beside Anna. The girl’s eyes were closed and she was muttering prayers under her breath in an unending litany.
Kelsie decided that was as good as anything to do in the circumstances but everything seemed to be progressing normally—or normal for a breech baby wanting to be born on the Orient Express between countries.
With Anna’s change in position her baby’s little legs descended further until his hips were suddenly exposed and Connor folded back the nightgown so they could see the progress of the baby. Things would happen faster now.
Anna was having a son. Neither Kelsie nor Connor mentioned it, with the mother concentrating so deeply
.
‘If the hips fit, the head fits,’ Connor said quietly, and Kelsie smiled at him.
‘I hadn’t heard that before. Very nice.’
Anna’s eyes were closed and Max was standing outside the door, available but not observing.
Kelsie leaned out the door and spoke in an undertone. ‘Can I get another couple of towels, please, Max?’
He nodded and disappeared up the corridor, returning in less than a minute with warmed towels.
‘Impressive.’ Kelsie smiled at him before laying one across Connor’s knees for him to use if he wanted to wrap baby before it was born.
The descent of the baby continued smoothly, with the help of gravity and his mother bearing down, and Connor’s knowledge to keep his hands off a breech baby in case he startled it or pulled, in which case a baby would throw up its head into an alert position, instead of being curled for birth.
Frightened babies ran into problems. It seemed Connor knew that. Kelsie knew that. Some less up-to-date accouchiers didn’t know that.
Connor also knew that breech babies could be a little more dazed and reluctant to breathe than babies who came head first. His main concern in this scenario.
So he was much happier to be the catcher to hand the baby on to Kelsie for assessment because he was more used to having a paediatric registrar do all his baby resuscitation while he cared for the woman.
In Kelsie’s working world, caseload midwives who caught babies in homes were often in pairs and the second person was always responsible for encouraging reluctant babies to breathe.
Anna’s baby had turned a pale shade of blue by the time the head finally arrived and Connor handed the floppy little boy across to Kelsie while he waited for the next stage with the mother.
Kelsie took the limp little body, wiped him quite firmly with a towel, dried him all over so that his little arms wobbled, but after another few seconds a mewling cry was heard, much to Connor’s relief.
He watched the mother seem to wake from her stupor at the sound, shake her head and focus on her infant. Then with a gasp she reached for her son, and with the cord still attached he was gently eased into the open front of her gown against her skin.
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