Healing Her Brooding Island Hero

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I...yes.’

  Gina flipped his bag open and handed him his stethoscope. He fitted it, not above Jenny’s heart, but lower.

  ‘Let’s listen to bub,’ he said and there was a deathly silence while they all waited.

  ‘Let’s get a drip up,’ he said to Gina before removing the stethoscope, and his eyes met hers. The look lasted only for a fraction of a second, but she got it. Trouble. Weak heartbeat? Foetal distress? He wasn’t saying. Why terrify Jenny still further?

  Jenny’s fingers were curled into white-knuckled fists, bracing for the worst, but Hugh pulled the stethoscope away and smiled straight at her.

  ‘I can hear the heartbeat. Your baby’s safe, but I suspect it wants to come out. Soon.’

  And the woman seemed to sag. ‘Oh, God... Oh, thank God. But why...? The blood...’

  ‘Have you had a fall? A sudden jerk?’ He’d be thinking about placenta abruption, Gina thought, the ripping of the placenta from the wall of the uterus. He was feeling Jenny’s tummy now, gently figuring foetal position.

  ‘N...no.’

  ‘Nothing that could have bruised anything inside?’

  ‘Harry’s been cosseting me so much,’ Jenny whispered. ‘He won’t let me near the cows. I’ve hardly been allowed to carry more than a cup of tea. There’s been nothing.’

  ‘That’s great.’ He smiled a reassurance. ‘But something has to be making you bleed. While we figure things out, Gina will set up a drip. That’ll keep up the fluids for you and for bub.’

  And that had Gina fighting back her almost instinctive panic and starting to act like the medic she was. She was pulling saline out of the bag, figuring where they could hang it, organising swabs and syringes. ‘We need to counter that bleeding,’ Hugh was saying. ‘The docs from Gannet will bring plasma, but for now saline will do the trick. Jenny, have you had an ultrasound during your pregnancy? Have you had prenatal checks with the obstetrician on Gannet?’

  ‘I...at twenty weeks,’ Jenny whispered.

  ‘We were supposed to go back at thirty,’ Harry muttered from behind them. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking as terrified as his wife. ‘But the appointment was the week of the explosion. Dad was one of the guys hurt. He’s okay now, but with all the drama... I’ve been working his place as well as ours, and Jenny reckoned everything was fine. I worried, but she reckoned we could put going back to Gannet off.’

  ‘I get that,’ Hugh said calmly, as if time didn’t matter. Which Gina knew it did. ‘So the ultrasound at twenty weeks... Do you remember? Did they say anything about the placenta?’

  There was a moment’s pause. Finally, it was Jenny who answered, and she sounded horrified.

  ‘I’d forgotten. Ellen said it was a bit low. She said not to worry though, it’d probably fix itself, but she’d check it again before the birth, just to make sure. I didn’t think it was anything to worry about. There’s a picture, if you like. We stuck it on the fridge.’

  Wordlessly Gina headed out to find it. The grainy black and white image was in pride of place, right in the centre of the fridge. She looked at it and winced, then headed back and handed it to Hugh.

  Yeah, the placenta was low. Not low enough to cause problems, though. Mostly such positioning would resolve as the pregnancy progressed, leaving the cervix clear.

  But if it didn’t... If it had slipped still further, and the pressure from the growing baby had caused a tear...

  She watched Hugh’s face. Impassive. Calm. As if he didn’t concede this was the emergency it was.

  She didn’t need to have heard the heartbeat herself to know this baby was in peril, and Jenny, too. Deadly peril.

  ‘Jenny, I think I know what the problem is,’ he said, laying the image aside and taking her hand. ‘The placenta has shifted down rather than to the side, so it’s blocking the birth canal. The baby’s...’

  ‘A girl,’ Jenny breathed, and Hugh nodded.

  ‘Great,’ he said, as if that helped. ‘Your little girl is lovely and big, and she’s almost ready to be born. But that’s what’s causing you both problems. She’s been growing fast and, because she’s nice and big, she’s starting to push downward. She’s exerting more and more pressure on the placenta, and my guess is that’s what’s causing the bleeding. And the bleeding won’t stop until the pressure’s taken off. If she pushes any harder it might get a whole lot worse. So, Jenny, to keep her safe, to keep you both safe, we’re going to have to deliver her. Now. That means you’ll need to trust us to perform a caesarean. At thirty-four weeks she should be fine. You’ll have your daughter and things will be okay.’

  ‘A caesarean...’ It was Harry, his voice rising in panic.

  ‘Yes,’ Hugh said, and his voice was firm, sure, implacable. He glanced again at the bloody towels. ‘And we need to do it now.’

  ‘But where? Can we get to Gannet in time? There’s no hospital here. How can you do a caesarean?’

  Hugh still held Jenny’s hand and his eyes didn’t leave hers. His words were still firm, with certainty and confidence behind them.

  ‘Gina and I can perform a caesarean right here, Jenny. We have all the skills necessary, plus the equipment and the drugs to do it without causing you pain. Right now, you have a healthy baby, but if she’s pushing down enough to make you bleed then she needs to come out. She can’t come out naturally with the placenta in that position, and if we leave her in there the bleeding will only get worse. Both of you will be in trouble. Gina and I can have her out in no time, and instead of being scared, instead of bleeding, you’ll have your daughter in your arms. Will you trust us to do that, Jenny?’ He glanced back. ‘Harry?’

  ‘Oh, Harry,’ Jenny breathed.

  ‘There’s no choice, is there, Doc?’ Harry said heavily.

  Gina thought, This guy’s a farmer. He’ll be used to delivering calves; he’ll know more than most the danger his Jenny is facing.

  ‘There’s no choice,’ Hugh said evenly. ‘But you’re in good hands. I’m not an obstetrician, but I’ve been working as a crisis doctor in war-torn countries for years, and I’ve delivered many, many babies. And Gina here has all the skills to help me. Jenny, we won’t put you to sleep. I have the right anaesthetics in my bag to give you an epidural—a spinal anaesthetic to block out any pain. You’ll be awake the whole time, awake enough to see your daughter born. But, Jenny...’ He allowed himself another glance at those towels. ‘We need to move now.’

  ‘She’s not ready to be born.’ Jenny’s voice rose in panic.

  And then, amazingly, Hugh’s face creased into a smile. ‘Sorry, Jenny, I hate to tell you this,’ he said, gently but, oh, so firmly, ‘but this is not your decision. It’s your daughter’s. It’s your little girl who’s pushing who’s causing you to bleed. It’s your daughter who’s decreed she wants to be born, and she wants to be born right now. She has a mind of her own. So...would you like to meet her face to face? Fifteen minutes, Jenny, and you’ll have your daughter in your arms.’

  ‘But thirty-four weeks...’

  ‘And she’s a big ’un,’ Hugh said, still smiling. ‘She’s raring to start her life, right now. Will you let us deliver her?’

  ‘Oh...’

  ‘You have to, Jen,’ Harry said urgently, heading to the bedside and taking her other hand in his. ‘We’ve had premmie calves before. We know how to handle them, and this is our daughter. Let the doc make you both safe, love.’

  ‘Gina...’ Jenny looked wildly up at Gina, fear and indecision warring. And Gina got this. Women the world over had looked to women for advice during childbirth. Little did Jenny realise that Gina had less experience of birthing than anyone in this room.

  But now wasn’t the time to say so. Now was the time to haul the cloak of ancient women’s business around her, to put all the gravitas she could muster into her response.

  ‘You don’t
have a choice, Jen,’ Gina told her. ‘Now she’s messed with her placenta she can’t stay inside. And Hugh...’ She glanced at Hugh. ‘I’ve seen this guy at work and he’s the best. It’d be more convenient for us if we had a nice bright hospital theatre, with all the bells and whistles, but this way you’ll have your baby at home. At home where you belong. But she is making you bleed, Jen, so we need to move now. Hugh’s a doctor in a million. I’d trust him with my life. Will you trust him with your daughter?’

  ‘If it was you...if it was your baby...’

  Fat chance of that, Gina thought, but she didn’t let that show in her voice. ‘I told you. I trust Hugh.’

  And Jenny searched her eyes for a long, long minute—and then seemed to cave. She took a ragged breath, looked from Gina, then to Harry—and finally she looked to Hugh.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she whispered.

  ‘That’s what I wanted to hear,’ Hugh told her, and Gina could almost see the tension he was under. ‘Right, Jenny, right, Harry, it’s time we introduced you to your daughter.’

  * * *

  For all the confidence he showed, he wasn’t confident. He never was. Obstetrics wasn’t his thing.

  It was true he’d delivered babies, scores of them. Usually in war-and famine-type settings. Almost always as a measure of last resort, a woman in desperate trouble, her family at their wits’ end, finally bringing her to see the ‘foreign doctor’.

  Usually by the time they came he was lucky to save the mother. Dead babies...he’d lost count.

  And this little one...despite the confident face he’d assumed when he’d talked to Jenny, she’d been bleeding for at least an hour. He’d listened to the heartbeat and he’d heard unmistakeable signs of foetal distress. It had nearly killed him to take the time to reassure, to ask for permission to operate. To waste precious seconds.

  He knew from past experience that there was no other way—to operate on a patient rigid with terror was a recipe for further disaster. But he’d looked at the amount of blood and he’d had to almost physically restrain himself from moving to crisis mode. He’d been reaching the stage where he’d have had to bring terror into the equation—If you want a live baby we have to operate now!

  But Gina...

  ‘Hugh’s a doctor in a million. I’d trust him with my life. Will you trust him with your daughter?’

  Until she’d said that, things had hung in the balance. Jenny would have finally agreed; the bleeding, her husband’s terror, sheer physical weakness would have superseded everything and he’d have been allowed to operate. But Gina’s words had settled things. The panic in the room had dissipated.

  ‘I’d trust him with my life.’

  She was moving swiftly now, as was he. She might not be trained specifically in obstetrics, but he knew she’d interpreted his silent message. And she’d know the risks.

  They’d wordlessly decided to operate here, in the bedroom. Moving Jenny, putting more pressure on that placenta, could be a disaster all on its own. Gina was manoeuvring a surgical sheet over the bedding, talking to Jenny all the time as she explained what was happening, shifting her as little as possible while she set the bed up to be as clinically impregnable as she could. He had the drip organised now and was organising the epidural. A signal to Gina, a quick explanation of what he intended, and they rolled Jenny, oh, so carefully onto her side.

  Then there was an excruciating wait for the anaesthetic to take hold. He left his stethoscope on her abdomen, willing that heartbeat to continue. Gina had a tray set up beside him and was ordering Harry to put towels in the stove to warm. ‘Like you’re about to warm a lamb, but this will be one very special lamb,’ she told them, making the couple both smile.

  Then she looked at the curtains hanging over the window, jonquil-yellow, soft, new.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘How much do you love those curtains, Jenny? Can we use them?’

  ‘They’re washable,’ Jenny said faintly. She was beyond asking for reasons. ‘Use anything you want.’

  And two minutes later the curtains had been rearranged, one end still on the hook at one end of the window, the other propped up by a curtain rod leaning on the wardrobe at the other side of the bed. Settled to hang across the room, over Jenny’s chest. To stop Jenny or Harry seeing the moment of incision.

  A makeshift privacy curtain.

  ‘There,’ she said in satisfaction. ‘Harry, that’s just in case a little cut as we bring your daughter out makes you feel faint.’

  ‘I wouldn’t faint,’ Harry said in indignation.

  ‘Then you’re a stronger medic than I am,’ Gina retorted, grinning. ‘The first caesarean I watched, as a trainee nurse, the dad had to scrape me off the floor. There’s nothing like a wee bit of blood to make you feel woozy, and this is your Jenny. So you stay on Jenny’s side and I’ll stay on Hugh’s side. Then in two minutes we’ll hand your daughter over and no one gets to scrape anyone off the floor.’

  And Jenny even managed a smile at the look on her husband’s face—and she was still smiling as Hugh swabbed and then made the incision and lifted one small, indignant baby out into the world.

  * * *

  Half an hour later the chopper arrived from Gannet, and Jenny and Harry and one healthy baby girl—big for dates, almost healthy enough not to need the specialist neonatal equipment that came with the doctor and specialist midwife who’d arrived with the chopper—were airborne, heading for hospital.

  A couple of carloads of islanders arrived just as the chopper left. Where they’d got their information, who knew? But they came prepared to take over.

  ‘We’ll look to the cows and the farm,’ a big-bosomed, middle-aged woman told Gina and Hugh. ‘And we’ll clean up inside. You guys have just given us a brand-new islander. You’ve done your work, now we’ll do ours.’ They dispersed to their self-appointed roles and there was nothing for Gina and Hugh to do but pack their equipment and leave.

  ‘Do you want to go back to the hall?’ Hugh asked as they loaded their gear. There’d still be islanders there for the remnants of the wake—weren’t there always?

  ‘You need to pick up your truck,’ Gina told him. ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘Sure.’ He glanced across at her. Her face, relaxed, almost happy as the baby had been born, was still carrying the echo of a smile. ‘And then you’ll go home?’

  And the last vestige of smile disappeared.

  ‘This isn’t my home,’ she said softly. ‘This never was my home.’

  Babs’s Mini was parked in the driveway of the Whitecross’s farm, high on a ridge overlooking the sea. From here they could see almost all the way to Australia. Was that where she was looking?

  ‘You’ll go back to Sydney?’ he asked, cautiously.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I thought you might stay. Babs’s house...’

  ‘Babs hasn’t left the house to me,’ she said flatly. ‘She left it to the Wilderness Society so the land could be an extension of the national park.’

  That stunned him.

  But maybe it shouldn’t. Babs had been a loner. She hadn’t wanted Gina to be here. Why would she make it easy for her to stay? She’d implied she’d be leaving it to Gina—had that been a ruse to get her here?

  Gina would have come anyway, he thought. He knew this woman.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, stupidly, searching for better words and not finding any.

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘But... I imagine you’ll be able to stay as long as you want, though,’ he said. He knew the National Parks people—they’d be rapt that Babs’s land had come under their care, but they’d hardly want the cottage.

  ‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’

  Tomorrow. The word seemed like a hammer blow.

  ‘Why?’ he managed, and she shrugged and gave a hollow laugh.

  ‘I have a living to earn. And
I don’t belong.’

  ‘You could belong,’ he said cautiously. ‘You know, when Jenny was in trouble...she wanted you because she thought of you as an islander.’

  ‘I’m not an islander. I don’t belong...anywhere.’ She shrugged and he saw her almost visibly regroup. ‘I don’t stay in any place too long. I don’t get attached. Like you...haven’t we learned the hard way not to form ties?’

  ‘I am forming ties,’ he said, still cautiously. He was figuring it out himself. ‘Since you’ve come, ties seem to be happening all over the place.’

  ‘You were acting as emergency doctor before I came.’

  ‘But I didn’t care then. I care now.’

  His words emerged before he knew he intended to say them. Before he knew them for truth.

  But it was true. Before Gina had come, he’d emerged from his shell when it was imperative, and then he’d escaped, back to his refuge.

  But for the last few weeks he’d been interacting with the islanders on a daily basis. And today... He’d watched Harry’s face as he’d held his newborn daughter, and something had twisted inside him. The cold, hard knot that had served him so well since he’d left the crisis medicine he’d been doing for so long seemed to have softened, unravelled. Leaving him exposed?

  And looking at the woman beside him...he was even more exposed.

  Since he’d been injured he’d carefully, consciously built himself a barrier where he couldn’t care, but some time in the last few weeks that barrier had been broached.

  He did care.

  A lot.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he said, urgently now. ‘Gina, what we have here...we could build on it.’

  ‘You mean as medics?’

  And that set him back. As medics? Or as something more?

  It was far too soon—he knew that. He needed time to let the knots unravel further.

  To care still more?