Rescued by the Dreamy Doc / Navy Officer to Family Man

by Amy Andrews / Emily Forbes

  They were nearly at the door when the third contraction hit and Ginny cried out, ‘I need to push.’

  ‘No!’ Both Sebastian and Callie said it together. Callie had studied birth during her nursing training and seen a few babies being born—twenty years ago. But even she remembered that the urge to push was a sign of very advanced labour.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Ginny wailed, her eyes bulging in her head, reaching for both of them for support. ‘The head, it’s there, I can feel it. It’s right there.’

  Callie’s heartbeat thundered in her ears at Ginny’s calamitous statement. It was so urgent, so desperate that Callie didn’t doubt the truth of it for a moment.

  She glanced at Sebastian, who raised an eyebrow at her over Ginny’s downcast head and sucked in a calming breath. ‘Okay. No problem. Change of plan. Let’s go into the lounge and see what’s happening down there.’

  ‘No, no,’ Ginny wailed. ‘We need to go to the hospital. I need Brad. The baby’s coming now. It’s coming now,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Ginny,’ Sebastian said, his voice firm and calm, ‘it’s not safe to take you in the car. Callie’s going to be with you and I’m ringing the ambulance. They’ll be here pronto and will be able to get you to the hospital much quicker and more safely than we can. Then I’ll ring Brad and let him know the change of plan. Just don’t push, okay? Do not push. Do you understand?’

  It worked, his voice carving through Ginny’s rising hysteria. She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on,’ Callie directed. ‘Let’s get you comfortable.’

  They went left through an archway into the lounge room and Callie positioned Ginny on the couch. A brief examination revealed that Ginny was indeed right. The head was there, just starting to stretch the vaginal opening. Another contraction hit and Callie urged Ginny, ‘Pant, pant, pant.’

  Which she did—splendidly. Despite the overwhelming dictates of her body telling her to push, push, push. But at the end of it more head was revealed and Callie knew that the arrival of Ginny’s baby girl was imminent.

  Sebastian entered the room. ‘Ambulance ETA is eight minutes,’ he announced.

  Callie looked at him. She didn’t have to say a word for him to know that they probably didn’t have eight minutes.

  ‘What do you need?’ he asked.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘I HAVE gloves in my handbag. A stack of clean towels from the linen cupboard in the hallway. Something from the nursery to wrap the baby in.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Ginny moaned. ‘I can pant. I promise I’ll pant.’

  ‘I know, Ginny,’ Callie soothed, rubbing her palms up and down Ginny’s arms as Sebastian left the room again. ‘You’re doing so well and the ambulance will be here soon but I don’t know if they’ll make it before the baby. I just want to be prepared.’

  Sebastian was back in record time and despite the turmoil of the last few days, she’d never been more pleased to see him. She donned the gloves he gave her and placed several thicknesses of towels beneath Ginny, covering as much of the lounge as she could.

  ‘Where do you want me?’ he asked.

  Callie nodded at the arm of the lounge. ‘Slide in behind her, give her something solid to lean against.’

  Personally, right now, she’d kill for that solid wall of muscle behind her too. Someone to lean on as the events unfolded. It was a strange sensation. She’d learned from an early age to be independent, to rely only on herself. To have his calm, commanding presence was a surprising windfall.

  To actually want it was a miracle!

  How would it be to have it for ever? Joined in marriage. To be able to rely on someone else for a change?

  Sebastian positioned himself as requested, Ginny’s back propped against his front, his hands resting against her sides, where the swell of her belly began, her arms linked over his, her elbows resting on his thighs.

  Ginny shifted a little, her back aching, her body and mind restless. She looked at Callie. ‘Have you delivered a baby before?’

  ‘Nope.’ Callie wished she could quantify that somehow to make her denial more palatable to a labouring woman.

  Nope, but. Nope, but I’ve assisted at several. Or, nope, but it’s a special-interest area for me and I’m really well read on the subject and up on all the latest practices.

  Because the truth was her interest had been exactly zero. She’d never been interested in any of it. Not babies or the birth process or whether pink unicorns trumped yellow ducks.

  Zack had come to her as a two-year-old; the mechanics of how he’d got there hadn’t been something she’d had to worry about.

  Ginny looked over her shoulder at Sebastian. ‘Don’t suppose you have either?’

  Sebastian shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

  Ginny looked like she was about to lose it so Callie pulled back from her own thoughts and hastened to reassure her. ‘Look, Ginny, these babies, these home deliveries you hear about on the news, they practically deliver themselves.’

  ‘I don’t want a bloody home birth,’ she cried. ‘I want to be in a hospital where there are doctors and nurses. People who know what they’re doing. And epidurals. I want drugs. Lots of drugs.’

  Sebastian smiled over Ginny’s head and winked at Callie. Callie was not amused. Witnessing labour at first hand like this, in an uncontrolled environment, she couldn’t blame Ginny for wanting the security of obstetric professionals and some pharmaceutical backup. She’d want nothing less for herself.

  Callie sucked in a breath. No, no, no. This was not about her!

  ‘I understand that,’ Callie soothed. ‘I know this isn’t what you planned. But your body knows what to do, Ginny, it’s already doing it. I’m just here to catch should it happen before the ambulance arrives.’

  ‘No.’ Ginny shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she wailed. ‘It’s too hard. I can’t do it.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Sebastian assured her hastily. ‘Your body is doing an amazing thing, Ginny, a truly wondrous thing. And Callie’s right, a woman’s body knows. It knows what to do.’

  Callie glanced at him and knew the words were not for Ginny alone. His gaze captured hers for a moment, seared right to her core, and it was as if there was just the two of them there.

  ‘Why is this happening to me?’ Ginny’s wailed demand broke the connection between them. ‘I’ve done everything right, everything. I’ve read all the books, I’ve eaten all the right stuff, I’ve been diligent with my meds.’ Her face crumpled. ‘I haven’t even done the ducks yet.’

  Sebastian rubbed his hands up and down her arms. ‘The ducks can wait,’ he soothed.

  But it got totally lost in Ginny’s ‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God’ as she dug her elbows into his thighs and braced for another contraction.

  ‘Just try and breathe through it, Ginny,’ Callie murmured as a little more of the head was exposed.

  She tried not to think about what would happen if the baby got stuck or Ginny tore or if she haemorrhaged.

  The ambulance was coming and Callie had faith that they’d be able to deal with any complications.

  But mostly she tried not to think about the baby she was carrying inside her. And the man who’d put it there being calm and composed as his quads had two elbows ground into them and he mastered a situation that’d test most men’s mettle.

  Ginny gritted her teeth as she grabbed the backs of her thighs with her hands. ‘It so…bloody…hard,’ she grunted.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Sebastian urged. ‘Keep panting. You’re doing really well.’

  Callie glanced at Sebastian. His eyes were downcast as he spoke to Ginny. Her head was tucked in under his chin and somehow, even with her enormous belly on display, she seemed tiny surrounded by him. His reassuring words, his solid presence and supreme calmness was utterly sexy.

  He looked like he helped labouring women every day. At the moment he looked like he could leap tall buildings in a single bound.

  Was this how he would be with her? When she
went into labour?

  He chose that moment to look at her and Callie swallowed. His clear green gaze was unwavering. He’d looked at her a thousand times. At home, at work, at play. Had stared straight into her eyes, nose to nose when they’d been joined as intimately as two people could possibly be joined. But she’d never felt it reach right down inside her. Not like now.

  It was a gaze that was sure and gentle at the same time. It projected possession and truth. It was a gaze that told her he wasn’t going anywhere. And he had all the time in the world.

  Oh, help.

  Ginny sagged back against Sebastian as the contraction passed, drawing Callie’s attention back to the problem at hand. She looked down, knowing as if she’d been a midwife for the last twenty years that the head would deliver with the next one—this baby wanted out.

  ‘It’s coming, isn’t it?’ Ginny asked.

  Callie looked up, trading a glance with Sebastian. Ginny’s mood was all over the place at the moment. How would she react to the news? She wanted Ginny focused for the hardest part—not hysterical. He gave her an imperceptible nod and she didn’t even question that he was on the same page as her.

  She shifted her gaze slightly to Ginny and smiled. ‘Yes, I think you’re going to see your daughter very soon.’

  Ginny nodded, twin tears trickled down her face as she choked on a sob. ‘Brad’s going to miss it. He so wanted to see his little girl come into the world. I wanted him to be the first face she saw. So they’d form an instant bond too. Fathers miss out on so much and I want her to know right from the get-go how much her daddy loves her.’

  Ginny stopped for a moment, more tears threatening to spill. ‘He wanted to cut the cord.’

  Callie swallowed, touched by the longing in Ginny’s husky voice. In the middle of everything, intense pain and overwhelming emotion, Ginny was thinking about her husband. About her baby.

  So that was love.

  ‘He might still make it,’ Sebastian said gently. ‘He wasn’t that far away when I phoned him.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Ginny sniffled. ‘He’ll be devastated that he wasn’t here for it.’

  ‘Trust me,’ Sebastian said. ‘He’ll just be pleased you and the baby are okay and that you’ve been in good hands.’

  Ginny nodded. ‘That’s true. Imagine if you guys hadn’t been here…’Ginny shivered. ‘I would have been here all alone and…the baby…What if—?’

  ‘But we are here,’ Callie interrupted. Ginny’s eyes had grown wider and her voice had picked up speed. There was no point in letting Ginny get carried away with what-ifs. ‘And everything is going to be fine.’

  Ginny gave a strained smile. ‘I know. I know. I can’t thank you enough.’ She twisted her head round to look at Sebastian. ‘You too, Seb.’

  Sebastian grinned. ‘Pleased to be of assistance.’

  Ginny’s return smile died almost before it even started. ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Another one?’ Sebastian asked.

  Ginny nodded, turning back to face Callie. She grabbed Callie’s gloved hand. ‘Please tell me again that this is going to be fine.’

  Callie gripped Ginny’s hand hard. ‘It. Will. Be. Fine.’ She let go of the hand. ‘Now, let’s meet this little girl who’s in such a hurry.’

  Ginny’s face screwed up as the contraction intensified. ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned, gripping the backs of her thighs.

  The wail of a distant ambulance siren penetrated the intense little circle. ‘Hear that?’ Sebastian said. He had so much adrenaline in his system he didn’t even feel the pain as his quads were pulverised beneath Ginny’s elbows. ‘The cavalry are almost here.’

  Callie would have cheered out loud had she not been totally focused on the action. Ginny’s loud prolonged bellow combined with the agitated trampling of her feet against the lounge cushions heralded the fully crowned head, which popped out completely in a matter of seconds.

  The sight took Callie’s breath away. It was a miracle. A beautiful, amazing miracle.

  Ginny collapsed back against Sebastian with a loud ‘Oof.’ She sucked in a couple of gasping breaths, recovering from the mammoth effort. ‘Is it out? Is it out?’ she asked frantically, reaching down to feel.

  ‘Yes,’ Callie said, watching as Ginny’s hand ran over the contours of her baby’s head.

  Ginny started to cry again and tears filled Callie’s eyes at the reverence of Ginny’s touch.

  The front door banged. ‘Ginny?’

  Ginny rallied instantly. ‘He’s here,’ she said to no one in particular. ‘He made it! Brad? Brad! In the lounge.’

  Brad strode into the room and threw himself down beside the couch. ‘Oh, my God,’ he whispered as he gazed down at his daughter’s head. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, pressing kisses to Ginny’s face.

  Ginny half laughed, half choked on a sob. ‘I’m better now.’

  Callie averted her gaze from what should have been a private moment between a husband and wife sharing one of the most intimate things it was possible to share.

  She clicked back into nurse mode, only vaguely hearing Sebastian, Brad and Ginny’s voices. The baby’s head was out. The shoulders came next. But what did she do while they waited for the next contraction?

  Suction.

  In the couple of births she’d witnessed they’d immediately suctioned the nostrils while the baby had still been in the birth canal.

  Hmm. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Callie took a calming breath. While she’d kill for a portable suction unit right now, that just wasn’t possible. But the siren was louder now. Closer. The ambulance would have one for sure.

  Next.

  What was next? Think, think, think.

  Cord. Check for the cord.

  With her heart rate rocketing and no idea what she was doing, she inserted a finger, feeling for the neck. When it came into contact with something rope-like she almost had a heart attack.

  No, no, no.

  Her head snapped up, her gaze colliding with Sebastian’s. ‘What?’ he mouthed.

  ‘Cord,’ she mouthed back.

  Sebastian felt his shoulders tense and his own pulse kick up a notch at the panic in Callie’s eyes. Her gaze was wild and she was chewing on her bottom lip. She needed to stay calm.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said, pleased that Ginny and Brad were too wrapped up in each other to be paying attention.

  Would she? Callie felt frozen for a second. She was a mental health nurse, not a midwife. Or a magician. She sucked in a calming breath. She’d seen a delivery that had involved the cord being wrapped around the neck. The midwife had very calmly slipped the cord over the baby’s head before the shoulders were delivered.

  She looked at Sebastian and he gave her another encouraging nod, shaken by his level of confidence in her. With her heartbeat sounding almost as loud in her ears as the nearby squealing siren she took a deep breath and with a trembling hand she felt for the cord again, running her finger along it.

  It appeared to be wrapped only once and didn’t seem to be too tight. She manoeuvred her finger under it and slowly worked it loose enough to pull it up and over the baby’s head. She closed her eyes briefly as the success of the procedure sank in.

  She opened them again, her gaze colliding with Sebastian’s. His smile lifted her heart and she smiled back.

  ‘Okay, Ginny, let’s not wait till the next contraction.’ Callie had no idea if the baby would be compromised because of the cord problem but she didn’t want to delay in case. ‘Let’s get this baby out, okay?’

  ‘I can push?’ she asked.

  Callie nodded. ‘With all your might.’

  Ginny looked at Brad. He kissed her head. ‘Hold my hand, babe, you can do this.’

  So with Sebastian supporting her from behind and Brad holding her hand, Ginny’s shut her eyes, screwed up her face and bore down, bellowing loudly as the baby was completely expelled from her body in one smooth, slippery movement.

  Ginny was crying as she slumped back a
gainst Sebastian. Brad was pressing kisses to her temple, saying, ‘You did it, you did it.’

  Callie’s heart thumped madly as she held the blinking newborn in her hands. The baby girl was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen and an emotion she’d never known before bloomed in her chest. A giant mushroom cloud welling up and up and up. Making it hard to breath. Hard to move.

  She knew in that instant that she would love and protect the fragile life inside of her for ever. She glanced at Sebastian. Just as she would love the man who had given her such a precious gift.

  ‘Why isn’t she crying?’ Ginny asked. ‘Callie, what’s wrong?’

  Callie dragged herself back from the overwhelming emotion of the moment as the siren was switched off and vehicle doors could be heard slamming.

  ‘N-nothing,’ she said, reaching for one of the bunny rugs Sebastian had given her earlier. ‘She’s just a little stunned, that’s all,’ she murmured, rubbing the towel vigorously over the baby’s face, pinching her nostrils hard and sweeping downwards to clear any mucus.

  She rubbed the fabric briskly over the baby’s torso and blew on her face, just as she’d seen a midwife do all those years ago. A long, sharp, angry cry pierced the air just as the paramedics tramped up the steps and Callie passed Ginny’s bawling daughter, umbilical cord still attached, up to her.

  It was the sweetest thing Callie had ever witnessed. A mother and father meeting their child for the first time. There was a reverence in their movements as they gazed at the newborn, who’d hushed as if instinctively knowing that these two people were important.

  A tiny fist waved in the air and the profound wonder on Ginny and Brad’s faces was humbling. It was as if neither of them could believe they’d actually created this amazing complete miniature human being.

  She glanced at Sebastian, who had eyes only for her. ‘You did it,’ he mouthed, and Callie choked back the thick clog of emotion lodged in her throat.

  ‘She has your eyes,’ Brad murmured, stroking his daughter’s cheeks as the paramedics entered the room.