by Sara Wood
The paramedics were worrying quietly about the floods, taking two diversions on the way. The blue light flashed as they screamed along the road, devouring miles in a third of the time it normally took to get to Portsmouth. The doctor monitored her, worryingly accompanying them in the ambulance, in case Helen gave birth before they reached the hospital.
They kept the banter going, telling jokes to relax them both, to stop their jittering teeth and trembling hands and to briefly change the looks of stunned horror on their faces.
‘Lunch and duty frees will be served by cabin staff,’ announced the paramedic with a grin. And later… ‘This is your Captain speaking. We’re flying at five feet, at a speed of—ah. Er, yes. Better keep quiet about that or we’ll be nabbed by the cops. Now, if you look to your right, you’ll see Paris, and on your left is Timbuktu. Estimated time of arrival…’
They both managed weak smiles. Anything rather than what they really felt like doing: yelling in despair, crying…
A chirpy midwife came to meet them at the hospital and she was calm and casual as if this was an everyday occurrence. It was a quiet, private room. They administered yet more drugs for Helen to stop the contractions. Mercifully she slept.
Dan couldn’t. Restless and agitated, he rang her parents and made light of it all, adopting the same merry tone as the midwife. Two a.m. He paced the floor relentlessly, blessing the vending machine that kept him topped up with caffeine.
Later that morning there were more steroid injections for Helen and an internal examination. What could he do? If only he could have had a medical career he would have taken charge then and there.
As it was, he felt helpless. As useless as a rice pudding. His only role was to pat Helen’s hand and tell her that she’d be all right. As if the hell he knew. Neither of them believed it, anyway.
‘Well,’ said the doctor an hour later, ‘your children are refusing to do what they’re told. They’re determined to be born before Christmas and see the New Year in. They’re on their way, Helen, and they’ll be born by tonight.’
‘Tonight!’ they both gasped in dismay.
His arm came protectively around Helen. She buried her face in him, her body trembling pathetically. The dangers united them, he thought in misery. He held her close, afraid to let her go, clinging onto their moments together.
‘Definite. We’ll wait till the contractions are stronger and then we’ll whip you in for a Caesarean. A nice little bikini cut for a nice little bikini.’
Helen scowled. ‘Huh! Some hopes! I’ll never wear one again!’
‘Oh, you will. And I bet she looks fantastic in one, doesn’t she, Dan?’
‘Mega,’ he croaked, fear clutching at his loins.
‘There!’ said the doctor with satisfaction. ‘I knew it. Don’t worry about a thing. Piece of cake, Helen. You’ll wake up and it’ll all be over.’
Dan felt his hand being crushed. ‘Piece of cake?’ she complained crossly. ‘You have the babies, then!’
The doctor looked abashed. ‘You’ll be OK,’ he said gently. ‘Honest.’
‘And how dangerous will it be for the twins?’ Helen asked in a small, scared little voice.
‘They’ll be tiny and will need a lot of care, but we’ve done this umpteen times before. Don’t worry. Relax. Rest as much as you can. Dan, Nurse will take you to the prem unit.’
‘No,’ he said shortly, glaring at the doctor who seemed determined to part them. ‘I don’t want to leave my wife—’
‘But she needs to sleep. She’s fighting it and she needs all the rest she can get. Nothing’s going to happen for a while.’
‘Helen?’ he asked.
‘I am tired,’ she admitted. ‘Sleep would be lovely.’
‘You won’t take her away?’ he said to the doctor suspiciously.
‘No. Ages to go yet. Let your wife sleep.’
Too numb to argue but reluctant to leave Helen, he saw the sense in leaving her alone. He knew his agitation would only communicate itself to her and she’d be unable to give in to her need for sleep.
Letting go of her hand was tough. At the door he turned to look at Helen but her eyes were already closed. Suddenly he felt alone. Shut out. She and the babies had each other, linked physically by a tie far greater than any contribution he’d made.
And she and the babies would go through this together while he sat on the sidelines, waiting, worrying, totally cut off from them.
The nurse coughed discreetly and he followed her, walking on legs of jelly to the intensive care baby unit. It was like getting into Fort Knox. Eventually they were allowed in and he was ‘gowned up’.
There were two empty incubators in the unit. Looking at them, imagining his babies in there, Dan felt emotion shake his self-control, the reality of it all coming home to him.
Somewhere in the background, the nurse was trying to reassure him with her cheery voice and air of efficiency. It was all very well for her. These weren’t her babies. It wasn’t her partner who was going through an emergency operation. Her children weren’t going to be so undeveloped that they’d be linked up to wires and machines the moment they were born.
He flinched. They’d be so small. So helpless. And those machines seemed brutal.
Shaking, sweltering in the heat, he wrinkled his nose at the clinical smell. Everywhere he looked in the barely lit room there were incubators, and batteries of alarming machines. Star Trek stuff.
‘There’s one nurse per incubator and several doctors on the ward. After the ICU—Intensive Care Unit—they’re moved to the high dependency unit, still on monitors. We’ll show your wife a video of all this so she has an idea—’
‘Good grief!’ he breathed in astonishment, glimpsing at a red, hairy and pathetically scrawny little baby in a nearby incubator. His heart contracted with compassion. If this were his child he’d be going crazy with worry. He felt suddenly sick. ‘How…how old is that kiddie?’
‘A day,’ the nurse said gently. ‘She’s only one pound in weight, though she’s doing fine. We’ve had smaller ones than this. We can work near miracles here, Dan.’
‘Twelve-week-early miracles?’ he croaked, hating the intense warmth of the unit. That poor little mite. All those tubes…
‘Oh, even earlier than that. Trust me.’
‘I don’t have any choice, do I?’ he muttered.
And wanted to howl. Instead he gritted his teeth and went back to Helen to watch the video with her. When she cried her heart out at the sight of the tiny, helpless scraps of babies, he felt his chest fill to bursting.
The babies would be in an incubator, with machines monitoring their heart and lung function and temperature. They’d be fed intravenously and might need additional oxygen. If they even lived. It was all terrifying.
‘It’s very calm in the baby unit,’ he said stiffly, trying to sound normal and positive. ‘And you can visit any time. They take Polaroids—and we can take photos if we want and be with them as much as we like—’
‘If they live,’ she mumbled miserably, echoing his thoughts.
If she lived. The pain immobilised him. He wanted to give her a hug but kept his hands to himself and tried to be encouraging.
‘It’ll be OK, they’ve done this so many times,’ he soothed.
‘But I haven’t! They haven’t!’ she sobbed.
‘Helen!’ He hesitated and tentatively stroked her shoulder, hopelessly impotent to do anything for her. Her plaintive face almost broke his control. But he had to be strong and reassuring. It was all he could do and he’d damn well stay calm for her sake. ‘Sometimes,’ he said gently, ‘you have to put your faith in other people. You have to forget your fears and make a judgement based on what you know about them.’
Her tear-swilled eyes blinked up at him. ‘Do you?’ she snuffled.
‘Of course. And we know all the best equipment is here, that the staff have the skills and experience, and that babies are able to survive even when they’re very premature.’
‘Sure.’
‘It doesn’t always work like that,’ she said sadly.
‘These are the experts. We have to put ourselves in their hands,’ he insisted.
To his relief, she seemed calmed by what he’d said. The day wore on slowly, deadly hour followed by deadly hour. Dan fretted at the slowness of it all, hating the pain and anxiety that Helen was going through.
Then, in the early evening, she suddenly shouted in agony and clutched her abdomen just as the midwife popped in to check her.
‘Dan! Stop it, stop the pain, I don’t want it!’ she yelled in despair.
‘I wish I could,’ he said fervently.
‘Right. Labour ward for you,’ said the nurse cheerfully, after a quick examination. ‘Into the wheelchair. Come on, Daddy. Don’t stand there rooted to the ground. This is it. Keep up.’
‘Stay with me, Dan!’ Helen cried frantically, her eyes huge with terror.
‘Like glue!’ he muttered grimly, catching her up.
His heart sounded like a steam hammer, bruising his chest. He was scared for her, afraid she’d die, but he couldn’t let that show. Instead he helped her with the gas and air for the next few hours in the labour ward, and cheerily told her stories about work, about the plans he had for growing organic vegetables in the garden, where the children would go to school, everything, anything, to take her mind—and his—off the lurking fear of the unknown.
It got worse with every second that passed. Before this, he’d thought you had babies quickly. A lot of yelling and then there they were. Nobody ever showed this terrible, devastating waiting. It made him feel sick with apprehension, his guts and his bowels churning around in a terrible state.
And he’d never been frightened like this, not even when he’d been beaten up at school, because at least at that time he’d been able to do something, to fight back and kick and yell blue murder.
Here, he was helpless. A bystander. Totally useless.
‘I wish I could have your pain,’ he muttered to Helen.
‘You’re not the only one!’ she panted heavily. ‘Take it!’ she yelled. ‘Be—my—guest!’
‘We’re off,’ announced the doctor suddenly after another check. ‘You can come on up, Dan, but you must say goodbye outside Theatre. You can’t come in,’ he explained, ‘because Helen’s having an emergency Caesarean by general anaesthetic. Don’t worry, you’ll be a dad before you know it. OK, Mum?’
‘No!’ she wavered, remorselessly honest as always. ‘Of course I’m not! I want to see my babies born!’ she wailed.
‘No can do. They’re transverse—lying sideways instead of head or bottom down. Next time, maybe,’ smiled the doctor.
‘There won’t be a flaming next time!’ she shouted, making the nursing staff laugh indulgently.
It pained Dan that she was right. ‘Here,’ he said gruffly as they hurried her along the corridor. ‘Hold my hand tightly and see if you can destroy each bone one by one.’
She gave a half-smile of gratitude. ‘Silly.’
‘Well, that’s what you were doing earlier.’
‘Was I? I’m sorry.’
‘It wasn’t much, compared with what you’re going through. Oh, and insist they stuff the babies back if they’re not good-looking like us,’ he whispered.
‘Dan!’ Helen giggled and then her face crumpled and she burst into tears.
‘Oh, hell. Please don’t cry…’
It was no good. He couldn’t speak. There was so much he wanted to say but his throat was choked with tears and nothing was coming out. This was his opportunity to clear the air, to say how he felt.
Because there was a possibility that she might die.
He couldn’t see. Damn it. Angrily he screwed a fist into his eye sockets and became aware that they were slowing down. This was it. And his mouth was giving way, refusing to hold its shape long enough to form words.
He bent and put his cheek against hers, holding her tightly, silently tasting her tears, hearing her choking sobs.
‘I want you in there!’ she whimpered. ‘I don’t want you to go! I feel safe with you!’
‘I must go,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll be outside. Ready to thump anyone who doesn’t do their job right. OK?’
‘Dan,’ she sniffed. ‘If—if anything hap-happens to me, you’ll look after the babies, won’t you?’
Oh, God. He couldn’t handle that. All he could do was grunt and nod. Couldn’t even assure her she’d come through this. Fat help he was.
But now he knew what she meant to him and what he was missing—would miss—by not being her husband in every sense. Whatever happened, he had lost the love of his life. And all because of Celine.
They were pulling him away, gently, kindly, but with firm insistence. He stood up, eyes swimming, and found a brave smile for her. Ruffled her hair. Patted her cheek. No words possible.
‘See you soon, Dan,’ she breathed, trying to be brave. ‘We—we had good times together, didn’t we?’ she added plaintively.
He cracked up. Told her everything with his eyes, but by then she’d vanished into the operating theatre, a pathetic little face with enormous smoky eyes fixed on him. And he was left with a nurse patting his back soothingly.
Nothing had ever affected him so powerfully. If this was emotion then he wasn’t sure he liked it.
He paced. Wished he smoked. Rang Diane, who was excited and concerned in equal measures. Spoke to Helen’s parents again. Paced more furiously than ever, trying not to imagine what was going on inside there, what they were doing to Helen, to their tiny twins…
Ten minutes. He’d only been here ten lousy minutes! And he’d probably have an hour or more to wait and in that time he’d go mad…
He was walking miles up and down that corridor. Tried to work out how many, multiplying figures in his head to keep his mind off Helen’s ordeal. It was a living nightmare and he wouldn’t have wished it on anyone.
Sleepily, Helen opened her heavy eyelids, her mouth horribly dry.
‘Helen!’
Smiling, she turned her head and saw Dan bending over her. ‘Herro,’ she mumbled stupidly.
‘Thank God!’
‘Mmm?’
‘You’re all right!’
‘Woozy.’ She blinked, remembering, and clutched Dan’s arm. ‘The babies! Are they…?’
‘Fine,’ he said, oddly husky.
She waited. He just stared down at her.
‘Fine what? The variety, Dan! Boys, girls, budgies, werewolves—’
‘Oh.’ He grinned, sheepishly. ‘A girl and a boy,’ he said, as if savouring the words to himself.
‘Wicked!’ She smiled in delight. ‘How lovely! One of each. That’s clever of us. Details, Dan!’ she urged. ‘I missed it all, remember?’
‘They were born at nine forty-one and nine forty-two,’ he said softly, ‘the girl first—’
‘Typical. Impatient, like her mother,’ she said happily. ‘Weights?’
‘Our son came in at three pounds, our daughter two ounces heavier. Quite a good weight, considering,’ he said proudly.
‘Our daughter. Our son,’ she said with a dreamy sigh. ‘Will they be all right? Really?’
‘No reason why not.’
‘Have you seen them?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Not yet. But I’m assured all the right bits are in the right places.’ Dan cleared his throat. ‘They’ll take you up to the abour ward in a while, and make me up a bed next to you. You’ll be monitored all the time. The babies, too. I can’t believe that everything’s OK. Staff here are wonderful, aren’t they?’
‘Mmm,’ she agreed and promptly fell asleep.
Dan picked up the information books he’d been given about the prem unit and studied them carefully. All day he stayed with Helen, though she seemed spaced out most of the time. He didn�
��t care. It meant he could stare at her, eat her up with his eyes, without her noticing. Over and over again he kept thinking how lucky they were, how blessed.
And then, at last, he was taken to see the twins. Their assigned nurse, Maggie, introduced herself and led him to the incubators. Stunned, he stared at the minute scraps of life, feeling a mixture of elation and deep shock at the same time. Being a father was incredible, but the babies were unnervingly small and the mass of wires and taped tubes seemed an insult to their tiny bodies.
Our babies. He couldn’t take it in but knew his heart had already been claimed by them. It was lurching about all over the place.
‘Can they really survive all this?’ he asked quietly, sobered by the dangers to their tiny lives.
‘It’s early days, but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t. Their lungs haven’t had time to develop properly, Dan, that’s why they need help to breathe. They’ve been given caffeine as a stimulation and morphine for the shock of birth,’ Maggie said gently. ‘Your daughter is doing well and she may be off the oxygen soon.’
‘And…my son?’
He swallowed, knocked sideways by the rush of emotion that had surged up when he’d said those words. My son. My son. My daughter. He said this to himself again and again, amazed at the thrill it gave him to be father to these babies: flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. Part of him, part of Helen.
‘He’s not so strong, but that’s the way with boys!’ Maggie replied with a laugh. ‘Get to know them, Dan. Talk to them. Sing, if you like.’
Choked up, he sat beside his daughter and fought for control as he studied the pathetic little body. She had eyelashes. And top-to-toe wrinkles. But she was beautiful in his eyes. A miracle.
‘Hello, baby,’ he said hoarsely. And began to whisper things; private, sentimental, loving. More than anything, he wanted these babies to be in his care. He ached to spend as much time as possible with them when they came out of hospital.
That meant one thing. He must see Celine as soon as he could get a spare hour or two. He would go to her when all this was over and the babies were home.