The Midwife's Courage (Glenfallon)

by Lilian Darcy

  ‘Oh, bad, wicked woman! Just because it was Gian?’

  ‘Well, yes. Freddie obviously thinks he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I do remember him being a nice boy.’

  ‘Sliced bread? A nice boy?’ Kit laughed helplessly, the wildly swinging emotions of the evening having frayed her completely by this time. ‘He’d love to hear that, I’m sure, as a highly regarded obstetrician with about ten letters after his name!’

  There must have been something a little metallic in her tone, because it earned her a sharp glance from her aunt. ‘Did it not go well, Kit?’

  ‘No, it was lovely, but we agreed…Well, let’s just say, please, don’t get any ideas. It’s not all that long since his divorce, and my—my break-up.’ She spoke the word with distaste.

  ‘No, of course,’ her aunt said quietly. ‘You’re right. It’s far too soon. Freddie’s such a romantic, and she’s been giving me ideas. I’m sorry, Kit. You know I only want to be able to write to your parents that you’re happy here.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘SHE went!’ Emma Burns said to Kit on Friday afternoon, the moment Kit entered the unit. The other midwife’s brown eyes were very bright, and her hair threatened to escape from the elastic band which she’d failed to wind tightly enough around it.

  Kit must have looked as blank as she felt. Emma’s face fell, and she hit the heel of her hand against her forehead. ‘Yes, why on earth should you know what I’m talking about? I mean Beryl. My stepmother. The removal van woke me up this morning.’

  ‘Emma!’ Kit exclaimed, then added cautiously, ‘That’s…good, isn’t it?’

  Emma’s expression was complicated. ‘What’s not good is that it’s my only topic of conversation at the moment.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Kit said. ‘You only feel that way because it’s the only topic in your thoughts.’ She spoke from experience.

  ‘OK, so it’s my obsession? Is that what you’re saying? That’s worse!’

  ‘Round and round and round. I know. I’ve been there.’

  Emma looked curious.

  Kit added quickly, ‘Completely different issue, same circular thoughts, dragging you down. You don’t need to hear about it. Tell me what happened.’

  Kit was several minutes early, and the unit sounded quiet. Glancing at the whiteboard on the wall, she saw that there were only two names on it, as well as a line of notations for each patient, conveying basic background information. In this case, both deliveries looked as if they had good odds of being straightforward.

  ‘Well, she hasn’t spoken to me since last Friday,’ Emma said, after she’d glanced at the whiteboard as well. ‘She does talk to her dog, however.’

  ‘What, and he’s thoughtfully passed the information on?’

  Emma laughed. ‘She talks to the dog in front of me, Kit! This enables her to impart certain news while still conveying the message that she isn’t speaking to me, and without laying herself open to unwanted questions.’

  ‘A creative solution.’

  ‘Isn’t it? So anyway, there were several comments along the lines of “I mustn’t forget to order a taxi, must I, Mr Magoo?” Which she’s done before when she really wants me to drive her somewhere. I almost offered. On the other hand, there were a lot of banging and ripping sounds coming from her room.’

  ‘Ripping sounds?’

  ‘Packing tape being pulled off the roll. Maybe I was still supposed to have burst into tears and begged her to stay.’

  ‘That’s called passive-aggressive behaviour, Emma, trying to manipulate your emotions to get what she wants. I think you did the right thing to resist it.’

  ‘She’s been getting worse. I don’t think I would have put up with it if she’d been so difficult from the beginning. It’s one of those situation where you’re in it, inextricably, before you really understand what’s going on.’

  ‘But now she’s gone. How do you feel?’

  ‘I think,’ Emma began cautiously, ‘I think I feel better than I’ve felt in years!’

  Kit had no reason to feel the same. Her early shift, yesterday, had been a struggle after too many hours of sleeplessness. She hadn’t seen Gian, and it was quite possible she wouldn’t see him today either. An obstetrics and gynaecology specialist had many other places to be besides the maternity unit.

  Gian had two or three sessions of surgery each week, performing procedures such as scheduled Caesareans, tubal ligations and hysterectomies, fibroid removal, laparoscopy, and dilation and curettage.

  Kit knew all about these last two procedures from personal experience. They weren’t so bad in themselves, but the reasons for having them weren’t fun.

  Emma assigned her to the care of both today’s patients, to begin with. She was brisk and efficient at the desk, talking through what had happened in the unit earlier today. She said nothing more about what was going on at home, but her cheeks were still very pink, and Kit suddenly wondered, Is she going to come down to earth with a great big crash? No matter how difficult their relationship has been, there’s going to be an empty place in her life now.

  ‘I’ve got paperwork to catch up on,’ Emma said. ‘And I’ll get Julie to help. Mrs Coscarelli has only just come in. PROM at thirty-eight weeks.’

  Kit understood the medical shorthand easily. The patient’s membrane had ruptured prematurely. It wasn’t cause for much concern, so close to her due date.

  ‘No labour yet,’ Emma went on. ‘Dr Hannaford—she’s had shared care, midwives and her GP, who’s Hannaford—wants to let things go for a few hours and then start her on a drip if nothing happens. Mrs Lucas is doing well, but it’s a first-time baby, and she was only four centimetres dilated when I checked at two-thirty. Supportive husband. They’re both using the right techniques to help her manage the pain.’

  The light load gave Kit too much time to think. It was the same tangled track of thoughts she’d travelled countless times over the past couple of years.

  Am I crazy to put myself through this? Delivering babies and checking on healthy pregnancies, day after day, when I can’t have a baby of my own? But I don’t want to run away. I don’t want to cut children and babies and wonderful births out of my life. That would be just adding another element to what I’ve lost, wouldn’t it?

  And in some ways it was easier now, when a pregnancy was quite impossible, than it had been during those long years when she’d held out some hope of a baby of her own, and when every month would bring a new disappointment.

  She and James had first begun trying for a baby four years ago. Kit’s endometriosis had already been diagnosed a year earlier, just one year into their relationship, thanks to her visit to a specialist. She’d had questions about the pain, heaviness and duration of her menstrual periods. As a nurse-midwife she could immediately call to mind the facts about the disease as soon as she’d heard the diagnosis.

  Its causes were not yet well understood. Medical specialists didn’t know exactly why some women experienced this painful spread of endometrial tissue beyond the uterus, where it belonged, and into the Fallopian tubes and the pelvic cavity—even further, in rare cases. The results were clear, however—compromised fertility, added pain and menstrual difficulty.

  Kit talked to James about the fertility question straight away.

  ‘But we didn’t want kids for at least another five years, in any case,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you didn’t.’

  ‘We wanted to play first. Enjoy ourselves.’

  ‘I was thinking a bit sooner. Maybe three years. But now I’m wondering if—’

  ‘Either way, three or five, do we have to think about it now?’

  ‘The disease tends to have a greater impact on fertility the more time goes by,’ she’d explained carefully.

  ‘Are you saying you want to try for a baby now? You’re only twenty-eight.’

  ‘Rather than leave it too late, yes.’

  James couldn’t be convinced, and they used contraception for another
year. Then Kit brought up the subject again, and he agreed to ‘see what would happen’. Over the course of another year, nothing did. Kit turned thirty, and didn’t like it. A generation ago, she would already have been labelled an ‘older first-time mother’. Statistically, from thirty onwards, fertility in the female population was already starting to decline.

  She summoned her courage and told James, ‘I want to see the specialist again, and start getting some help.’

  ‘You know I hate the idea of that. We’ve talked about this before. I think we should let nature take its course.’

  ‘But nature isn’t going to take its course. Nothing’s going to happen.’

  ‘Then we won’t have a baby. Life doesn’t offer guarantees, Kit.’

  She tried to understand, to feel her way into his attitude. But she couldn’t. She wanted a baby too much. And she’d seen too many examples of how some relatively simple treatments could bring success. The odds of such success dropped as a woman got older, however.

  A few more months went by and she said to him, already emotional and upset, ‘I don’t understand, James. If you had a broken leg, or asthma, or cancer, would you let nature take its course then?’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘I don’t see how. Human beings have been fighting against nature for thousands of years, and not just in medicine. This isn’t different. Go and live in a cave and eat raw meat and wild berries, if you feel that way about nature.’

  ‘Maybe I should,’ he muttered. ‘To get away from this.’

  From her? Was that what he’d really meant?

  But then, a few nights later, he’d said to her, in the middle of cooking dinner, ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said. If this is really important to you, I’m willing to try some treatment.’

  She’d loved him so much that night, had believed that the battle was won, and that the future was rosy.

  But even with treatment, she didn’t conceive. She had a D and C, an exploratory laparoscopy, hormone therapy. Finally, they tried IVF. James had grown increasingly terse and withdrawn by this time. Kit kept thinking, It’ll be all right again, if I can get pregnant.

  The treatment was hard on both of them. James learned the technique for giving her the required hormone injections but it ‘gave him the creeps’, he said. Kit had terrible mood swings, which both of them had to endure.

  One day, he told her, ‘When you try to pretend that you’re happy, when we both know you’re in a total snit…Hell, I think it’s worse. I’d rather you just went with how you really felt and bit my head off.’

  She tried to make a joke of it, coming at him with arms scissoring like a crocodile’s snapping mouth. ‘OK, here I go. Chomp, chomp, James.’ But the humour didn’t work. He grabbed his jacket and left the house, and only many weeks later did she realise he must have gone to Tammy’s that night.

  Meanwhile, she went to the clinic and had her third cycle of IVF, hoping even more desperately for success. She and James badly needed to move on, and into a new phase in their lives. The routine of the procedure and its aftermath was familiar now. The same discomfort. The same influx of new hormones. The same initial elation. Maybe this time…

  The elation soon settled into increasing nerves and doubt. She became superstitious, in a way she never normally was.

  If I see three babies at the supermarket today, that’ll mean good luck. If all my deliveries go well this week, that’ll be a good sign.

  She didn’t let herself think for a moment about baby names, or maternity clothes, or what the weather might be like on her theoretical due date.

  But a simple blood test showed that her HCG level hadn’t begun to rise as it should have done, and then, as usual, she had started to bleed.

  ‘Look, in a lot of ways, it’s probably for the best,’ James had said when she told him, too devastated for tears. He didn’t meet her eyes for a second, and he held her stiffly, when she’d come to him for comfort and the bitter reassurance of shared grieving. ‘There’s something I have to tell you, Kit…’ He’d sworn harshly. ‘This is so hard!’

  He’d moved in with Tammy that same day.

  Yes, life was easier now. Kit knew exactly where she stood, and although she hadn’t seen it this way at the time, James was right on that one point. It would have been very hard if, thanks to the clinical actions of doctors in a lab, she’d been pregnant with his baby when he’d left her for Tammy Cleland. At least, this way, Kit had been able to give herself a clean break…

  ‘Nurse?’ said the anxious husband of the patient whose membrane had ruptured prematurely.

  Kit turned. She was just on her way to check her other patient after her meal break. Mrs Coscarelli’s GP, Dr Paul Hannaford, was due in the unit at any moment. ‘Something’s happening?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, she had one contraction about fifteen minutes ago, and now she’s just had two more, less than three minutes apart. The second one—I mean, well, it was the third one—’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ she told Mr Coscarelli.

  ‘It was pretty intense.’

  ‘That’s quite normal in this situation. Things might hot up quickly now.’

  She went into the room, just behind Mr Coscarelli, and saw that Mrs Coscarelli was in the grip of another contraction, so intense that she was unable to talk until it was over. Kit could actually see the uterus bunching tightly through the patient’s gown.

  ‘Why was I hoping something would happen?’ she said nervously. ‘I don’t like this!’

  ‘Let’s get you up for another walk around,’ Kit suggested. ‘That may ease things a little. And we’ll listen to the baby as well. I have a feeling things are going to happen fast now.’

  She didn’t have a moment to draw breath for the rest of the evening. And that was just how she liked it.

  Aunt Helen’s farm offered plenty of opportunity for the sort of activity that drove out circular thoughts. The two of them spent the following morning drenching sheep, with Helen’s son-in-law’s help. It was hot, smelly work, but when they’d done their quota of beasts for the day, and Mike had left in his truck to pick up some supplies in town, they were left with a sense of satisfaction and achievement which was worth a lot to both of them.

  ‘Mike and I couldn’t have got through this lot without you, Kit,’ Helen said breathlessly.

  ‘We’re only a quarter of the way through.’ Kit took a deep breath, and realised that she reeked of lanolin, chemicals and dust.

  ‘I hope you’re looking forward to your days off, and have nothing planned!’

  ‘Nothing but more of this. I actually like it.’

  In deference to her added years, Aunt Helen laid claim to the first shower. ‘And then I’ll get lunch.’

  It was one o’clock, and they’d been at it since eight in the morning, with just an occasional break to swig some cold water or an enamel mug of tea.

  ‘No, I can start lunch,’ Kit said. ‘Just give me some ideas.’

  ‘Toasted sandwiches?’

  ‘Sounds good. About six each, I’d say!’

  After washing her hands more thoroughly than a surgeon before an operation, Kit sliced tomatoes and grilled bacon. Her aunt then appeared, clean and damp, to finish the task. The shower was heaven—strong and refreshing—and it felt even better to put on clean clothes and consign the sheep-stained ones to the heavy-duty wash cycle.

  Kit heard a car bumping along the rather rutted driveway just as she was putting on her shoes, and discovered, when she reached the kitchen, that it was Freddie Di Luzio and her little granddaughter. They waved to Helen and headed straight for the fowl run.

  ‘Collecting more eggs?’ she asked her aunt lightly. They’d brought an egg carton with them this time.

  ‘Yes. It’s the craze of the moment, apparently. I’ve told Freddie they’re more than welcome, because we’ve got a glut. Sandra used to take a lot, but now she and Mike are keeping hens as well, and she doesn’t need them.’

  Fed
erica declined Aunt Helen’s offer of lunch, saying that she and Bonnie had already eaten. Kit and Helen took their pile of toasted bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches out to the front veranda, where there was a round wooden table and four canvas-backed chairs, and they ate in a very satisfying silence.

  Silence, that was, as far as conversation went. There were plenty of other sounds. The faint drone of a plane flying overhead. The caw of a crow. The whisper of leaves in the breeze.

  The peace and beauty of the place seeped into Kit’s soul as always. Her body ached pleasantly, and although she’d probably be exhausted after her shift later today, she craved the oblivion of physical fatigue. During the three months between her resignation from the hospital in Canberra and her arrival here, there had often been too many hours when she had nothing to do.

  Federica and Bonnie came around the corner of the house, bearing just three eggs in their carton today.

  ‘Are we disappointed?’ Helen mouthed to her friend.

  ‘Yes, we are, a little.’

  Bonnie soon got over it. She drank a glass of home-made lemon cordial, while the three women had tea. Then, since cordial could be gulped down in half a minute, while tea-drinking took longer, she ran about on the lush green lawn—it needed mowing—chasing butterflies and picking daisies from the garden’s border of profusely flowering shrubs.

  ‘What a little cutie she is!’ Kit couldn’t help saying.

  ‘Remind me of that occasionally, would you?’ Freddie said. ‘She’s also a handful, and exhausting! I’m grateful for all the time Gian puts in.’

  Bonnie came up the steps to the veranda, and deposited her fistfuls of flowers proudly.

  ‘Shall I make a daisy chain?’ Kit offered.

  The little girl nodded. She was content to watch, at first, while Kit split one flower stem and threaded another flower through it, but then she wanted to do it herself. Her fingers didn’t yet have the dexterity, and half the flowers were ruined. It didn’t matter. There were plenty more. After several minutes, Kit was able to lay a little crown of daisies on Bonnie’s head. It looked precious against her dark curls.