Midwife in Need

by Fiona McArthur

  Healing the midwife’s heart

  Independent midwife Abbey Wilson lives for her job and her family. After a scarring breakup with her ex-fiancé she has stayed well clear of all men. Until Dr. Rohan Roberts arrives at the maternity clinic where Abbey works, and she becomes intimately aware of a man for the first time in years. Soon his protective instincts and their explosive chemistry mean neither can fight their desire…

  Originally published in 2003

  New to ebook!

  Midwife in Need

  Fiona McArthur

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘THE new doctor is on his way.’ Michelle put the phone down and moved around the bed to hold the young woman’s hand. ‘He’s stuck at the railway crossing. Should be here in five.’

  Abbey Wilson, Nursing Unit Manager of Gladstone Maternity, on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, nodded and sighed. They didn’t require a doctor’s presence for uncomplicated births, but this baby had shown signs of distress late in labour. The last gush of amniotic fluid had been thick green meconium liquor. Why did Scott have to have a sudden trip to Sydney when she needed him?

  Apparently, the new doctor travelled Australia filling in as locum for general practitioners in small country towns. He’d done his anaesthetic training and also his Diploma of Obstetrics with Scott in England, so Abbey could hope he’d be competent.

  ‘They say boy babies are more stubborn than girls—but I am never doing this again,’ panted Vivie.

  Abbey smiled across at the young woman. How many times had she heard a woman in labour promise never to return?

  ‘You’re incredible, Vivie. Hang in there, just a few moments to go,’ Abbey said. ‘You still need to push because your baby’s head is a tight fit down here. We may have to take him over to the trolley to give some oxygen, but we’ll get him back to you as soon as we can, OK?’

  Vivie nodded that she understood and then she groaned.

  Suddenly the baby’s head started to move as Vivie pushed with the next contraction. With aching slowness his little crinkled forehead lengthened, and then with a rush his nose and lips were released from the birth canal.

  ‘OK. Well done, Vivie.’ Abbey slipped her finger in beside the baby’s head and sure enough a loose loop of cord was coiled around his neck. The pulsating coil didn’t have enough stretch to slip over baby’s head and wasn’t tight enough to warrant cutting prior to birth, so Abbey let it be.

  As if by magic, Vivie’s baby’s head swivelled like the hands of a clock travelling from six to nine, and inside Vivie’s pelvis his neck untwisted to allow his shoulders to slip under her pubic arch.

  Two minutes seemed to take for ever as they waited for the next contraction which would allow the rest of him to be born. Abbey had suctioned his mouth to remove any meconium that would otherwise be drawn into the lungs at his first breath, and waited. The bluish hue of his little face darkened and Abbey resisted the impulse to encourage Vivie to push without a contraction. In nature’s time, she reminded herself.

  Finally, Vivie’s uterus hardened with the next contraction and she groaned again. Her son’s anterior shoulder dipped down then rose from the birth canal and Abbey gently supported his head as the rest of his body was born. Limp and pale, the baby lay on the bed between Vivie’s legs. Abbey uncoiled the cord around his neck and another loop coiled around his arm. His cord pulse was strong and above a hundred beats a minute but he made no attempt to breathe. He was stunned by his passage through the birth canal.

  Abbey quickly clamped and cut the connection between Vivie and her son and Michelle leant over and lifted the baby up for Vivie to announce the sex.

  ‘The ultrasound was right. It is a boy,’ Vivie gasped as she leaned back against the bean bag.

  Abbey glanced at Vivie as Michelle carried the baby over to the resuscitaire. ‘He needs some oxygen, Vivie. Michelle and I are going to dry him and use the mask. I’ll have to leave you for a moment.’

  ‘OK.’ Vivie’s voice was faint with relief that the birth was over. She closed her eyes.

  Vivie’s son lay on the resuscitaire like a pale rag doll, and when Abbey wiped him with a warm cloth, he jiggled flaccidly as the fabric moved over his skin. Dark blue eyes stared, open and unblinking, as Abbey wiped his face. She suctioned his nose and mouth again before gently placing the oxygen mask over his nose and chin while Michelle listened with the stethoscope to his heart rate.

  Michelle nodded. ‘One hundred and ten.’

  ‘OK. He doesn’t need any cardiac help. But he still doesn’t want to take a breath.’ Abbey tilted the baby’s head into the sniffing position, compressed the green bag of the oxy-viva and watched his chest rise. The air pressure would encourage the inflation of his fluid-filled alveoli into working order. She started with three larger puffs, then settled into a rhythm of one small inflation of the bag per second.

  When one minute had passed since birth, Abbey stopped her compressions of the bag and Michelle listened again.

  ‘Still one hundred and ten.’

  ‘We’ll give him a two for heart rate and he gets a zero for respiratory effort.’ Abbey hated it when they did that, but consoled herself with the fact that his skin was pink from the oxygen pumping around his body. They continued with the respiratory resuscitation.

  A firm knock tattooed on the hallway door. A broad-shouldered stranger in a cowboy hat and linen shirt entered the birthing suite and strode across to Abbey and the baby.

  ‘I’m Dr Roberts, I’m filling in for Scott Rainford,’ he said, and tossed his hat towards the corner of the room. Abbey blinked as the black Akubra sailed through the air to settle gently on the chair. The sight was so bizarre that for a split second she had trouble marshalling her thoughts.

  That was what he looked like—a marshal or sheriff in a cowboy movie. Or maybe the cynical gunslinger? Her mind clicked back into gear. ‘Dr Roberts. Thank you for coming.’ She looked away from him to the timer on the resuscitation trolley.

  ‘Baby is two minutes old. Heart rate above a hundred beats a minute since birth but no respiratory effort. No maternal narcotic pain relief in labour and prior to late second stage foetal heart sounds were stable at one hundred and twenty to one-thirty beats a minute. His umbilical cord was loosely around his neck once and around his arm at birth. Good circulation has improved his peripheral colour from very pale to pink, as you see.’ Abbey looked up into the doctor’s face for response and he nodded. ‘If you would like to take over the bagging, I’ll leave you with Nurse while I check on Vivie.’

  Abbey hesitated by the doctor’s side as she watched the smooth way he handled the oxy-viva and assessed the infant. His hands were gentle and confident and she heaved a sigh of relief as she turned away. He’d do.

  ‘Why hasn’t my baby cried?’ Vivie craned her neck anxiously to try and see her baby around the doctor’s broad back.

  Abbey could sympathise. She wished the baby would scream the place down. ‘He’s got a good strong heart beat and is lovely and pink now, Vivie. I don’t know why he won’t take a few big breaths of his own, though. Sometimes babies take a couple of minutes to change over to the outside world. Doctor is keeping him well oxygenated until your son decides to breathe for himself.’

  Vivie winced as she felt another contraction start in her uterus. ‘You said all the pains would go away when I had my baby,’ she accused the midwife. Abbey smiled.

  �
�One more contraction is needed to push out your placenta and here it comes now. By the time we finish checking you, your baby should have woken up.’

  The tension increased in the room as Abbey tidied Vivie in preparation to hold her baby. Finally a few faint cries were heard from the corner. Another minute passed and then Dr Roberts brought Vivie’s baby across and placed him in her arms.

  The joy in Vivie’s face brought a lump to Abbey’s throat—and a lot of painful memories. She glanced away and caught the doctor watching her.

  Dr Roberts smiled and every woman in the room felt the radiant heat from it. Abbey was no exception so she blinked and turned away. Some lucky girl must sunbake under that smile, she thought to herself with an unusual touch of despondency.

  ‘Your son is fine,’ the doctor said. ‘Probably just stunned from the birth. But his heart sounds normal and he’s breathing well for himself now. I’ve had a good look at him and he’s all present and accounted for. These two ladies will keep an eye on him over the next few hours but I shouldn’t think you’ll have any problems with the lad.’

  His calm voice reassured Vivie and Abbey had to admit the deep gravelly sound of it would have made his fortune on radio. Usually she could enjoy the presence of a handsome man without any of these asinine flutters that she’d thought she’d grown out of.

  Vivie cuddled her new son next to her skin and Abbey settled the blankets around them both before she stepped back. The little boy gazed owlishly up at his mother and Abbey felt the tension ease from her shoulders because he was none the worse from his slow start.

  Her attention was drawn back to the new doctor and her strange impression that his presence seemed to infiltrate the whole room. Suddenly Abbey needed to escape. ‘Check baby’s respirations every couple of minutes, would you, please, Michelle?’ Abbey whispered. ‘I’ll nip out for a moment and write my version of the delivery up so Doctor can have the notes to write his.’

  Michelle nodded and started to tidy the room. Abbey slipped out the door.

  ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Vivie murmured, not taking her eyes from her son.

  Rohan Roberts nodded and glanced around the room. The nurse was here but he couldn’t see the midwife. He’d wanted to congratulate her on the calm manner of their resuscitation. He’d seen rooms more fraught with half a dozen medicos coping with the same situation. Yet what had needed to be done had been done without fuss, with only the two of them before he’d arrived. That was what he liked about country hospitals. The staff relied on their own resources without panicking.

  He’d enjoy the next two weeks working here. You could usually tell by the vibes in a place how well it was run, and Gladstone Hospital Maternity Ward felt like a beauty. The midwife hadn’t been bad either. Down, boy, he admonished himself with a wry grin.

  Rohan crossed over to the sink in the corner of the room to wash his hands, then picked up his hat. He’d better get back to the surgery or the waiting room would be overflowing.

  The nurse handed him a towel. ‘Welcome to Gladstone. Thank you for coming, Doctor,’ she said.

  Rohan smiled and she smiled back. ‘I think you had it in hand without me,’ he said. Rohan played back the background conversation and surprisingly he could remember everything the absent midwife had said. ‘It’s Michelle, isn’t it?’

  Michelle blushed with pleasure and nodded. He held out his other hand and shook Michelle’s. ‘Rohan,’ he said. ‘Nice to meet you.’ Then he waved his hat at Vivie and was gone.

  The two women looked at each other and Michelle pretended to swoon onto the end of Vivie’s bed. They both started to giggle.

  At the sister’s station, Abbey finished her notes as Rohan arrived. The hairs on the back of her neck tickled as he approached and a flutter of excitement under her rib cage made her frown. Reacting like this was ridiculous.

  She looked at a point over his left shoulder and handed him the patient’s chart as she edged past. She wasn’t sure why it was so important not to come into contact with his body but she obeyed the instinct. ‘Here you go, Doctor. I’ll pop back down to the birthing suite. Thank you for coming.’

  Rohan watched her walk away, couldn’t not watch her, and he narrowed his eyes as he tried to work out why. She wasn’t classically beautiful, more alluringly pretty with soft golden-brown eyes, tall but not slim like his usual taste in women, and there was something vulnerable and innocently sensual about the line of her neck under that ponytail of red hair—that touched him. And touched him in a spot that had been fiercely guarded for years. ‘Sister?’

  Abbey stopped and hesitated before she turned around. Reluctantly she faced him and the bland enquiry on her face belied the nervousness she was feeling. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well done in there. I was most impressed with your calmness.’ He smiled that sunbeam of a smile and there was no doubt that Abbey could feel the burn factor.

  Abbey smiled wryly. ‘I’m renowned for my calmness, Doctor. Thank you for coming.’ Then she turned away and thought bitterly to herself that she wasn’t feeling calm at all. She couldn’t remember being flustered this much by a man for years. And she didn’t want to be flustered now. There was something about the new Dr Roberts that jangled her nerves. She’d nearly made it to the safety of the birth suite when he called her again.

  ‘One more thing…’

  Abbey paused and twisted her suddenly stiff neck to look at him as she rested her hand on the door-handle. An intense expression drew his dark brows together as he came towards her, and Abbey quelled the flutter of panic. One strong hand held his hat against a powerful thigh and Abbey’s gaze crossed his flat stomach and, fancifully, she imagined a low-slung holster on the other. Her eyes skittered upward for distraction and she catalogued that his hair was almost black—like his eyes. Calmness. Ha!

  She took a deep breath, then removed her hand from the door as she turned to face him. This was her ward and her town. The thought steadied her and her fingers linked with seeming serenity in front of her stomach. ‘Yes, Doctor?’

  She was disconcerted when he stopped right in front of her and held out his hand. ‘You haven’t introduced yourself.’

  Someone must have superglued her fingers together because when they finally untangled from their serene pose they came apart with a little jerk. She wondered if he’d noticed her reluctance to touch him but there was nothing Abbey could do but put her hand in his.

  It wasn’t too bad, holding his hand—disturbingly pleasant, in fact. His grip was firm with the right amount of pressure, strong but not trying to prove a point. You could tell a lot about a man from his handshake—Clayton’s had been more in the dead-fish line. As the thought of her ex-fiancé drifted through Abbey’s mind she blinked and stepped back to break the contact—and felt the door behind her back. Trapped.

  ‘I’m Rohan and you are…?’ His deep voice was even more beautiful when he lowered it.

  ‘Abbey Wilson.’ Brief, but at least she hadn’t squeaked. Abbey straightened her spine and met his eyes. She’d had enough of what had to be some surface chemical reaction she was feeling from this man. ‘Nursing Unit Manager.’

  ‘Would that be Mrs Wilson or Miss?’

  ‘Sister. And I really do have to get back to my patient.’

  He ignored the last part of her comment and concentrated on the ‘Sister’. His black eyes twinkled. ‘So you’re a nun?’

  ‘As good as…’ Abbey’s voice was dry and she was in full control finally. ‘Now, I do have to go.’ She put her hand back on the door handle. ‘Goodbye, Doctor.’ She didn’t look back as she turned away to enter the birth suite.

  She heard him say, ‘I’ll just write up the notes, then,’ as she closed the door gently.

  Michelle and Vivie were still giggling when Abbey entered the room. She raised one eyebrow and they stopped like guilty schoolgirls. Abbey had to smile.

  ‘You guys weren’t tittering in here, were you?’ Abbey said.

  Michelle shrugged. ‘With the excepti
on of this lad’s refusal to breathe…’ she brushed a finger down Vivie’s son’s cheek ‘…getting smiled at by Dr Roberts is the most excitement Vivie and I have had for a long time. Eh, Vivie?’

  Vivie sighed and nodded. ‘I know you’re happy being single, Abbey, but I’d love to have a man like that waiting at home for me. I think I’m going to call my son Rohan.’

  Abbey bit her lip to stop her grin. Vivie had promised more than one man she’d name her son after him.

  * * *

  That evening, Abbey relaxed in her favourite chair in front of the fire in her study and stared through the glass at the amber coals. It was October and she probably didn’t need a fire but she enjoyed the atmosphere it created.

  Her German shepherd, Clive, rested his head on her feet. She’d found Clive as a puppy in a box, left outside her door, and of course she’d kept him. Despite his fetish for chewing shoes, he’d more than rewarded her with fierce loyalty. Abbey’s study and kitchen were the only rooms Clive was allowed in and you could tell he loved the evenings with Abbey before he had to go outside for the night.

  Abbey wasn’t even aware of the pressure of Clive’s head on her feet. She couldn’t help remembering her encounter with the new doctor and she hoped the warmth she could feel in her cheeks was from the fire.

  It was her reaction that grated and she really didn’t want to travel that path again.

  It had been almost ten years since she’d been foolishly attracted to another man and the pain that had followed had taught Abbey a cruel lesson.

  In the year after their mother’s death she’d been vulnerable and weighed down with the responsibility of two younger sisters and a rambling old house that had constantly needed repairs.

  Abbey hadn’t wanted to become involved with Clayton Harrows either. Debonair and supremely confident, Clayton had lulled her into thinking him so trustworthy, and she’d become unwillingly besotted by his attention to her.

  He’d convinced Abbey to invest her mother’s money with him so that there would be no problem funding her sisters through university.