*
Sam had booked them into a restaurant for their evening meal.
It was a beautiful place. A large conservatoire, painted white and lit with lanterns. The wrought-iron furniture was softened by beautifully furnished cushions in bright colours, all complementing each other. Each table was adorned with a glass fishbowl, half filled with water, and in the water floated gerberas and daisies.
Emily took a seat and smiled at Sam. This was their last night in Paris. Soon they would be returning home. Back to reality. To work. The Monterey. Part of her didn’t want to go back. She liked it here. She and Sam were in this nice little bubble and everything was right in their world. What if going back home changed everything?
As she pondered this she noticed the heavily pregnant woman from the Eiffel Tower entering the restaurant with her husband. They sat down at a table on the far left. Emily nodded and smiled when the woman looked up.
‘I guess we’ve both got to return to reality when we go back,’ she said.
Sam turned to see who she was looking at and nodded hello to the couple, too. ‘We’ll be okay.’
‘I want us to be more than okay, Sam.’
‘We will be.’ He reached for her hand and squeezed it.
The waiter arrived and presented them with menus, and filled their glasses with water before disappearing.
Emily hid behind her menu for a moment, and then she looked over the top. ‘What if we’re not?’ Her voice trembled on the last word and suddenly she was fighting back tears.
Claiming Sam had meant so much to her! It was her entire life. She loved him, worked with him, was married to him, was carrying his child. What if it all went wrong? She needed him to reassure her.
‘Emily…’ He put down his menu and leaned forward. ‘I know it’s scary, but we’ll be all right. It’s different this time. We won’t return home the same people. We can’t. We know the dangers now, and what to look out for. We’re both fighting for this and I’m not going to let us lose what we have.’
‘The Monterey takes up so much of your time, though, Sam. I’m worried it will suck you back in. You haven’t seen it in operation yet—what if you’re so eager to reacquaint yourself with everything that’s going on that I lose you to it? It was our dream to start it, but now—’
‘But now it’s already up and running. It’s successful. And as the boss and CEO I can delegate, right?’
She nodded.
‘Time for us, as a couple, will take priority.’
‘Okay.’ Slightly reassured, she looked back down at the menu.
Everything sounded delicious, and she felt hungry enough to want to try it all. In the end she chose a French onion soup to start, a fennel and lavender lamb noisette for main and a croquembouche for dessert.
Sam ordered the same, not wanting to try the seafood, thinking it might make her feel ill.
Above them twinkling stars could be seen through the glass, and the French doors of the conservatoire opened up to a beautiful rose garden with a small fountain at its centre.
‘It’s beautiful here. I really don’t think I’m ever going to forget Paris.’
‘Nor me.’ Sam smiled. ‘Not this time.’
‘Have you had any more flashbacks? Anything?’
‘Not for a while.’
‘It doesn’t mean they’ve stopped.’
‘I know. I’m not worried. They’ll come back.’ He took a sip of his water. ‘You know what was great, though?’
‘What?’
‘For the first time today I actually pictured myself becoming a father. Wanting to be one. Holding our child in my arms. Looking down into its face.’ He seemed wistful. ‘I remember holding each of my siblings just after they were born, and how that felt, but to hold your own child must feel…incredible!’
‘Oh, Sam, I’m so pleased.’ She smiled back, knowing how much he’d feared becoming a father. To be thinking about it, imagining it in positive terms, was a huge leap forward for him. ‘Is it scary still?’
‘A bit. I was always so busy pushing the idea away, telling myself I could never be a father, that it never occurred to me to think about how much I might actually want to be one.’
‘You do?’
‘I do!’ He laughed, incredulous. ‘I’m sure you can imagine how surprised I am.’
Emily laughed with him, then sat back as their onion soup arrived, topped with herby croutons and a swirl of cream. The aroma of the onion and the richness of the soup tantalised her senses and she salivated in anticipation. ‘Oh, that smells delicious!’
It was. The soup was perfect—not too thin, not too thick, rich with onion and vegetable stock. And the croutons were bite-sized crispy delights.
‘It’s strange. We came here to Paris to try and get my memories back, but instead I got a completely different gift.’
She smiled, pleased for him—for them. The last year of their marriage had been difficult, and she’d lost count of the amount of times she’d wanted Sam to want a child as much as she had. But now, since their talk on the island, they’d become closer, united, and Sam finally felt able to acknowledge that, despite his fears, he did actually want to become a father. It was more than music to her ears—it was a whole orchestra!
Everything was working out for them. And he was right. Paris had surprised them in such different ways from the ones they had expected.
Their lamb dish arrived, steaming and succulent, and the meat just melted in their mouths.
‘You’re going to make a great father, Sam.’
He smiled back at her with thanks. ‘I hope so.’
‘I know so. You care so much about getting it right. About being there for your child. How could you be anything else?’
‘Well, I appreciate your vote of confidence. You’re going to make the most amazing mom, too.’
She hoped so. Becoming pregnant had made her think of so many things. Her own childhood, her marriage, what she wanted for her child… Above all she wanted her child to know without a shadow of a doubt that it was loved by both parents and that it would grow up in a stable family. Her feelings for her baby were already incredibly strong, and she couldn’t imagine giving birth to a child and abandoning it six months later. Had her mother ever truly wanted her? Had there ever been that mother-baby bond?
It would be so different for their child. She would never make her mother’s mistakes.
They were just about to start their croquembouche—Emily ready to tuck in with gusto, imagining those cream-filled choux pastry puffs—when there was a loud gasp from the other side of the conservatoire and a clanging sound as cutlery hit the floor.
The heavily pregnant woman from the Eiffel Tower had stood up, and was looking down at herself and breathing heavily. ‘I think my waters just broke!’
At first Emily felt a surge of excitement for the woman. It might be a bit early, but she was about to meet her child and experience that rush of joy. But then concern filled her as the woman looked at her partner across the table and yelled, ‘Something’s wrong! I can feel it!’
Waiters hurried to assist as the other diners all turned to see what was going on. The woman was gasping heavily and trying to feel through her dress.
‘Oh, my God, there’s something there!’
They could hear the panic in her voice—and rightly so.
Sam and Emily got up from their table and rushed over.
Sam stooped low to make eye contact. ‘Remember us? From the tower? My name’s Sam and I’m an OB/GYN. Do you want me to take a look?’
The woman looked terrified, and glanced to Emily for reassurance. ‘And I’m a midwife. Let us help you.’
But they were in a busy restaurant, and it was almost full. There was no place for a private examination.
Emily looked at a waiter. ‘Can you get some tablecloths so we can make a privacy screen?’
The waiter nodded and came back with an armful of cloths and some other members of staff. They all surrounded the frantic woman and raise
d the tablecloths so that she could be examined without the whole world seeing her so vulnerable.
Sam helped her lower herself to the floor and bundled up a jacket from the back of a chair to go under her head. ‘I need to examine you. I won’t touch, but I do need to look. Or would you prefer my wife to do it?’
The woman indicated she would prefer Emily, so they swapped places and Emily lifted the woman’s skirt and adjusted her underwear. There was clearly something there that shouldn’t be.
Emily turned to Sam. ‘She has a prolapsed cord.’
A prolapsed cord was an emergency. The cord was what kept the baby alive, providing it with blood, nutrients and survival. If the baby’s head or body compressed the prolapsed cord it might cut off all of that and the result would be foetal hypoxia, brain damage or even death.
If they’d been in a hospital they would have been able to deal with this immediately. They’d have had the equipment. They’d at least have had gloves. But here in the conservatoire they had nothing.
Sam immediately told the staff to call for an ambulance, and to bring them some hot water to clean their hands.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked the panicking mother.
‘C-C-Clare.’
‘Okay, Clare, your baby’s umbilical cord has prolapsed and we need to prevent compression. I want you to get onto your hands and knees and keep your butt in the air. You need to rest your chest and head against the floor. That’s it. Now, my wife will have to press down against the baby, where we can see it. It’s very important that she does this in order to ensure the baby is getting what it needs from the umbilical cord. Do you understand?’
Clare was crying. From fear, from embarrassment—he could only guess. But she had to do it if she wanted her baby to survive.
Sam looked at Em. ‘Is the cord still pulsing?’
She nodded. It was, which was a good sign. It meant blood and nutrients were still getting to the baby. Now they just needed to keep it that way.
Normally this would never be done without gloves. With the amniotic fluid dispersed, the baby would be open to infection. But they didn’t have gloves, so the hot water they’d been brought would have to do.
She found the presenting part of the baby’s head pressing low. She provided pressure and felt the pulse in the cord strengthen. Good.
‘Okay, it’s working.’
Sam nodded. ‘You’re doing brilliantly, Clare. I know this isn’t how you imagined it, but an ambulance is on its way, and before you know it you’ll have this baby in your arms. Just keep thinking about that, okay? That’s the important part.’
Clare nodded furiously.
They kept talking to her, trying to keep Clare’s mind off what was happening to her. They even managed to make her laugh at one point. Just a small laugh. Nervous and timid. But she was looking braver.
Emily kept her eyes on Sam. He was being brilliant, lying down low on the ground, face to face with Clare, keeping her calm, keeping her positive, telling her about all the babies he’d delivered and how he’d met his wife through one such delivery. How pregnancy and birth brought different surprises, and how at the end all that mattered was a safe and healthy baby.
By the time the paramedics arrived Clare was clutching Sam’s hand and staring deeply into his eyes as if he was her own personal birthing coach. Clare’s husband held his wife’s other hand and she was very carefully manoeuvred into the ambulance.
‘There is no room for all,’ the paramedic said.
‘They’re all coming!’ insisted Clare.
But with Emily still applying pressure, and Clare still clutching Sam’s hand, her husband shouted that he’d take his car. His wife’s safety was clearly a priority right now.
The journey to the hospital took minutes, and Clare was rushed into the maternité suite, given high-flow oxygen, as she had been in the ambulance, and rushed into Theatre for an emergency Caesarean section. Her husband had not yet arrived—obviously unable to keep up with the speeding ambulance in a city he did not know.
‘I want George here!’ Clare insisted.
Sam shook his head. ‘There’s no time, Clare. I’m sorry. They’ve got to operate.’
Emily tried to reassure her patient as they were whisked into Theatre, with Sam left behind to wait for Clare’s husband.
Once they were in the operating theatre events moved at a frightening speed for the woman on the table.
Emily did her best, trying to reassure Clare, and within seconds her baby was being lifted out of Clare’s womb. Instantly it began to cry.
Emily, who had been gowned by a theatre assistant, had stepped back once the baby had been safely delivered, and she stood by the far wall as the baby was presented to the new mother. A little girl. As Clare took her new daughter in her arms the doors burst open and a frantic pair of eyes looked out over a mask, widening when they saw his wife and new baby.
Emily quietly slipped away from Theatre and found her husband. She reached for Sam’s hand and they stood quietly, pondering the events of the last hour or so.
It didn’t take long for their patient to come out of Theatre, and soon enough Clare and her husband George were in a postnatal room, enjoying their new daughter.
Emily and Sam wrote notes on what had happened in the restaurant to present to the hospital staff, and were about to leave when a nurse came to find them.
‘Clare would like to see you.’
‘Really?’ Emily was delighted. She hadn’t known whether they ought to say goodbye—whether they ought to intrude on Clare and George’s first private moments with their baby. At the Monterey they liked to leave a family to get to know one another as quickly as possible when it was safe to do so. Those first moments together, alone as mum and dad and baby, were precious.
They knocked and went in.
Clare was sat up in bed, looking proud and happy with her baby in her arms, and beside her, his arm around his wife’s shoulders, was George.
When Sam and Emily entered the room George stood up and came over to shake Sam’s hand and give Emily a hug.
‘Thank you so much! For all that you did.’
‘It was our pleasure.’
‘We were so lucky that you were there! If you hadn’t been…’ George shook his head as he tried to imagine such a terrible thing. ‘We don’t know what would have happened.’
‘But we were and it all worked out—that’s what’s important. How are you feeling, Clare?’
Clare looked happy and content. Her face was a little pale, but there were two rosy spots on her cheeks from beaming at her new baby daughter. ‘Fine. I’m absolutely fine!’
Emily and Sam looked down at the baby. Like all newborns she was squinting against the light in the room, snuffling, and trying to gnaw on one of her curled up hands.
‘She looks hungry,’ said Emily. ‘And a good size for thirty-five weeks.’
‘Six pounds one, they said.’
‘Wow. She’d have been huge if she’d gone to term.’
They laughed.
‘What are you going to call her?’
Clare looked at George and he nodded. ‘We did think about calling her Emma, but we’d really like to call her Emily—if you wouldn’t mind?’
Em gasped, clutching her hands together. ‘Really?’
Clare nodded. ‘Do you want to hold her?’
Emily took the baby carefully from her mother’s arms and quickly glanced at Sam, who was smiling at her.
She’d delivered and held many babies, but this one seemed special. Perhaps because it had been such an emergency, happening away from a hospital, and they’d had to improvise with the hot water and the tablecloths and the terror that it could go so wrong, so quickly. She and Sam had met over a delivery and now, renewed, they had delivered another.
If that cord had become occluded, what would they have done? Performed a C-section in a restaurant without proper equipment? It would have been almost impossible, and Clare would have lost her baby.
They’d been lucky. All of them.
‘She’s beautiful, Clare.’
Emily passed the baby into Sam’s arms. She felt her heart well up to see him standing there, holding the little girl. One day it would be their child. One day he’d be looking down at his own baby. Tears pricked her eyes and she sniffed and wiped them away as he handed the baby back to her mother.
‘We’ll leave you now. You need time alone.’
‘Will you keep in touch? We’d love to send you a photo of baby Emily when she’s older.’
They nodded, and wrote down their contact details.
It was hard to step away. But it was the right thing to do. They had merely assisted this baby to come into the world safely. It was like being back at work in a way. They’d done their part and now it was time to let the parents do theirs.
Sam sighed. ‘I miss that rush.’
Emily looked at him and gave him a playful nudge. ‘Well, technically you’re still signed off from work for a while. You can’t go back yet.’
‘I know, and I’ll stick to it. But it has made me wonder what I’ll do when we get back. Presumably you’ll be back at work?’
She sighed. ‘Yes, I will. Don’t forget you still don’t have all your memories. You need to heal. Just because you don’t have massive scars, or a plaster cast, or staples or stitches, it doesn’t mean you’re better. Your brain took a battering.’
‘I know. But I feel good. Perhaps I could look to see which spare room we can make into a nursery? Start making plans?’
She turned to him, a smile on her face. ‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘Really. It’ll be fun, I think.’
Emily laughed and reached for his hand once again. ‘You make me so happy, Sam.’
‘Good. Can I make you happy one more time in our hotel room? Before we have to start packing for our trip home?’
She looked at him, smiled wickedly and nodded.
*
They spent a rather pleasant few hours in each other’s arms, leaving it until the last possible moment before they had to pack and get to the airport for their flight home.
It felt odd to Emily to be walking back through Charles de Gaulle airport. The last time she’d strode through here, through its concourses, she’d been nervous and excited. Wondering whether Paris would recover Sam’s memories or not…whether it would make them or break them…whether they would rekindle their relationship and make it strong again.
Reunited by Their Pregnancy Surprise Page 13