The largest of the three side rooms was the emergency room, with sliding doors and a ramp on the side where the ambulance could back up and be unloaded straight into the room. This was Blanche’s baby, built piece for piece to mirror the one in WA she’d fallen in love with.
Blanche glanced around proprietarily. ‘I still think we need a portable X-ray machine.’
‘No, we don’t.’ Lex glanced at the newly painted ceiling – and probably beyond to heaven – before closing his eyes. Then he fixed his mother with a steely frown. ‘We’ve talked about this. It requires lead-lined walls and experienced personnel.’
The two Wilson women grinned at each other.
His occasional glances at his mother were priceless, Eve decided as she tried not to laugh. It was worth it all to see the way Lex winced.
Blanche was like a kid in a lolly shop. ‘The portable ultrasound and baby monitor arrived.’
Eve’s good humour evaporated. She had to admit the ultrasound would be a godsend in emergencies, but that foetal monitor had been a colossal waste of money, as well as a demon she could have done without. If they had a woman requiring such close monitoring then that woman and unborn baby needed to be elsewhere. She’d just have to make sure healthy women didn’t start using it or they’d be finding problems that didn’t exist.
‘Don’t like that one?’ Henry had slipped in next to her, a little too close for comfort.
Eve stepped back to increase the distance between them – straight onto Lex’s left riding boot. The uneven ground tilted her and she put her hand out to steady herself, but unfortunately the trolley she chose to grab had wheels.
The trolley took off. She saw Blanche swivel to check what the noise was, but Eve was on her way down. Lex caught her, held her briefly against the rock wall of his chest until she had her feet firmly again on the floor, and then let go with unflattering promptness.
‘Thank you.’ She glanced at his face, which seemed to have tightened for some reason. Eve wasn’t quite sure what she’d done to offend Lex McKay but it must have had some weight. Blanche’s big room didn’t feel so large with all these McKays in it.
They finished the walk through the three small backrooms and Eve hoped nobody could see her burning cheeks as she hung back. Henry sent her an apologetic look and she nodded that away. It wasn’t Henry who’d embarrassed her.
The rear of the building housed the staff rest room and shower over a huge claw-foot bath Bennet had rescued from an old shed and restored. Another room held the sterile store, all the stock from the previous health centre that they hadn’t liked to throw away until they’d gone through it, and other odds and ends they didn’t know where to put.
The last was a plain bedroom with an electric hospital bed that Blanche had insisted on, just in case someone needed to lie down in a quiet place. Or stay overnight. Or, Eve decided, hide.
The opening hour approached and by the time the visiting dignitaries, the flying obstetrician gynaecologist, or FOG as he was known, and the flying doctor crew, plus assorted media had all arrived, Blanche was impatient to get it over with.
A crowd of at least fifty had gathered and among them were women, unmistakably pregnant, waiting to be seen.
June, Callie’s practice manager and Fran, their new secretary, a widow with grown children who ran the local B&B, handed out information packs to the crowd.
Blanche made her speech, short and blunt, saying the centre was for pre- and post-birth care and that everyone would get at least four home visits after they brought their baby home. It was a huge innovation for such a large area, she said, and concluded by encouraging everyone to make Dr Callie and Midwife Eve welcome.
Eve glanced at Lex when his mother said that, and the amused look suggested he was thawing out a bit. He took a step towards her, but stopped as Henry called out.
‘Eve. Wait. Want to meet at the pub later?’ She saw a few hopeful faces turn his way as he passed, but no, he was intent on her. She just hoped he realised she wasn’t playing hard to get, just blithely and thankfully uninterested. Bummer about Lex too.
‘Sorry, Henry. Callie and I are holding a clinic for the women who’ve travelled for the opening, and we’ll be here for a while. But I see lots of pretty girls keen to have a drink with you.’
His face fell. ‘I want one with you.’
She resisted the urge to give false encouragement. ‘I’m sure you’ll manage. Bye, Henry.’
She caught her sister’s eye. Callie nodded and inclined her head towards June as a young woman disappeared into the clinic.
TWELVE
Their first antenatal patient, Gracie O’Brien, eased into Eve’s office, accompanied by her mother. Gracie was nineteen, with a shining ponytail the exact colour, Eve decided, of the sandhills outside town. Her mum’s cropped and faded locks must once have been just as beautiful.
At first glance, Eve thought mother and daughter looked bone-thin but then decided she was just used to plumper city girls; these two were of greyhound stock.
‘Hi, Gracie. I’m Eve, the midwife. Congratulations. Only fourteen weeks to go? And you’re our very first patient.’
‘Hi.’ Gracie ducked her head shyly as she sat down. ‘This is my mum, Carol.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Carol.’
Carol waved a hand. ‘Nice to be here. A blessing to have to drive only an hour and a half. Took us four hours to get to Longreach before.’
‘The distances are amazing out here.’
Carol shrugged. ‘Driving is nothing if the service is there at the end. And it is. People drive further than we did. But this is good.’
Eve liked her already. She bit back a smile and glanced down at the notes she held.
‘Well, the Longreach clinic has sent a copy of the information you gave them when you booked in there so we don’t have to go over all the boring stuff again with you. Today we just need to check you and baby.’
‘Oh? Good. I was dreading having to do all that again.’ Gracie held her arm out as Eve unrolled the blood-pressure cuff.
‘So how are you? How’s your bump? Is she or he moving well and poking you?’
Gracie nodded. ‘I think so. I feel him move when I go to bed mostly. Is that okay?’
Eve let the air out slowly from the blood-pressure cuff as she listened for the beat of Gracie’s pulse. Heard it come in. Heard it go out. Gracie’s levels were normal. She took the stethoscope out of her ears.
‘That’s fine. Happy babies usually move a lot; it’s just when mums-to-be get busy they sometimes don’t notice.’ She unwrapped the cuff and put it away. ‘If you haven’t felt your baby jiggle for a while then try to stop, and just sit and relax until you do.’
Gracie frowned. ‘I never stop.’
‘If you get worried, ring and talk to me. Or email and I’ll get back to you. Most babies move a little at least every hour but mostly it’s about how your baby moves. So if your baby’s patterns change, give me a ring.’
She glanced up to check that Gracie had understood, and the girl nodded.
Carol leaned forwards. ‘They slow down as they get closer to birth, though, don’t they?’
Eve wrote the blood pressure on Gracie’s card and again on the file on the computer. ‘We used to think babies did move less but research has shown that’s not always true. It really isn’t normal for a baby close to birth to change its movement habits.’
Gracie’s hand touched her belly like she’d felt a little kick beneath her baggy shirt, as if the baby had been listening. They all laughed, then Eve went on.
‘Of course the movements can’t be as free when there’s less room towards the end of pregnancy, but if they slow down it could mean your baby isn’t as happy as we thought. So that would be a cue to let me know.’
Eve looked at Gracie’s mum, who nodded. ‘How many children do you have, Carol?’
‘Six. Gracie’s the eldest. All normal births so I’m telling her there’s nothing to worry about. But our Gracie
isn’t really a worrier anyway.’
Eve grinned at the girl. ‘You do look pretty relaxed. I’m impressed. So will the father of your baby be involved with the birth, Gracie?’
‘Been involved enough,’ Carol muttered and Gracie cast her mother an exasperated look.
‘He’s not coming to the birth, if that’s what you mean. He’s at university.’ She finished the sentence proudly, and it was her mother’s turn to sigh. ‘I was there too, in my first year of midwifery, when this happened.’ She patted her rounded belly. ‘But that’s life. It will sort.’
‘Midwifery. Awesome. Maybe you’ll want to help out here one day.’ Eve wanted to cheer out loud. Go, Gracie! She decided they’d worked it out pretty well between mother and daughter, and though Gracie seemed shy, already Eve could see the core of strength inside the young woman. She was beginning to recognise the outback spirit in all the women out here.
‘So is your mum going to be with you when you give birth?’
‘Maybe. Or if Mum can’t get there the midwives will look after me and I won’t stay in long.’
‘Is that what you did, Carol?’
Carol nodded. ‘I’ll try to be with her but sometimes things crop up on the station and you can’t get away. It’s not like you’ve got neighbours who can pop in from next door. After the first time, my husband had to leave once I went into labour, and then stayed back on the station. Minded the animals and the children till he picked me and the babe up.’
Eve chewed her lip and tried not to grin at the order of the minding: animals then children. ‘So you had no problems?’
‘Except for being fertile?’ The tone was dry but there was a twinkle in Carol’s eye. Eve loved the understated humour out here, and it reminded her of Sylvia. She could stop worrying. Gracie was a lucky young woman.
Eve patted the couch and helped Gracie to lie down and pull up her shirt to expose her brown, rounded tummy.
Eve rubbed her hands together to warm them and smiled at Gracie before she bent to examine the mound. She explained the way the baby moved around, measured the height of Gracie’s bump with a tape measure, then listened with the new Doppler until the galloping sound of a baby’s heartbeat filled the little office.
All three women smiled. ‘Your baby’s head is down at the moment but they shift and wriggle. Later on it should stay head-down.’ Eve helped Gracie to sit up. ‘You going to the toilet more now?’
‘I’ll say. If it wasn’t so hot I’d stop drinking. Hardly get anything done, what with running off to the loo all the time.’
‘I’ll take some blood from you just to check you’re not anaemic.’
‘So you can do that here too?’
Eve assembled her equipment. ‘Yep. The sample flies out with the mail plane.’
Carol watched a little squeamishly but with morbid fascination as Eve took the blood. ‘So she’ll get those results next time?’
‘I’ll ring you if you need to take iron tablets, Gracie. You have those in your home medicine chest, don’t you, Carol?’ Eve knew that a trip to the chemist was out of the question so all the outlying stations had well-stocked bathroom cabinets.
‘Always.’
They finished up and Gracie went in to see Callie for the first-visit introduction while Eve finished typing. Then she closed that file and opened the next.
After the last patient Eve glanced at the clock and couldn’t believe it was close to five o’clock. She shut down her computer then eased back in the chair and stretched. What a huge day! But a satisfying one. The women out here amazed her, and the distance they’d travelled to attend the clinic – well, that just blew her away.
The young pregnant mum with her baby sitting in the breech position, juggling two wild toddlers under three, had been remarkable. Of course she hadn’t liked that she had to go to Brisbane earlier than usual because of her baby’s position, but Eve would feel the same if she had to leave a young family behind.
Eve stood up and stretched again, realising she hadn’t missed Brisbane once since she’d arrived in Red Sand nearly three weeks ago. She wouldn’t mind finding out if June had been able to drum up enough interest in that exercise class. She missed relaxing her body alongside like-minded people. Of course she wouldn’t be here long term, but there was no reason not to start it.
Eve heard a goodbye called out, and then the front door shut after Callie’s last patient. She wandered into her sister’s room and leaned on the doorway as Callie switched off her own computer.
‘How’d you go?’
Callie sighed. ‘I felt like a fraud.’ She, too, stretched and stood up. ‘You did all the work. I just agreed with what you’d told them and answered a few questions. Though I did have a chat to Molly about keeping an eye on her baby’s movements.’
‘Irish Molly?’ Eve grinned. ‘She’s a doll. She’s been a backpacker for the last two years?’
‘Yep. Used to have a thing for Henry McKay. She was working for Mum and Dad behind the bar.’ Callie paused for a minute and Eve saw the wash of remembered grief across her face.
Eve reached across and squeezed her sister’s arm. They both sighed for the sadness in the past and that sadness to come. Callie straightened her shoulders and drummed up a wobbly smile.
‘Yes, well, anyway, she met and fell in love with Simon – his property is about an hour north-west, and they’re such a lovely couple.’
‘It was good, wasn’t it? The clinic. Providing the service. Setting it up so they felt they could all call us at any time.’
‘And we got to use our new ultrasound. Blanche will be pleased.’
Callie smiled and then sobered. ‘Colleen’s not keen on going to Brisbane.’ She grimaced. ‘Our first breech.’
‘Is there anyone in Longreach who’d try to turn her baby head-first before she goes into labour?
Callie shook her head. ‘It’s the same as anywhere. Breech is rare enough; you lose practice. She’ll have to be a caesarean.’
Eve frowned. ‘That’ll be hard with those two little ones.’
‘It’s Longreach or Brisbane.’
Eve waggled her brows. ‘Or arriving here at the last minute with a breech on view.’
‘No.’ Callie’s eyes widened. ‘Crikey. Pray she doesn’t do that. Have you delivered a breech birth?’
‘Three. But I didn’t have to do anything.’
Callie’s eyes were still round. ‘Was it nerve-racking?’
‘Amazing. Incredible.’ Eve stared through the wall into the past. ‘But you’re right. I had good backup but it got the adrenalin going.’
Callie shuddered. ‘I would die. The stress would kill me.’
Eve laughed. ‘Not true. Everything would be fine. Just don’t touch the baby unless you have to. And those mums seem to instinctively get into the right position for the birth. The natural mechanisms are still there for breech as they are for head-first babies.’
Callie shook her head. ‘You’re gorgeous but no, thanks. Let’s hope Colleen’s baby decides to do a somersault and come head-first. I’ll let the FOG know and talk to her husband. Hopefully he can persuade her to go early to Brisbane. That’s all we can do.’
‘You underestimate yourself. Look how you managed the ultrasound.’ Eve had her concerns about Colleen and what was going on at home. Colleen’s unease for her husband and the way they were suffering in the drought mostly. Apparently the feed was very low. She suspected Colleen was going to go at the last minute and just hope her baby turned.
‘It probably won’t happen,’ Eve reassured Callie. ‘But if it does – then just have faith.’
Callie winced. ‘Don’t say that.’
There was a knock at the door and Blanche peeped her head in. ‘Just dropped in to say goodbye.’
‘We used the ultrasound.’ Eve waved towards the hallway. ‘One of the women has a breech baby and we could confirm that and discuss her care for the birth.’
‘I’ll tell Lex,’ she said with unholy satisfaction
. ‘He said it was an unnecessary expense.’
Imagine that, Eve thought. There had been a few instances over the last week when she had begun to wonder if Lex could be anti the whole medical facility idea. What could he have against the clinic when the service they were providing only had benefits for the women who visited it?
THIRTEEN
By the end of the following week, both women were pleasantly exhausted and Callie could feel the peace seeping into her. Peace and healing – and a lot of that had to do with Eve.
Her new sister seemed to be able to take everything in her stride. Including the days she’d spent in Charleville’s Intensive Care Unit, refreshing her knowledge of advanced life-support care for her role as ambulance officer while Callie had run the clinic. Luckily everything had been the same as the week before, and Callie was becoming less stressed when dealing with well pregnant women.
She could almost face an obstetric refresher course, but she didn’t quite have the headspace yet.
As she and Eve leaned on the verandah rail of the house Callie pulled her cardigan tighter around her shoulders, the sound of boisterous laughter drifting back from the pub on a Friday night.
Sylvia had gone to bed, frail but in good spirits with the company, and Callie could feel the rightness of being here with her mum. She should have done this years ago.
‘I think the clinic will be a great success.’
Eve groaned. ‘I think I’m over talking about the clinic.’
‘Since when have we talked about the clinic?’ Callie sipped her drink and hid a smile.
‘Ha. Between daylight and bedtime every day for the last forever.’
‘So what do you want to talk about?’
Eve paused and then said it. ‘Actually I’d like to talk about you.’
Callie shrugged in the darkness. ‘I’m pretty boring.’
‘Well, I haven’t had a chance to find out. We never seem to have time to talk about anything else and I still know so little about you. I’d say you’re anything but boring, but I’ll shut up if you like.’
Callie caught a glimpse of Eve’s apologetic grimace in the gloom. She felt a twinge of guilt.
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