The Baby Bonding

To his credit he didn’t even wince, just led her back to the bed and wiped her mouth, then looked at Molly. ‘I could do with cleaning up,’ he said softly, and she nodded.

‘We’ll get you some theatre pyjamas to wear. Just sit with her for a second.’

She slipped out, grabbed the scrubs from the linen store and was about to mop up when Liz’s waters broke.

‘OK, let’s get you back on the bed and check you. I reckon it’ll soon be over now,’ she said encouragingly. When she examined her patient, though, she found that the cord had prolapsed down beside the baby’s head, and when she checked the foetal heart rate, it was dipping alarmingly.

It would be over soon, but not for the reason she’d thought!

‘Liz, I want you to turn on your side for me,’ she said, pressing the crash button by the head of the bed and dropping the backrest simultaneously. ‘We’ve got a bit of a problem with the baby’s cord, and I want to get your head down and hips up a bit, to take the pressure off. It’s nothing to worry about, but we need to move fast, and I’m going to get some help.’

‘Need a hand here?’

Sam’s deep, reassuring voice was the most wonderful sound in Molly’s world at that moment.

‘Prolapsed cord,’ she said quietly. ‘Her waters went a moment ago, and she had quite a lot of fluid. Watch where you walk, by the way. Liz, this is Mr Gregory.’

‘Hello, Liz,’ he said, moving in beside her and throwing her a quick, reassuring smile before he lifted her hips effortlessly and slid a pillow under them. He met Molly’s eyes. ‘What’s the previous history?’

She shook her head. ‘None. First baby, full term—’

‘And the last,’ Liz groaned. ‘What’s happening?’

‘The cord’s got squashed between your cervix and the baby’s head,’ Sam told her calmly. ‘We’ve got a choice under these conditions. We can deliver the baby as quickly as possible the normal way, with the help of forceps, or give you a Caesarian section. I just need to take a quick look at you to help me decide which is the best option, OK? Gloves, Molly.’

She handed him the box, and he snapped them on and quickly checked the baby’s presentation and the extent of the prolapse of the cord. As he straightened, he met Molly’s eyes again, his own unreadable. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Want to try?’

She shrugged, not wanting to argue with him on their first shared case, but deeply concerned because it was a first baby and it was still a little high for comfort. If she had problems…

‘We can try, I suppose, if you want to—but we haven’t got long.’

He nodded agreement, and approval flickered in his eyes. ‘I know. Let’s go for a section. Push that head back, Molly, until the cord’s pulsating again, and hold it there until she’s in Theatre. I don’t think we can get the cord back up, there’s too big a loop, so we just have to keep the pressure off. I’m going to scrub.’

The room had been filling up while they talked, people responding to the crash call, and he turned to his SHO. ‘Get a line in, please, and give her oxygen, and terbutaline to slow the contractions if we can. Cross-match for two units as well, please. I’ll see you in Theatre, Liz. Don’t worry, we’ll soon have your baby out.’

He squeezed her partner’s shoulder on the way out, and Molly thought how like him that was, sparing a thought for the shocked young man standing paralysed on the sidelines, even in such a chaotic moment. He’d always seemed to have time for things others often overlooked.

Within a very few minutes Liz was on her way to Theatre, Molly’s gloved hand firmly pushing the baby’s head back away from her cervix, keeping the pressure off the cord to prevent the baby dying from lack of oxygen.

They didn’t have much time, but as long as she could keep that cord pulsating, the baby stood a good chance of coming through this unharmed.

Sam was waiting, and he wasted no time in opening Liz up once she was under the anaesthetic. Her partner, David, was hovering outside Theatre and had looked scared to death, but Molly didn’t really have time to worry about him.

All her attention was on holding that baby’s head back, during the shift across to the operating table, positioning Liz ready for surgery with the head of the table tilted downwards, and trying desperately to ignore the cramp in her arm and back from the awkward position she was in.

Finally she felt the pressure ease, and looked up to meet Sam’s eyes as he lifted the baby clear and handed it to the waiting nurse.

‘It’s a boy,’ he told Molly, throwing a quick smile in her direction before returning his attention to Liz. ‘Time of birth fifteen twenty-seven. He’s all yours, Molly.’

She straightened and flexed her shoulders, then, after clamping and cutting the cord, she took the baby immediately over to the waiting crib and sucked out his airways. His cry, weak and intermittent until that point, changed pitch with indignation and turned into a full-blown bellow, and she felt the tension in the room ease.

‘Apgar score nine at one minute,’ she said, and glanced up at the clock on the wall. She’d check again at fifteen thirty-two, by which time she was sure the slight blueness of his skin would have gone and he would score a perfect ten.

Relief made her almost light-headed, and she smiled down at the screaming baby, his colour improving and turning pink as she watched. His heartbeat was strong, his cry once he’d got going was good and loud, and his muscle tone and response to suction had been excellent.

It was a pity things had gone wrong so Liz had missed his birth, she thought, wrapping him up in heated towels and taking him out of the Theatre to David, but trying for a normal delivery would have been too risky. She’d known doctors who would have taken the risk, others who would have gone for the section without a second thought regardless of the circumstances.

Sam, thank God, didn’t seem to fall into either of those categories. He’d rapidly weighed up both options in the light of his examination, and had made what she felt had been the right decision. She felt able to trust his judgement—and that was a relief, as she was going to have to work with him.

She pictured his eyes again over the mask when he’d smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. She’d always loved that about him, the way he smiled with his eyes…

‘Is everything all right?’ David asked, and she nodded, putting the baby in his slightly tense arms.

‘So far, so good. I’ve done a quick check and all the obvious bits are present and correct, and Liz is doing really well.’ She smiled up at David, but he didn’t notice. He was staring down in frank amazement at his son.

‘We’ve got a baby,’ he said, his voice faintly incredulous. Lifting his free hand, he stroked one finger gently down the baby’s translucent, downy cheek, still streaked with blood and vernix. The little head turned towards the finger, his rosebud mouth pursing, and Molly smiled, an all-too-familiar lump in her throat.

‘He’s hungry. She can feed him just as soon as she comes round, but in the meantime he just needs a cuddle from his dad. Just hold him and talk to him for a minute. He’d recognise your voice, he will have heard it from the womb. He’s a bit messy, but we won’t wash him until Liz has woken up and seen him, or it could be anybody’s baby.’

He nodded, and she took him through to Recovery to wait for Liz while she herself went back into Theatre to check on her.

‘Apgar up to ten?’ Sam asked, checking on the baby’s progress even as he worked on Liz.

‘Yes—he’s fine now. His colour was a bit off, but it’s not surprising.’

‘You did a good job,’ Sam said softly to her, and she felt her skin warm.

‘You aren’t making too big a fist of it yourself,’ she said with a smile, and he chuckled quietly under his breath.

‘You’re too kind. The placenta’s there, by the way.’

She studied it carefully, making sure no parts of it were missing and likely to cause the mother future problems, and nodded. ‘It’s OK.’

‘Good. Now, could you do me a favour, Molly, if you’re happy with the baby? Can you phone down to A and E and ask about the young woman who was brought in a couple of hours ago—query pregnant, no ID, unconscious in the car?’

‘Sure.’

She used the theatre phone, and discovered that the woman had regained consciousness and discharged herself.

Sam frowned, his brows drawing together in disapproval. ‘Did they scan her?’

She shook her head. ‘Not that they said. She came round just after you left her, and wouldn’t stay another minute. The police think she’d stolen the car, apparently.’

‘How bizarre. Oh, well.’ He shrugged and carried on with closing Liz while Molly checked the baby again. He was snuggled in his father’s arms, blissfully asleep now, and, judging by the look on David’s face, he wasn’t the only one feeling blissful.

Through the glass she saw Sam straighten up and flex his shoulders. He said something and the anaesthetist nodded, and he stepped back, handing Liz over to the anaesthetic team. Stripping off his gloves and mask, he came out to join them.

‘All done, and she’s fine. She’ll be with us in a minute.’ Looking down at the baby, he ran a finger lightly over the back of his tiny hand.

‘Hello, little fellow,’ he said softly. ‘Has he got a name?’

‘I don’t know. Lucy.’

Sam met David’s eyes and smiled. ‘That may not be appropriate, under the circumstances.’

David chuckled, his shoulders dropping with the easing of tension. ‘Perhaps we’d better think again. I don’t know, we were sure she was having a girl. Something about the heartbeat, Liz said. Probably an old wives’ tale.’ He pulled a face and swallowed hard. ‘Um—thanks, by the way. I’m really grateful to you all for getting him out safely. Liz would have been gutted—’

He broke off, and Sam laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

‘Any time,’ he said. ‘They’ll bring her through to Recovery now, and she can hold him and feed him, then Molly will take you all back to the ward once they’re happy she’s stable. This little fellow seems to be fine, but a paediatrician will come and check him in due course, just as a matter of routine. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with Molly. She’ll look after you both.’

He threw Molly a smile and went to change, and it was as if the lights had gone out.

Oh, damn. And she’d really, really thought she was over him…

CHAPTER TWO

‘HE’S been such a good boy today, haven’t you, Jack?’

The little dark head bobbed vigorously, a smile lighting up his face like a beacon. ‘I did painting, Daddy—see!’

There was a slightly tattered piece of grey sugar paper held to the fridge door with magnets, and Sam studied the wild, multicoloured handprints on it and felt his heart contract with pride. He grinned a little off-key and ruffled his son’s hair.

‘So you did. Well done. What else did you do?’

‘Um—singing, and played in the sandpit. We had fish fingers for lunch—I’m hungry,’ he added, tipping his head back and looking hopefully up at Debbie.

She laughed softly. ‘You’re always hungry. Come on, sit down at the table and you can have your tea while you tell your dad all about your day, and I’ll make him a nice drink. Cuppa, Sam? Mark and I are just having one.’

‘Thank you, Debbie, that would be lovely.’ He shrugged out of his jacket and glanced across at Debbie’s husband. ‘Hello, Mark.’

‘Hi. You good?’

He smiled tiredly. ‘I’ll do. Yourself?’

The big man nodded from his seat by the window. ‘Good. The latest effort’s coming along—what do you think?’

He held up a large square of canvas, and even from across the room Sam could see the wonderfully subtle colours and almost three-dimensional quality of the tapestry Mark was creating. It was a study of leaves, but close up and personal. There was nothing pretty-pretty about it, but there was a vigour in the composition that was the trade mark of all his designs, and this one was no exception.

‘You’re getting a bit good at this,’ Sam said, genuine admiration in his voice, and Mark lifted a shoulder, awkward with the praise.

‘I thought I’d do apples and pears next—you know, a sort of orchard theme. Maybe some plums, or autumn leaves. The country’s really inspired me—let something loose inside. I just hope they sell.’

‘Of course they’ll sell. They always sell. The shops love your designs,’ Debbie said pragmatically, sliding a mug of tea across the table. ‘Sam, take the weight off. You look done in.’

‘Busy day,’ he said. Busy, and emotionally exhausting. He sat down at the big, scrubbed pine kitchen table that filled the centre of the kitchen and leant back in his chair with a sigh. His mind was whirling with thoughts of Molly, and all he could see was her face. He wished he’d got her number, but he hadn’t, so he couldn’t ring her—unless she was in the book?

He reached for it, conveniently at arm’s length on the dresser behind him, and flicked through the pages. Hammond. There. He ran his finger down the list, and found only a few, none of them Molly.

Unless her initials didn’t start with an M. Chewing his lip thoughtfully, he ran his finger down again, and paused. A.M.?

Yes, of course. Annabel Mary, she’d been christened. He remembered now. He remembered a lot of things…

He shut the book. Perhaps he’d ring her later.

But then Jack would be in bed.

Now, then?

He needed to sort out the videos, dig out the photos. Heaven only knows what’s happened to them, he thought. They were probably in the boxes in the loft and they’d take him ages to find.

But Jack was here, now, and Molly’s eyes, when he’d talked about the boy…

Picking up his mug, he got up and went into his study and closed the door behind him with a soft click.

Molly stared at the phone warily, hope warring with common sense.

Of course it wouldn’t be Sam. He hadn’t got her number, unless he’d looked her up in the book, but her first initial wasn’t M., so he probably wouldn’t find her automatically.

Then again, he’d known her full name all those years ago, seen it enough times on the endless paperwork, so maybe…

‘Oh, just answer it,’ she muttered to herself, and lifted the receiver. ‘Hello?’

‘Molly?’

Her heart lurched and steadied again, and she closed her eyes briefly. ‘Sam.’

‘Hi. I hope you don’t mind me ringing. Um, about you seeing Jack—I meant to say something earlier, but I didn’t get round to it. Are you busy this evening? I mean, it’s not very much notice, but I thought, if you’d like…’

Her heart lurched again, and she threw a quick glance at the door. Libby was on the other side of it, scraping on her violin, trying to get to grips with a difficult passage. She’d done her homework, and now she was grappling with this. She’d been at it for nearly half an hour, but she wouldn’t give up until she’d got this bit right, at least. Molly just hoped it was sooner rather than later, for all their sakes.

‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked cautiously.

‘I wondered if you’d like to come over. I mean, don’t worry if you’ve got other plans, or you’d rather not, but I just thought—’

‘I haven’t got plans,’ she said quickly—too quickly. Slow down, she told herself, and drew a deep, steadying breath. ‘Tonight would be fine,’ she went on, deliberately calming her voice despite the clamouring of her heart. ‘I need to check with Libby, of course, but I’m sure there won’t be a problem. She’d like to see him, too, I’m sure.’

‘Fine. Whenever you’re ready—the sooner the better, really, because he goes to bed at about half-seven.’

‘That late?’ she said, and could have bitten her tongue for the implied criticism. It was none of her business…

‘He has a nap when he gets home from nursery, and Debbie lets him sleep as long as he wants. That way I get to see him when I get in,’ he told her, and she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined a mild note of reproof in his voice. ‘Whatever. I think in any case we could make an exception tonight—apart from which, he’s as bright as a button today, so I don’t suppose he’ll be in any hurry to go to bed. He’s full of it.’

She closed her eyes against the image, the ache of longing growing with every word. ‘We’ll come now,’ she said. ‘If that’s OK? It was the first day of the new term today, and Libby goes to bed at eight on school nights. I try and stick to it if I can,’ she added, trying not to sound so pathetically eager and ending up sounding like a school matron instead. Oh, grief, he was going to think she was obsessive about bedtimes…

‘Now’s fine. I’ll give you directions.’

She scrabbled around for a piece of paper on the table and found an old envelope. ‘Fire away,’ she said, jotting down the address—surprisingly in the country, not in the town as she’d first thought. ‘I didn’t realise you lived out of town,’ she said, studying the directions and trying to place the road in her mind. ‘Will it take long to get there?’

‘No. It’s easy to find, and it’s not far out. Ten minutes from the hospital, tops. I’ll see you soon—and, Molly?’

‘Yes?’

‘He doesn’t know—about you carrying him for us. I haven’t told him. I’m still trying to work out how, but in the meantime I’d be grateful if you and Libby could be careful what you say.’

‘Sure. Don’t worry, we won’t say anything. I’ll see you soon.’

She cradled the phone, then sat for a moment gathering her ragged emotions. The scraping had finished, a sweet, pure sound now pouring through the door—well, mostly, she thought with a motherly smile as another tiny screech set her teeth on edge. Still, Libby wasn’t quite ten yet. There was plenty of time.

The door opened and Libby bounced in, the image of her father, blonde hair bobbing round her shoulders, her pale blue eyes sparkling with achievement.

‘Did you hear me?’ she said. ‘I did it!’

‘I heard,’ Molly said, her heart swelling with pride. ‘Well done, your father would have been proud of you. And talking of fathers, I meant to tell you, I saw Jack’s father today. He’s working at the hospital.’

Libby’s head tipped on one side. ‘Jack’s father? Your baby Jack?’

She nodded. ‘Well, not mine, but yes.’

The girl’s eyes sparkled even brighter. ‘Cool! Can we see him? I only saw him that once when he was born, and it was ages ago.’

‘Three years—and, yes, we can see him. Tonight—in fact now. If you’re OK with it?’

‘Sure. Can we go?’

Molly laughed and stood up. ‘Yes. Brush your hair, it’s a mess, and make sure you’ve put your violin away properly.’

‘Yes, Mother,’ she teased, but she bounced out and reappeared a moment later, her hair sort of brushed and the violin case in hand. ‘I’m ready.’

Molly picked up the directions, read them through again and put them in her pocket. ‘OK. But, remember, he doesn’t know anything about me being his tummy-mummy, so don’t say anything.’

Libby’s eyes widened. ‘He doesn’t know? How weird. Laura knows, she talks about it all the time.’

Molly thought of her other surrogate child, with whom she had an affectionate and loving relationship, and smiled gently. ‘Yes, I know—but Jack doesn’t, and it isn’t really our place to tell him.’

‘It’s OK, I won’t say anything,’ Libby promised.

‘There’s another thing you ought to know—his mum died.’

Libby’s face fell. ‘Oh, poor baby,’ she said, her soft heart so typically responding to his loss. ‘Still, he can have you now,’ she suggested, her face brightening again.

If only, Molly thought, the ache returning. Libby would love to put the world to rights, but unfortunately it just wasn’t that easy.

The drive, however, was easy, his house simple to find and really not at all far from the hospital, as he’d promised. It was a lovely house, a simple, red-brick cottage-style farmhouse, with a porch in the middle and windows all around. A rambling rose, intertwined with a late-flowering honeysuckle, scrambled over the porch, and tacked on one end of the house under a lower section of roof was what looked like another little cottage, with its own white front door, and she guessed this was where Debbie and Mark lived.

Bathed in the sunshine of a late summer evening, it looked homely and welcoming, and just the sort of place she could imagine him living in. Nothing like their London house, but she’d never felt that had been him.

The garden was bursting with colour and scent, a real cottage garden, and as they walked up the path she bent to smell the last of the roses, just as Sam opened the door.

She straightened and laughed. ‘Sorry. I can’t resist roses.’

‘Nor can I. They’re why I bought the house.’ His gaze dropped and he gave her daughter a friendly smile. ‘Hello, Libby, nice to see you again. How are you?’

‘OK. I like your garden, it smells lovely.’

‘It does, doesn’t it? I can’t take any credit for it. It was like this when we moved, and Debbie does all the gardening anyway. Come in, Jack’s in the kitchen, “washing up” with her.’ He held up his hands and drew speech marks in the air with his fingers as he spoke, and his face said it all.

‘Oh, dear,’ Molly said, biting her lip at the laughter in his eyes, and they exchanged a smile that made her knees go weak. Oh, lord, this was such a bad idea. She was going to get herself in such a mess.

She followed him down the hall, Libby at his side, and as he ushered her into the kitchen she came to an abrupt halt, her hand coming up to cover her mouth, her eyes filling.

No. She wasn’t going to cry, she wasn’t.

‘Jack, come and say hello to some friends of mine,’ Sam was saying, but she couldn’t move, she just stood there and devoured the little boy with her eyes as he climbed down off the chair and ran over to them.

He was so tall! So tall and straight, and the image of his father, with those same astonishing blue eyes filled with laughter, and a mop of soft, dark hair that fell over his forehead, just like Sam’s.

He tipped his head back and looked up at her, examining her unselfconsciously. ‘Hello. I’m Jack,’ he said unnecessarily, and she crouched down to his level and dredged up an unsteady smile.

‘Hi. I’m Molly, and this is Libby, my daughter.’ She looked at his sodden front and resisted the urge to gather him to her chest and squeeze him tightly. ‘I hear you’re helping with the washing-up.’

He nodded, his little head flying up and down, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I do spoons, and we make bubbles.’

‘We’ve got a dishwasher, but it’s not as much fun, and this way the floor gets washed, too,’ Sam said, laughter in his voice.

She chuckled at the words and straightened up, her gaze finally going past Sam and meeting the clear, assessing eyes of a woman in her late twenties. Her hair was spiky and an improbable shade of pink, and she was dressed in faded old jeans and an orange T-shirt that clashed violently with her hair. She looked like a tiny and brightly coloured elf, but, despite being so small, she radiated energy.

‘You must be Debbie,’ Molly said.

The woman nodded, and tipped her head towards the window. ‘This is my husband, Mark.’

She turned her head and saw him for the first time, sitting quietly in a chair in front of the long, low window, one leg propped up on a stool and a cat curled up on a riotous heap of wool in his lap. The sun glinted on an armoury of piercings, and there was an elaborate tattoo running up one arm and disappearing under his sleeve.

The unlikely tapestry designer, of course.

She smiled across at him. ‘Hi, there. Nice to meet you. Sam’s told me a lot about you both.’

‘Oh, dear, sounds ominous,’ Debbie said, laughing and scooping Jack up to sit him on the table and strip off his soggy T-shirt. ‘I think you’d better put something dry on, don’t you? You’ll catch a cold—and don’t tell me it’s an old wives’ tale,’ she said, levelling a finger at Sam.

He threw up his hands in mock surrender and pulled out a chair. ‘Molly, have a seat,’ he said, and she sat, quickly, before her suddenly rubbery legs gave way.