Читать книгу Christmas Brides And Babies Collection - Rebecca Winters - Страница 34

Labour and birth

WHEN MAEVE WOKE up Rayne was gone. But the contraction tightenings weren’t gone. That darned love hormone.

She did not want to have this baby on Christmas Day. It was okay for baby Jesus. He’d never been materialistic, but Maeve knew how she’d feel about the one day of the year that belonged to everyone, in her corner of her world anyway. But it was her own fault.

Still, she could not regret this afternoon in Rayne’s arms. She smiled a long, slow, satisfied smile. Regret definitely wasn’t the word that sprang to mind.

Revel, ravish, rolling around with … Scraping the bottom of the barrel there, but reaaaalllyyy amazing just about covered it. Her skin flushed at the thought of how wonderful he’d been, so unhurried, showing her a world of gentleness that had brought tears to her eyes. He had paid homage to her body, coveted her belly, and just plain loved her, something she’d missed so badly as her body had changed, and he had banished for ever the idea he wasn’t the man for her.

Which was an excellent thing if she was about to have his baby.

Another contraction followed on the thought. That love hormone again.

She glanced at the clock. It was seven-thirty in the evening. Almost sunset. Less than five hours until midnight. ‘Hang in there, baby.’

She climbed awkwardly out of bed. Pulled on a robe and gathered something light to wear for the evening. Something comfortable like a sarong. They’d probably sit out the back or go for a leisurely walk along the lake. Another contraction tightened her belly, this time with a little bit of discomfort.

They were still not lasting long but she guessed she wasn’t going to go too far from home. At least there was no car journey involved, like there would have been if she lived in the city. Here, they’d just pick up Tara from the room down the hall—she grinned at that, same house—then walk across the road to the birth centre. It was all pretty streamlined, actually. Almost a home birth without the organising of equipment involved.

Rayne would be stressed. Simon would worry. But she would be calm. Could be calm now because she deputised other people to do the worrying and from this moment on she would have faith in her body, in a natural process she was designed to achieve. It was exciting really. And Tara would be there. She giggled. She hoped Tara had digested her lunch by now.

She thought about giggles. That’s right. In early labour you apparently felt like giggling. The fact labour had finally arrived after all the waiting. Happy hormones. She grinned in the mirror. Actually, she did feel like giggling. Even the fact that she knew this would pass onto harder and stronger contractions was funny. At the moment, anyway. No doubt she’d change her mind later.

She slipped out of the bedroom door and into the bathroom with a smile on her face. She could hear the rumble of Simon and Rayne’s voices coming from the kitchen. The thought made her feel warm. She would not have believed the change in her world in the last day. It was like she’d been released from her own prison. That thought put her feet back on the ground. She shouldn’t joke about it. Rayne really had been released from prison.

She hung the robe on the hook at the back of the door, climbed into the shower and relaxed again as she revelled—there was that word again—in the hot water that soothed any tension away from her shoulders. Another contraction started its slow rise in intensity and consciously she sent all the negative thoughts down the drain with the soapy water, and breathed out.

Still ten minutes apart, plenty of time to tell people. She just wanted to hug the excitement and her baby to herself. This was the last day that she and her baby would be together so intimately. A miracle in itself.

She stayed in the shower for a long time.

Until Rayne knocked on the door. ‘You okay in there?’ A hint of concern in his voice.

She had to wait for the contraction to stop before she could answer. They were getting stronger but that was a good thing. More powerful, not more painful, she reminded herself. A tiny voice inside muttered about that not being true but she ignored it. The pain eased.

‘I’m fine.’ Wow. Her voice sounded kind of spacy. Endorphins.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure,’ she breathed. Then had to repeat it a bit louder. ‘Come in.’

Rayne pushed open the door and a cloud of steam billowed out past his head. He waved it away and stepped into the bathroom. ‘You’ve been in here for ages.’ He crossed the tiles to the corner shower. Stood outside the curtain. ‘Is there something I should know?’

He waited. She didn’t answer and he could hear her breathing. Eventually he pulled back the curtain so he could see her. She smiled at him and he thought she looked almost half-asleep. Looked again. Now, that was something you didn’t see every day. A glistening wet, very rounded, amazingly breasted, porcelain pregnant lady naked in the shower, with her black hair curling on her shoulders.

She said, ‘If we ever live together, you’ll need a very large hot-water system.’

He had to smile at that. He assumed Louisa did own one of those if this house could sleep twelve. ‘I’m getting that.’

‘And also,’ she went on in the same distant voice, ‘my contractions are about seven minutes apart.’

His heart rate doubled and then he slumped against the wall. Sex fiend. He’d done that. Come on. Pull yourself together. You’re a doctor, for crikey’s sake.

‘Is that a good thing?’ he asked cautiously. Who knew what Maeve was thinking? He was trying to be supportive because that was his job, and he’d agreed without coercion when, in fact, he wanted to run screaming to Simon.

‘As long as baby waits till after midnight, that’s fine.’

Rayne glanced at his watch. Eight o’clock. Four hours until midnight. Of course she’d have her own way and the baby would wait. Four hours of stress.

‘Shall I go and tell Simon? Or Tara?’

‘No hurry.’

It was all very well to say that, along with some heavy breathing, and he observed, as if from a long way away, that his fingers were white where he was clutching the handrail. ‘You sure?’

‘Mmm-hmm …’ Loud exhalation.

Geez. Rayne prised his fingers off the towel rail and straightened off the wall. ‘Um. Might just mention it to them in case they want to go out.’ Though where they would go on Christmas night was a mystery.

Quietly, on an out breath, an answer came from the shower. ‘Okay.’

Rayne left and he wasn’t quite jogging. He skidded into the kitchen but it was empty. Typical. This house had crawled with people all day and now he couldn’t find anyone when he needed them. Even Louisa was missing but he guessed she, out of all of them, deserved a rest.

Poked his head out the back door but the darkening yard, a space that had seen so many Campbells, was deserted.

He went back inside, walked down the hallway, but both Simon and Tara’s doors were ajar and he guessed if they were in there they’d have closed the doors. He went out to the front veranda in case they were sitting on that bench, looking at the nodding animals, and he was distracted for a minute by the fairy-lights that had come on with the sunset. Nobody there. He glared at the manger. Mary and Joseph had had their baby in a manger, with animals and wise men, so what was his problem?

He ran his hand distractedly through his hair. Took a deep breath. It was okay. Maeve was calm. Happy even. The hospital was across the road for pity’s sake. He could see the porch lights. All he had to do was be a support person.

It would have been nice to have that ‘couples’ discussion with Tara that he’d had a knee-jerk reaction about today before Maeve had gone into labour. But, no-o-o, Maeve had had to have nookie.

What was it he’d learnt in med school? A first-time mum, after a slow start while the contractions got sorted out, dilated about a centimetre an hour. To get to ten centimetres was ten hours. Right? Or maybe she was already six centimetres then it would be four hours. Or less if she’d got there this quickly. His mind was spinning faster than the wheels of the new Christmas pushbike some happy, oblivious-to-the-drama-inside kid was pedalling past too late to be out.

He forced himself to take another breath. Yesterday he would not have believed all this was going to happen. Yesterday he had been wondering if she would see him. Today she was his responsibility.

Well, he’d been in at the beginning so he had to stay for the hard part.

‘Rayne?’ He spun round and Maeve was leaning on the door to the front veranda. She looked like she’d just stepped off a plane from Fiji, with a hibiscus sarong wrapped around her and not much else. He could see her cleavage from here.

‘Why are you staring at the manger?’

He wasn’t looking at the manger now. Cleavage. ‘Umm. Looking for Tara and Simon.’

She leant her head on the doorframe. ‘They’re on the side veranda outside their rooms, watching the stars come out.’

He strode back across the lawn and up the steps to her side. ‘Okay. You okay?’

‘I’m fine. But I’d sort of like you to stay with me.’

‘Yep. Of course.’ He was obviously really bad at this support-person caper. Where was the midwife? ‘So did you tell Tara?’

‘I wanted to find you first.’

Not the choice he would have made. ‘Fine. Let’s do it now.’

‘You said fine …’

She leant against his arm and smiled up at him and as if she’d pressed a button he leant down and kissed her lips in an automatic response. Just one day and they had an automatic response?

He stepped back. Must have picked up on some of her endorphins because he could feel his panic settle a little. Fine. Yep, he had been feeling freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional.

His voice softened, lowered, and he gently turned her back towards the house. ‘How can you be so calm?’

‘I’ve had nine months to think about this happening. You’ve had twelve hours.’

Had it only been twelve hours? It felt like twelve days. But, then, that’s how things seemed to happen around Maeve and him. Acceleration with the pedal pressed and they were driving off into the future at a hundred miles an hour.

‘Do you do anything slowly?’ he said as they walked down the hall. He grinned at her. ‘Apart from the way you’re walking up the hallway now.’

‘I put my make-up on slowly.’

‘Does that mean if I took you out I’d be one of those guys hanging around waiting for his woman to get ready?’

‘I might speed up for you.’ Then her face changed and she stopped, closed her eyes as she leant against him. He lifted his hand and rested it on her arm and her shoulder dropped its tension beneath his fingers as if he’d told her to relax, and it startled him.

She sighed out, ‘Boy, I can tell these contractions are doing the job.’

That was good. Wasn’t it? ‘We still waiting for midnight?’

‘No choice now. It’s all up to baby. You just have to hold my hand for the ride.’

He could do that. Glanced down at her hand, thin and suddenly fragile looking, as they set off again. ‘It would be an honour,’ he said very quietly. And it would be. She was blowing him away with her strength and serenity.

Simon and Tara, also holding hands again—spare me, he thought—appeared in the hallway and Maeve had a contraction before he could say anything.

Tara let go of Simon’s fingers with a smile and went towards them. No need to say anything. So he didn’t. Wasn’t really his place anyway.

And they didn’t ask. Their restraint was amazing and he could only follow their lead.

When the contraction was over, Tara murmured, ‘Good job. When did they start?’

‘About an hour ago.’

‘So what do you feel like doing?’ Tara was walking beside Maeve as they drifted down the hallway to the kitchen. Simon smiled at Rayne.

‘You should see your face.’

‘Shut up.’ But there was relief and he felt the smile cross his own face. ‘Geez, mate. Yesterday none of this was happening.’

‘I know. In that context you’re actually doing well. But open your letters next time.’

Rayne gave him a hard look. ‘Try being where I was and you might not feel so sure about that.’

The smile fell from Simon’s face. ‘You’re right. But I would never do something as stupidly noble as that. But I should have known you would. I’m sorry I was so quick to believe in your guilt.’

Rayne heard Maeve laugh at something Tara had said and looked at Simon and dropped the whole subject. This wasn’t about him. Or Simon. ‘How can she laugh?’

They both walked towards the kitchen. ‘See, that’s why I chose obstetrics over paediatrics.’

Rayne thought about the stress he’d been under already. ‘You think giving birth is funny? It’s a wonder you haven’t been killed.’

Simon laughed again and it felt good to loosen the tension between them. The dynamics were certainly tricky. Especially if he didn’t make the grade to stay around for the long haul. But he would worry about that later.

‘Rayne?’ Maeve’s voice.

He quickened his pace and left Simon behind. ‘I’m here.’

‘I want to go in the bath and Tara thinks it might be easier if I don’t have to move from this bath here to the one in the birth centre. So maybe we should go over there fairly soon.’

‘Sounds sensible to me.’ Sounded amazingly sensible. A hospital, or a birth centre at least with a hospital next door.

Louisa appeared. Caught on very quickly what was happening. ‘I’ll pack a hamper.’

He looked at her. Felt more tension ease from his shoulders. ‘You have a feeding fetish.’

‘Must have.’ She winked at him. ‘I’m too old for any other kind of fetish.’

Simon and the two girls looked at her in comical surprise but Louisa was off to do her stuff.

‘I’ll see you over there,’ Tara said. ‘I’ll go ahead and run the bath and then come back. We can check baby out when you get there. Take your time, unless you feel you have to hurry.’

What sort of advice was that? Rayne thought with a little flutter of his nervousness coming back. He for one felt like they had to hurry. But Maeve was nodding and doing a go-slow. She didn’t even look like making a move.

Simon said he’d leave them to it. Maybe go and see his dad and let him know what was going on.

Rayne watched him go and thought, So the obstetrician leaves? He looked towards Maeve’s bedroom. ‘Do you have a bag packed?’

‘Yep.’ She was just standing there with a strange little smile on her face, looking out the window at the Christmas fairy-lights in the back yard. The clock on the wall ticked over a minute. And then another. He felt like ants were crawling all over him.

‘Um. You want me to go and get the bag?’

She turned her head and smiled vaguely at him. ‘You could.’

So how was he supposed to find it? This must be the kind of stuff normal people talked about when they were planning to have a baby. People who had more than twelve hours’ notice they were going to be a support person in a labour. The woman would say, “My bag is in my wardrobe if we need it. My slippers are under the bed.” Bathroom kits and baby clothes would have all been discussed. Baby names!

He tamped down his panic again. ‘Where is the bag?’

‘Behind the door.’

At last. He could do something. He looked at Maeve as if she might explode if he left, and then turned and strode up the hallway for the bag. Was back within seconds.

‘Do you need anything else?’

She blinked. Smiled. ‘Are you trying to organise me?’

Sprung. ‘Uh. Just making sure everything is ready when you want to go.’

‘It’s really important—’ she was speaking slowly as if to a child who wasn’t listening ‘—that the birthing woman is the one who decides when to go to the birth centre. She has to feel like she needs to be somewhere else before she leaves the place she feels safe in now.’

‘So this is what you tell women in antenatal classes? About when they go to the hospital?’

‘And the men,’ she said with a patronising smile.

They went across to the birthing centre at nine o’clock. Walked across the road, slowly, because Maeve had to stop every few minutes. The stars were out. Christmas night. The air was still warm and Maeve was wearing the sarong.

He had her overnight bag over his shoulder, the hamper from Louisa in one hand and Maeve’s elbow in the other.

‘It’s a beautiful night,’ Maeve said after a very long drawn-out breath.

Yes. Yes, beautiful, he thought. Come on. ‘Yep. You okay?’

She had another contraction and they stopped again.

Tara met them at the door. Nobody else was in labour so they had the place to themselves.

The midwife on duty was over at the hospital but would come across for the birth.

Angus was the doctor on call for obstetrics and would wait outside the door in case they needed him. All these things he found out in the first three minutes because he had requests, too! He really didn’t know if he could handle a lifetime of responsibility for Maeve. What if something went wrong?

Tara sent him to make tea because Maeve needed to go to the ladies and he was pacing outside the door.

He was back too quickly.

He could feel Tara’s eyes on him and he looked at her.

‘Maeve is low risk, Rayne,’ Tara said. ‘It’s her first baby. She’s here on the day before the baby is due. Her waters haven’t broken. She has no infections. Her blood pressure is normal. She’s only been in labour for two hours at the most.’ A sympathetic look. ‘Why are you worried?’

‘It’s my first baby too?’

‘Sure. I get that.’

He didn’t think she did. ‘I’m a paediatrician. They only called me for the babies that might need help and I’ve seen a lot of very sick babies. I guess my idea of normal birth is a bit skewed.’ Or more than a bit, and in any case he’d only found out about this baby today.

‘I get that too. But Maeve’s baby will be fine.’

He wanted to believe that. ‘What if it isn’t?’

‘Then we will manage. It’s what we do.’ She glanced around the homey birthing room for inspiration, or at least something that would reassure him. ‘Why don’t you check the equipment? And the resuscitation trolley? All the drugs on the trolley? Check the suckers and oxygen.’

He couldn’t help his horror showing in his face. ‘You haven’t checked those?’

She actually laughed. ‘Yes, Dr Walters, I have checked those. But I’m trying to distract you!’

‘Oh.’ Now he felt dumb. ‘Sorry.’ He put his finger under the collar of his T-shirt because suddenly it felt tight.

Tara’s voice was gentle. ‘Maybe doing those things would be helpful if Angus called you in an emergency in the next few weeks.’

He sighed. Get a grip. Thank goodness Tara did have a sense of humour. ‘Sorry. It’s just been pretty sudden. I’m not normally such a panic merchant.’

She looked at him. ‘I have no doubt that’s true. I think you’ve done exceptionally well, considering the scenario you’ve fallen into. But here’s the thing.’ Her voice dropped and her face was kind but serious and she glanced at the closed bathroom door. He started to wonder if Maeve and Tara had cooked up this pep talk for him between them.

He guessed he’d never know.

‘I need you to be calm. I need you to be Maeve’s rock. You don’t need to say much—just be here. Agree with her. She really wanted you to be here. And hold her hand when she wants you to. Rub her back when she wants you to. Okay?’

He took a big calming breath. ‘Okay.’

‘No more panic vibes, please. And in the meantime you can familiarise yourself with the equipment only if you need distraction.’

Okay. He got that. The bathroom door opened and Maeve came out. He sat quietly in the corner of the room while Tara felt Maeve’s abdomen, discussed the lie of the baby, which was apparently pointing in exactly the direction and attitude they wanted, and listened to his baby’s heartbeat.

Geez. That was his baby’s heartbeat. Cloppety, cloppety, clop. It was fast. He knew foetal hearts were fast. But was that too fast?

Calm. He needed to be calm. Dissociate. That was the answer. Pretend it wasn’t his baby. Okay. He felt calmer. In fact, he felt in total control. It was cool. Normal heart rate.

‘Rayne?’

‘Yes, Maeve.’

‘Can you hear our baby’s heartbeat?’

‘Yes, I can. It seems very fast!’

Tara looked at him with eyebrows raised.

He racked his brains. ‘Baby must be as excited as we are.’

Maeve laughed. ‘That is so cute.’

Cute. Geez. He stood up. Might go check the equipment.

The next hour was traumatic.

Then Maeve decided to get out of the bath and the hour after that was even worse.

But baby was fine. Heart rate perfect, with no slowing after contractions. Rayne’s heart rate slowed after the contractions because during the contraction it doubled. And not just because he was rubbing Maeve’s back non-stop.

Between contractions Maeve was calm. Rational. Gathering her strength for the next wave. During contractions it was hell.

Noisy. Intense. Painful when she had his hand in hers and dug her nails in.

Tara was the rock. Quiet. Steady. Unflappable. Like the calm in the storm. He’d look across at her when a contraction was at its height and she would be smiling. Gentle and calm. This was Maeve’s profession as well. How did these women do this day in, day out?

‘I am so going to be at your birth, Tara,’ Maeve ground out as the contraction finally eased.

‘Good. We’ll swap places.’

Rayne shook his head. How could they carry on a normal conversation when two minutes ago she was ready to rip all their heads off?

And then it was time to push. Eleven forty-five p.m. He looked at Maeve. It had been incredibly hard work. Perspiration beaded her brow, and he leant across and wiped it.

‘Hey, Rayne,’ she said softly. ‘You okay?’

How could she possibly care about him when she was going through hell? ‘As long as you’re okay, I’m okay.’

‘I’m fine.’

He smiled. ‘I’m fine too.’

She smiled back wearily. ‘Home straight now.’

There had been a bit of a lull in the contractions after a series of torrid strong ones. ‘So why has it stopped?’

‘Nature’s way of giving us a break before the last stretch.’ Then her face changed. ‘Oh.’

The next twenty minutes would be forever etched in his mind. Angus was outside the door in case he was needed. He’d checked, but they didn’t see him. Simon had arrived as well but was waiting to be invited in afterwards. He’d bet there was some pacing happening out there. As much as he was suffering in here, it would have been a hundred times worse imagining outside the door. Especially with the Maeve soundtrack they had playing.

With each pushing contraction a little more of the baby shifted down. The excitement was building and Maeve was much more focused now she could use the contractions to make things happen. If there was one thing his Maeve could do, it was make things happen.

Maeve was impatient. No surprise there. She moved position several times, kneeling, leaning on a ball, leaning on Rayne. Even sitting on the toilet, but that stressed him out until Tara smiled and put a towel over the toilet seat so he could stop envisaging his baby falling into the toilet bowl. But eventually they were standing beside the bed, and he could actually see the hair on his baby’s head.

‘You’re doing well,’ Tara said.

Well? Doing well? She was freaking amazing, incredible. ‘Come on, Maeve. You’re nearly there, babe.’ He saw her glance at the clock and register it was a few minutes after midnight. She’d got what she wanted, and she looked at him.

Triumph, thankfulness and new determination, and he realised it would never be the same between them again. But that was okay. He could admit she was stronger than him. In some ways, anyway. Maeve turned to face him. ‘I want to sit back on the bed against the pillows.’

So he lifted her and put her back on the pillows. ‘Love that,’ she panted, and even in that moment their eyes met and she tempted him. Then she relaxed back against the pillows, hugging her knees, and gave one long outward sigh. And suddenly the crown appeared then a head of black hair, stretched into a face, one shoulder and then the other.

‘Want to take it from here, Rayne?’ Tara murmured, and he got it instantly. He stepped in and put his hands under his baby’s armpits and, gently eased with the pressure Maeve was exerting, his baby entered the world with his own hands around him in a rush of belly, thighs, long legs and feet and a tangle of cord and water—and suddenly in a huge internal shift and crack through the wall of years of keeping emotion at bay, tears were streaming down his face.

Maeve was staring down with surprise and he lifted the squirming buddle of …? He glanced between the legs, grinned. ‘It’s a boy!’ His eyes met hers and for that moment, when she looked at the baby, and then him and then the baby again, he didn’t see how anything could ever stand between them.

His son cried. Loudly and lustily, and Maeve gathered him and snuggled him up against her breasts, and the baby’s cries quieted instantly.

Boob man. Chip off the old block. He experienced such a swell of emotion his heart felt like it was going to burst.

In shock he saw the second midwife—where had she come from?—lean in to dry the little legs and arms and belly and rub the damp hair before she stepped back and replaced the damp towel with a warm bunny rug over them both until the baby was in a Maeve skin and bunny-rug sandwich.

Tara delivered the placenta and then a big warm hospital blanket covered Maeve’s legs and belly and arms until finally her baby was tucked snugly with just his downy cheek against his mother, turned sideways toward Rayne, with big dark eyes and little squashed nose, and deep pink rosebud lips and a gorgeous mouth like Maeve’s. And it was done.

His chest felt tight. ‘Hello, there, buddy,’ Rayne said softly.

He glanced at the clock. Ten past twelve. Boxing Day baby. Eighteen hours after arriving in Lyrebird Lake here he was—a father. New responsibility swamped him.