The Midwife's Nine-Month Miracle
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Shelley Rivers
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CHAPTER ONE
GILA WRIGHT RUBBED a hand over her stomach and tried not to laugh at the appalled faces being made by the seven teenage girls viewing the film depicting a birth scene. But every time she gave this class, the horrified expressions on the faces of the young mums-to-be as the reality of impending labour hit home always made her chuckle.
‘It’s a bit grim, isn’t it?’ one expectant mother commented with a deep frown, her fingers flipping the braided strap of her purple handbag.
‘Don’t worry,’ Gila soothed with practised ease. ‘You’ll be too busy pushing your child out into the world to be concerned with anything else. It’s all perfectly natural and survivable.’
None of the girls appeared overly convinced by Gila’s reassuring words. Each eager to do everything correctly during their pregnancy, while secretly dreading the actual event of impending childbirth and new motherhood. Gila understood their concerns. In less than a month, she too would be going through the whole process for the first time. Though at thirty-two years old she was far from being an unmarried teenager.
Since Mart’s had opened two years previous, the walk-in clinic had run antenatal classes especially for teenage mothers. It had begun as a pilot scheme to help relieve the strain and workload on several of the area’s local health practices. A place where young women could find help and information no matter what their circumstances were. Somewhere welcoming where the teenagers received no judgement or criticism. Just help, information and caring medical advice. The classes had proved so successful that a decision had been made to run them permanently, having become an important service to the neighbouring community, and many of the medical staff who worked at Mart’s were actually volunteers who lived in the area and fitted in shifts around their main hospital jobs.
Gila had joined the staff two months ago, after taking maternity leave from her position as a midwife at the local maternity unit. She spent two days a week volunteering at the clinic, rather than sitting around on her uncle’s narrowboat, lonely and bored, with too much time to dwell on things she’d prefer not to.
Rubbing her hand lovingly over her baby bump again, she sent a silent prayer of thanks as the film ended, signalling the end of the week’s session. Her back ached, her slightly swollen feet pinched against the insides of her flat black shoes, and she yearned to head home. And for the last hour she’d also craved sliced apples and thick toffee sauce with ridiculous intensity. Both of which she envisaged eating while lying in a warm relaxing bath.
‘So, any questions?’ she asked, returning her full attention to the circle of young women. ‘This is our last group together before I leave to have my baby, so if you do think of anything before your next class with my colleague Sarah, who’s taking over from me, remember you can speak to your individual midwives or family doctors. They are there to help. Nothing that is worrying you is silly or unimportant. I promise medics and midwives have heard everything before, no matter how crazy-sounding, so don’t let embarrassment stop you. Okay?’
‘I have a question,’ asked a teenager, sticking up her hand as though still at school. ‘How long before we let our partners back? You know, physically. Because after watching that—’ she pointed at the now blank screen ‘—I’m thinking seriously about asking to be sterilised after the birth.’
Gila laughed and quickly mollified her. ‘Depending on the birth, but usually we advise six weeks before resuming making love. I promise you’ll soon forget about the messy side of giving birth the minute your baby settles in your arms. And if you want, I can suggest to Sarah that she talks about birth control options for after your babies arrive, at the next session.’
Several young mothers murmured their enthusiasm for the idea, before they all stood and shuffled towards the door, chatting and laughing as they filed out of the room. Each airing their opinion of what they had just watched.
Gila slowly rose from her chair, as a too familiar heavy silence and melancholy moved through her as the last young woman waved goodbye and closed the door. The difference between her and those seven young girls was that Gila knew for a fact that they would each be sharing the births of their first child with a partner at their side. Whether a boyfriend, mother or even a brother, each one fortunate to have someone with them cheering them on through the long hours of labour. Whereas Gila would face the birth of her child alone. The father of her baby would not be reassuring her with encouragement and loving words. Or holding her hand and whispering praise as the labour intensified. No, her child’s father would be absent, just as he had been for the last four months of her pregnancy. Ever since the night she packed a bag and walked out on him.
She sighed and reached for the blue medical bag sitting in the centre of the large desk in the corner of the room. Afternoon sunlight cast its warmth into the area through the large window that faced out onto the clinic’s car park, illuminating the normally invisible dust particles floating in the air. She empathised with those twisting and turning specks. Existing, yet not really having somewhere special to land and make a long-term home. A particular spot where they were really wanted.
Shoving several folders into the bag, Gila searched for the rest of her belongings. She was due to finish working at the clinic the following week, but each day she gathered a few more of her bits and pieces to take home rather than leave everything to the last day. She’d enjoyed volunteering at the clinic, but as her pregnancy advanced she found her energy sapping quicker with each passing week, often returning home utterly exhausted. She still had so much to organise before the baby came. Things she’d purposely put off, unwilling to do them alone. Hoping the situation with her baby’s father might change and improve. But it hadn’t, so it appeared that alone was exactly how she would be doing everything from now on. At least until the little one arrived.
She picked up her diary from the desk, her eyes falling onto the slim white band of skin on her left third finger. The place where her wedding ring once encircled. She’d removed it a week ago during a bout of tears and self-pity. One long lonely night, when the sight of it and everything it once represented mocked her one time too often for ever believing in happiness and love.
Her disruptive and unconventional childhood should have taught her better than to imagine that a normal happy life could finally be hers. That the pipe dream of a perfect marriage was actually achievable. Surely her own father’s many destructive short-term relationships and incessant itch to wander the world, pursuing one false dream after another, should have taught Gila that simple truth didn’t exist?
Yet despite knowing better, she’d hoped her relationship with her husband would be different. That it would last for ever and show everyone around them that she wasn’t an undependable relationship car crash like her father, but a responsible adult who lived an ordinary, contented life. After all, she’d witnessed her parent’s slip-ups so often, there was no chance she’d commit similar ones, was there?
Only, despite everything she’d thought and believed, it seemed she stupidly had.
In spite of all the promises she’d whispered to herself as a child on those nights when they’d slept on the pavements of unfamiliar streets because her father’s money had run out and the hotel they’d been staying in had evicted them. Or the days when she would sit alone on a balcony while her father spent time with yet another woman he’d met and tumbled into mock love with. Left and ignored while they made love in another room. Gila had forgotten all of those promises and naively fallen in love with a man who turned out not to love her as deeply as she thought. And now she was weeks away from having their child and the solitude of the situation she found herself in seemed to increase with each and every passing day.
As she closed the bag, a knock on the door drew her attention from her sombre contemplations. Forcing a lightness she wasn’t feeling into her tone and mood, she called out, ‘Come in.’
Trudy, the afternoon receptionist, who dressed similar to a nineteen-fifties Hollywood starlet, opened the door and flashed Gila a cheerful smile. Tall and stylish, she reminded Gila of everything she was not.
‘All finished for the day?’ Trudy asked.
‘Just packing up,’ Gila replied with a smile she wasn’t feeling. ‘I’m glad it’s nearly the weekend, though.’ No longer working full-time at the hospital, she had the rare luxury of the whole Easter weekend free and she intended to enjoy every minute. Well, perhaps enjoy was too ambitious a goal, considering the wreck her private life was in, but she refused to spend further time wallowing. She intended to finish the lemon baby’s blanket she’d started knitting a few weeks ago, despite the fact it looked nothing like the pattern’s picture, and then make sure she’d bought everything she needed for the baby’s imminent appearance.
‘I’ve a ton of things to do,’ she continued. Which wasn’t quite true, but she doubted Trudy wanted to hear that her weekends were actually the worst part of the week because the days dragged like old arthritic toes through a puddle of treacle and gave her the unwanted opportunity to lull over how everything in her life had changed from being perfect and wonderful into a huge dreadful and horrible mess within the matter of months.
‘I thought you’d want to know Reese Newman has walked in with her boyfriend, complaining of stomach pains. Any chance you can assist the doctor dealing with her? She behaves better with you.’
Reese, a teenager who was five months pregnant, struggled with every aspect of her pregnancy. She’d spent half of her life in foster homes and had been expelled from two schools, a fact she’d proudly informed Gila of the first time they met. She was also unfortunately rude and at times aggressive. She ignored most medical advice and spent her time following her on-off boyfriend as he committed one crime after another. She also had no settled home life or relationship with her birth parents, and loved nothing more than causing a scene.
Gila groaned softly and swung the bag onto her shoulder. Any other day she’d willingly deal with the girl’s abrasive manner, but today she was just too exhausted. ‘Must I?’
‘She’s with the new doctor right now,’ Trudy said, leaning against the door frame. ‘I doubt it’s going well. You know what she’s like with new people.’
‘New doctor?’ Gila asked, only half listening. Because a portion of the clinic’s staff consisted of volunteers, it wasn’t unusual for medics to come and go. Some stayed for a few months, others only a few days or weeks.
‘Wait until you see him,’ Trudy said with a grin. ‘The man’s gorgeous. Sexier than a top-ten heart-throb. Has lovely wavy dark hair that hits his shoulders.’ She tapped her own and smiled dreamily. ‘Makes a woman think all sorts of naughty thoughts about tugging it.’
‘I thought Dr Peters worked on Friday afternoons,’ Gila said, walking towards the door. Dr Peters headed the Accident and Emergency department at the local hospital, but volunteered several days a week at the clinic. She knew him well, but so far they’d both covered different shifts, so she hadn’t seen him during the weeks she’d been working at the clinic.
‘Normally he does, but he’s had to rush off to America to be with his daughter. Something about her child’s been taken ill and it’s not looking good. So he’s arranged for this new doctor to step in for a couple of weeks to cover his Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday shifts. I swear my knees shook when the man walked in and spoke to me. Gorgeous brown eyes. Like pools of melted truffles. Rich and completely bad for a female’s peace of mind. And his deep voice—wow.’
‘Really?’ Gila asked, mostly because Trudy expected it than any real interest in the new doctor. She was off men for good and wasn’t in the mood to drool over another handsome one. Besides, this advanced in her pregnancy the only salivating she did involved toffee-covered edibles. Doctors were especially off her menu.
‘How about a cup of raspberry tea before you go?’ Trudy suggested, moving back so Gila could step out of the room and into the corridor.
Gila winced at the idea, sickness creeping up her throat. She swallowed away the undesired taste and shook her head. She really wanted to go home, but, conscious of not wanting to be considered grumpy, she said, ‘If you have ginger and lemon, I’ll consider it. Raspberry tea just reminds me of morning sickness.’
Trudy laughed as they walked along the corridor and headed towards the consultation rooms. ‘It’s jam sandwiches for me. Someone told me during my pregnancy that they helped with alleviating morning sickness when I was carrying my twins, and to some degree they did, but now I can’t stand the smell of strawberry jam without wanting to run for the nearest bathroom. So are you looking forward to becoming a mum?’
This time Gila’s smile was genuine. ‘I can’t wait.’
‘Do you know what you’re having?’
‘No, I want it to be a surprise,’ she said, and in an effort to change the subject before it became even more personal, she asked, ‘Which consultation room is Reese being seen in?’
Trudy pointed to the one at the far end of the corridor. ‘Room three. Don’t forget to pop into the staff room before you leave. No sneaking off home hoping I won’t notice.’
Gila forced another smile, and promised, ‘I won’t.’
Moving in the direction of the consultation room, she rubbed a hand over her stomach once more. If Reese was in an awkward mood, Gila would need a ton of patience, because a sixth sense warned her that the next few minutes were going to be tough. She just didn’t realise how right that prediction would actually turn out to be.
Leo Wright listened to the pregnant patient and frowned. Both she and the young man who’d accompanied her had continued to complain and bicker since stepping into the consultation room. Despite several attempts to intervene and discover the reason for their visit, Leo still had no idea what ailed the young woman. The only clue he’d gathered while observing her movements was the way she kept wincing and placing a hand to the right side of her stomach.
‘Reese, perhaps if you’d just compose yourself,’ Leo suggested, keeping his voice low, patient and friendly. ‘Then we might be able to work out what it is that has brought you to the clinic today.’
‘In other words, stop whingeing, and let the doctor help ya,’ her boyfriend grumbled, his eyes not shifting from the screen of his phone.
Leo sighed when the young couple resumed arguing. The only reason he stood in this bland, unfamiliar room was because he owed his boss the biggest favour and he secretly wanted a chance to see his wife. Small glimpses from the window of his home were usually all he caught thanks to the fact that, despite leaving him and their home, she still resided close by. Brief moments where he mostly stared at her back as she walked away. For the last few weeks he’d suspected Gila of avoiding him. They needed to sort things out between them soon. The odd text and email concerning their unborn baby was not enough. This lack of real communication had continued for too long. Their baby’s birth was mere weeks away and it was vital for him to be involved. He desperately wanted to be closer than he was right now. In what capacity he didn’t care, but this silent stand-off and purposely skirting around each other wasn’t helping either of them.
The time had come to try and fix the wrong he’d committed. He now understood that, without meaning to, he’d hurt the one precious person in his life. His wife. His Gila.
Every part of him wanted to beat and howl against the agony of knowing that he’d shattered her trust. That he alone had caused the anguish in her beautiful grey eyes and broken her world apart. He’d damaged their marriage and taken the most wonderful, tender woman and wrecked her. And why? Because the turmoil that had developed inside his heart after his sister’s death had grown so big and powerful, he’d pushed everyone who mattered away. Not capable of dealing with the overwhelming guilt that had consumed him, he’d retreated into himself, when he should have clung to his wife, the way a dying man clutched to breath and hope.
Last November his kid sister, Jodie, died from a drugs overdose. One he’d failed to save her from. All the years of learning and practising medicine. Years poring over medical books and passing practical tests and for what? So he could help strangers, yet when his own sick sister had desperately required his help, he’d been useless to stop her addiction and keep her alive. Even worse, guilty of turning her away when she’d needed him the most.
For three days, Leo had sat by Jodie’s hospital bedside, praying for her to wake up from a coma, but in the end she’d silently given up and slipped away. Leaving this world without giving him the chance to say sorry or goodbye.
And for weeks after, the sorrow and the misery had swamped everything in Leo’s life. Catching him at quiet moments, the remorse had chewed at his conscience and gnawed at his heart.
Instead of seeking comfort in his wife’s arms, Leo had turned from Gila, not wanting to drag her into the bleak levels of despair that ate at him. Reluctant to admit his part in Jodie’s death to anyone. If Gila had learnt the truth, she would have stopped seeing him as a protector, and viewed him as nothing but a failure. He would cease to be the hero he suspected his wife secretly viewed him as, leaving him exposed as nothing but a useless man incapable of protecting and helping a loved one. An incompetent doctor unable to heal.
Then after weeks of his pretending that everything was fine, hiding the agony inside him, everything had finally tumbled down and smothered Leo completely, ridding him of sane thought and normal behaviour. He’d withdrawn into his internal hell of regret and blame until he’d become aware of nothing but the darkness and the shame.
Even now, months later, he didn’t understand why he’d reacted in that way. Or why he’d hurt the one person he truly loved.
Closing his eyes, Leo silently repeated the words his grief counsellor suggested he say every time the past’s emotions threatened to resurface. With his counsellor’s help he’d started the journey through the self-reproach, depression and sorrow. It wasn’t an easy or fast process, but with each weekly session he was slowly accepting Jodie’s death and putting everything into its proper context. His behaviour and the decisions he’d made before his sister’s passing hadn’t cause Jodie’s death. With his counsellor’s help, he was beginning to see that.
A counsellor his boss, Dr Peters, had insisted he visit, after recognising the signs of anxiety and depression in Leo. Without his boss’s help, Leo doubted he’d still have a career or his job at the local hospital’s A & E. It was also Peters who’d come to him the previous day, in a terrible state, and begged him to temporarily take over his weekly shifts at Mart’s, so that he could leave the country to be with his daughter and seriously sick grandchild. Without hesitation, Leo had agreed. Happy to do whatever favour the man asked, though how his estranged wife was going to react when she found out he would be working at the clinic, Leo didn’t want to consider. But the chance to help and repay his boss as a work colleague and a friend took priority.
Returning his attention to the young woman sitting on the examination table, he suggested, ‘How about you tell me why you’re holding your hand to your side?’
Again she ignored him.
‘Does it hurt there?’ Leo coaxed.
‘I ain’t talking to you,’ the teenager snapped.
A knock on the door prevented him from replying. With a curt nod at the female, he strolled over to the door and flung it open. And finally encountered the woman who haunted his every thought.
Gripping the handle, Leo lowered his gaze and took in the shape of their growing child beneath her too large, shapeless blue uniform. A child he desperately wanted to be close to. His flesh and blood, his contribution to his future family. Boy or girl, he didn’t care. He just wanted to be its father. Somehow, he had to repair his relationship with Gila enough to be able to do that. He just hoped for their unborn child’s sake it wasn’t an impossible mission.
‘Hello, Gila,’ he said softly. ‘Won’t you come in?’
‘Leo?’ Gila’s heart stopped as her brain tried to make sense and acknowledge the man standing in the doorway. For the last few months she’d avoided him, other than the odd text to keep him up to date on the baby’s health and development, but here he was in the one place she’d considered herself safe from his presence.
Gripping the canvas straps of her bag, she forced her legs to keep her upright and not collapse into a crumpled heap the way the rest of her body suddenly longed to. How would Leo react if she did? Would he care enough to scoop her up from the floor, or would he leave her where she landed in a pool of shock and body parts and ignore her as he’d done for the last few months? Just pretend she didn’t exist and was no concern of his.
She didn’t trust in coincidences. She did however believe in bad luck, and it appeared that life had again chosen to dump another reeking bucketful slap bang in her path.
‘Finally,’ a female voice complained behind Leo. ‘Someone I know. Here, Miss Wright, will you tell this man to leave me alone?’
‘Sorry,’ Gila stammered, her heartbeat thundering like a thousand drumming fingers. ‘I must have the wrong room.’
Trembling, she half turned, desperate to get away from the man and the swoosh of memories initiated from one glance of his handsome face. Strong features whose hard plains she’d once traced and scattered with kisses and reverence. Bronze skin, sometimes smooth, occasionally covered with dark bristles that tickled her fingertips and prickled her own flesh in places only he had ever uncovered and explored.
‘Gila.’
She stiffened at the sound of her name falling from his lips after so many weeks of silence and glanced back. The bright artificial light in the corridor giving her a view of the man she’d once adored, before he’d destroyed all that they’d shared.
She shook her head and moved away. Not even for Reese and her baby’s well-being could Gila walk into the room and pretend that the man she’d once loved wasn’t there with them. That he didn’t stand less than a foot away. That his familiar body didn’t dominate the space, reminding her of things she’d spent weeks and days deliberately closing her mind from. No, she couldn’t do it. Not even for a patient. For once, not this time.
For long torturous weeks, she’d worked to regather the fragments of her shattered life. With no other choice, she’d forced the pain of Leo’s abandonment to one side, refusing to face it, instead throwing herself into her work. And now, when she’d finally believed she had found a balance, here he appeared to upend and unsettle her calmness once again.
‘No. I’m sorry, I must—’
‘Gila, wait.’
The deep words wrapped around her, tempting and provoking. Wasn’t it enough that Leo tortured her dreams, causing her to continually replay their last conversation when he’d proven that everything she’d imagined true about their relationship was nothing but a lie?
‘No,’ she whispered again, lowering her eyes. She couldn’t do this. It was too late, or maybe too soon for this encounter.
He reached for her, but she jerked away, not wanting his touch. Once she’d craved his fingers on her body, desired the firm stroke of his caress upon her skin, now the thought made her stomach ache and her skin prickle.
This man once slipped a gold ring onto her finger in front of a church full of family and friends. A church not three miles from here. Then he’d professed to worship and love her for six wonderful months of perfect marriage, before discarding her from his life like an unwanted curio he’d simply grown bored of playing with.
‘Oi, Miss Wright,’ Reese called, oblivious to the tension between the two professionals. ‘I want to speak to you.’
Leo stepped back and refocused on the patient. ‘Miss Newman, you came here because you said you required help. Other patients wait in Reception. Ones who truly want our assistance. So unless you wish to sit for hours in the nearest hospital’s A & E, I suggest you tell me exactly what is wrong.’
Pushing all emotions and private desires aside, Gila swallowed her reluctance and pride and stepped into the room. Moving over to where Reese waited, she took control of both the situation and the argumentative teenager. ‘Reese, tell Dr Wright, what’s the problem? He can help you.’
Reese pouted and folded her arms.
Gila sighed softly and used her best no-nonsense midwife voice. Knowing this was the best way to deal with the girl. Not taken in by the tough front Reese frequently hid behind when scared. She recognised the insecurity and self-doubt in the young woman as the same form that once sat in her own uncertain heart. Convinced that the world viewed you with disdain and disgust, simply because your home life differed from the standard model. What she’d learnt through her work as a midwife was that there was no standard family. Every single one was different.
‘Because you’re here for a reason,’ she continued. ‘And I’m sure it isn’t to waste our time. So, are you in pain? You’re very pale. Are you taking the iron tablets I prescribed for you?’
Reese shrugged guiltily. ‘I lost them.’
‘I’ll write you a new prescription before you leave. It’s important that you take them. So, where’s the pain?’
Reese sighed, then, with a resentful glare at her boyfriend, stated, ‘I’m not being a baby. Everyone thinks I am, but it really hurts here in my side. I vomited several times, too. I thought it was just the pregnancy, but I don’t know. Something don’t feel right.’
Leo moved closer but continued to let Gila lead the consultation.
‘Reese, will you allow me to check you over while Dr Wright observes?’ Gila asked.
‘Go ahead.’ Reese sighed, amazingly complacent now someone was listening to her fears. She glanced worriedly at Gila, vulnerability shining from her young, troubled eyes. ‘Do you think there’s something wrong with the baby?’
‘Let’s not worry yet,’ Gila soothed, patting her arm. ‘Now lie down and can you tell me exactly where the pain is and how it feels? Is it a dull pain? Or perhaps a stabbing kind of pain?’
She gently placed her fingers to the teenager’s stomach on the right side, below her baby bump. ‘If I press here, does it hurt more when I pull my fingers away or less?’
Reese gasped as Gila drew her fingers away. With a glare, she answered, ‘More.’
Gila glanced at Leo, seeing the same suspicion in his eyes. ‘And you say you’ve suffered bouts of sickness?’
‘Yes.’ Reese nodded.
Leo smiled reassuringly and glanced at Gila. ‘Okay, well, I suspect it’s a grumbling appendix. What do you think?’
‘Highly likely,’ Gila agreed with the prognosis, having come to the same conclusion.
Leo took over now they’d both agreed on the possible cause of Reese’s pain and discomfort. ‘I’m going to call for an ambulance to drive you over to the main hospital and once you’re there the doctors can run tests and find out exactly what is going on.’
‘Is it dangerous?’ asked Reese’s boyfriend. ‘She ain’t going to lose the kid, is she?’
Leo faced the man. ‘I’m not going to lie to you. In severe cases it can be life-threatening. It’s important Reese goes to the hospital and gets it checked out. This isn’t an issue you should ignore or leave.’
Gila helped Reese down from the examination table. ‘I’ll write out a new prescription for the iron tablets and meet you in Reception. Do not leave before I give it to you. Okay?’
Gila followed the young couple out of the room, ignoring Leo, who stood watching her. She’d done her job and helped with Reese, but that was all she owed the man who didn’t care that he’d broken her heart. Or that he’d taken all her stupid secret precious daydreams and shattered every single one.
