Please Don’t Take My Baby and I Miss Mummy 2-in-1 Collection. Cathy Glass
ambulance. I suggested to her that she might be more comfortable in a chair rather than sitting on the bottom step but she didn’t want to move. Adrian stayed with Paula in the sitting room until Sue arrived five minutes later.
‘How are you doing, love?’ Sue asked Jade as she came into the hall.
Jade groaned loudly.
Adrian and Paula, having heard Sue’s voice, came out of the sitting room. ‘Hi kids,’ she said. ‘Don’t look so worried.’
‘Is Jade having her baby?’ Paula asked, while Adrian smirked, embarrassed.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said.
Then we heard an ambulance siren come along the high road and turn into the top of the street. Sue went to stand with Adrian and Paula at the end of the hall while I waited with Jade. As soon as the ambulance pulled up outside the house I opened the front door, ready. Two paramedics – one male and one female – climbed out of the front of the ambulance.
‘This is Jade,’ I said to them as they came into the house. ‘She’s seventeen and I’m her foster carer.’
‘Hi, I’m Dave and this is Lyn,’ the male paramedic said.
They went over to where Jade was sitting on the bottom step and Dave knelt down so that he was at eye level.
‘How are you doing, Jade?’ he asked.
Jade groaned loudly in response. Dave asked Jade some questions: When was her baby due? When did the contractions start? How often were they coming? Lyn then checked her pulse and blood pressure while Sue, the children and I waited anxiously.
‘Are you coming in the ambulance?’ Dave asked me.
‘Yes please. Her mother is meeting us at the hospital.’
Dave then asked Jade if she could stand and they would help her walk to the ambulance.
‘I want to go on a stretcher like you see on the telly,’ Jade said.
Dave laughed but he went out to the ambulance and returned, not with a stretcher but with a collapsible wheelchair. ‘I bet you’ve seen these on the telly too, Jade,’ he said. ‘Much better than a stretcher.’
Standing unaided, Jade sat in the wheelchair while I went down the hall to say a quick goodbye to Sue, Adrian and Paula. ‘I’ve no idea what time I’ll be back,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sue said. ‘I’ll put the kids to bed if necessary.’ Then to Adrian and Paula: ‘We’ll be fine, won’t we?’
They nodded, and I knew they would be fine. They liked Sue and when she’d babysat for me before they had been allowed to stay up past their normal bedtime and play for longer.
I kissed Adrian and Paula goodbye, thanked Sue, and returned down the hall to where Dave was wheeling Jade over the doorstep. Remembering to take my handbag, I followed them out and closed the front door behind me. Lyn had gone ahead and was already in the back of the ambulance with the doors wide open. As we went down the front path Jade’s mobile rang. It was Tyler and he must have told her he was on his way to the hospital, for Jade said: ‘Good. See you soon, Ty. Hey! Guess what? I’m leaving Cathy’s in a wheelchair, and there’s an ambulance waiting with flashing lights, just like you see on the telly!’
Having got Jade settled on to the couch in the rear of the ambulance, Dave closed the back doors and went round to the driver’s seat, while Lyn stayed with Jade and me in the rear of the ambulance. Lyn had a kind and gentle manner and seemed used to talking to teenage girls; she easily established a rapport with Jade. As she checked Jade’s pulse and blood pressure she talked to her in a reassuring manner and told her that while her blood pressure was up a little that was quite normal. Then she asked Jade if she was looking forward to having her baby.
‘Will it hurt?’ Jade asked, as she had previously asked me.
‘A bit,’ Lyn said. ‘But you’ll be able to have an epidural if you want. And before you know it, it’ll all be over and you’ll have a bouncing baby. Do you know the sex of your baby?’
Jade shook her head.
‘Jade was due to have a scan on Wednesday,’ I explained as the ambulance turned a corner and the siren wailed. ‘She missed an earlier appointment.’
From the way Lyn was talking it sounded as though she thought Jade was definitely in labour and about to have her baby, although neither she nor Dave had said so. ‘Jade’s not due for at least another month yet,’ I said. ‘Do you think she is in labour?’
‘Could you be out on your dates?’ Lyn asked Jade.
‘Dunno,’ Jade said.
Fifteen minutes later the ambulance pulled into the ambulance park at the side of the main A&E entrance. Dave got out and opened the rear doors, and then he took out and unfolded the wheelchair. Lyn helped Jade off the couch and down the steps while I followed with Jade’s coat, which she’d taken off in the ambulance. Once seated in the wheelchair, Jade took out her phone and was about to use it. ‘Not in the hospital, Jade,’ I said. ‘It affects the instruments.’ She sighed but closed her phone.
Lyn called a goodbye and stayed with the ambulance while I followed Dave, pushing Jade in the wheelchair. We went into the hospital, down a short corridor and into a curtained cubicle. A nurse appeared and helped Jade out of the wheelchair and on to the couch. Dave collapsed the wheelchair and said goodbye. I thanked him as he left.
‘Is me mum here?’ Jade asked the nurse.
‘I’ll find out in a moment,’ she said, setting up the monitor.
‘Shall I have a look?’ I asked, to save her the trouble.
‘Yes please, and can you register Jade at reception?’
I left the cubicle and went down the corridor that led into the main reception and waiting area. It was busy, with the rows of seats full of people waiting to be seen. As I appeared through the double doors Jackie rushed up to me.
‘I’ve just arrived,’ she said, breathless. ‘How is she?’
‘A nurse is with Jade now,’ I said. ‘I guess we’ll know more when she’s been seen by a doctor. I’ve been asked to register Jade. Can you come, as you know all her medical history?’
Jackie and I went to the reception desk, where Jackie gave the information that was requested, and then I showed her through the double doors, back down the corridor and to the cubicle where I’d left Jade.
‘Oh Mum!’ Jade cried as soon as she saw her mother.
Jackie went over and hugged her daughter, all previous hostility between them now gone.
‘The doctor will be in to see Jade soon,’ the nurse said, and left the cubicle.
Jackie pulled the only chair in the cubicle closer to the bed head and sat beside her daughter while I hovered at the foot of the bed. Jade seemed to be more relaxed now she was in hospital and had stopped groaning; I suppose she felt reassured. While I was more than happy to stay for as long as necessary, as mother and daughter talked I began to feel I was intruding and that perhaps I should offer to leave Jackie alone with her daughter for a while. I was thinking of suggesting that I sat in the waiting area when Jade looked up from the bed and said, a little rudely: ‘You can go home now. Me mum’s staying with me.’
‘I can stay,’ Jackie confirmed, glancing at me. ‘Margaret is looking after the kids. She can stay all night if necessary.’
Had Jade been a younger child in care I would have had to stay even if the child’s mother had been present; as the foster carer the child was my responsibility, and to leave her alone with her mother would have been unsupervised contact. But at Jade’s age she could decide who she wanted with her in hospital and she wanted her mother, not me.
‘All right, if you’re sure,’ I said.
‘Yeah.