Miracle: Marriage Reunited. Anne Fraser

      Chapter Three

      ‘MOST of you have met my wife.’ Niall indicated Robina with a nod of his head. ‘And you all know why she is here.’

      There were a number of smiles and nods of recognition from around the room. It was the first day of filming and Robina and her cameraman, John, who would be doubling up as sound recordist, were sitting in on the clinic’s regular update meeting. Niall had told her that he was reluctantly—and he had emphasised the word reluctantly—agreeing to let filming go ahead, but he would stop it if he thought it was no longer in his patients’ best interests.

      ‘We meet once a week to discuss cases,’ Niall explained. ‘This gives everyone an opportunity to share any concerns they may have about patients’ treatment. It is also where we discuss the more complex cases and agree on a way forward.’ Niall folded his hands on the table and leaned forward.

      He looks so distant, Robina thought, at least when he looks at me. Dressed in his dark suit, his shirt blindingly white and with a dark blue tie, he was the epitome of the successful doctor and Robina was reminded of the first time she had seen him. He had seemed intimidating then too, at least until she had spent time with him and realised that under that formal, serious demeanour was a man who had a dry sense of humour, who was kind and thoughtful and who could make her pulse race like no other. Where had that man gone?

      She glanced around the room. There was an embryologist, whose name she hadn’t quite caught, Niall and one of the other doctors, a part-timer called Elaine, two specialist nurses, Sally and Mairi, as well as the nurse manager, Catriona. All the other staff were busy in the lab or seeing patients.

      ‘I would guess that not everyone is happy that we are being filmed, but now that we have agreed to go ahead, I know you will all do your best to make it as smooth as possible,’ Niall continued easily.

      He knows his staff will do whatever he asks, Robina thought as everyone nodded. They trusted him completely.

      ‘I’ve contacted all our patients who are either on treatment or scheduled for an appointment, asking whether they wish to take part,’ Catriona said. ‘And have passed the names of about ten patients to Robina.’ The older woman smiled at her. ‘For what it’s worth, I think it’s an excellent idea—as long as the patients are happy and as long as I don’t have to appear on camera.’

      ‘I don’t mind being filmed,’ Sally, the dark haired nurse with an impish grin, said, smoothing her hair, ‘I just worry I might say something daft.’

      ‘Don’t worry,’ Robina reassured her, ‘you’ll soon forget about the camera, believe me. And if you say something daft, we’ll edit it.’

      ‘I’m not appearing, if that’s okay,’ Mairi chipped in. ‘They say the camera puts on ten pounds, and with the extra weight I’m carrying already, I don’t think I could face it.’

      Everyone laughed and a spate of good-natured teasing broke out.

      ‘Can we move on?’ Niall said when everyone had settled again. ‘We have a number of cases to discuss before I have to check on my patients in the labour ward.’

      On top of his patients at the clinic, Niall still carried a full workload of obstetric cases. No wonder we hardly see each other, Robina thought sadly. Either she was working, or he was, and that included most evenings and weekends.

      ‘Annette is coming in for her seven-week scan this morning,’ Sally announced. ‘Keep your fingers crossed, everyone.’ The mood in the room turned sombre.

      ‘This is Annette’s third attempt,’ Catriona explained to Robina. ‘The first time the embryos didn’t implant, the second time, she had a positive pregnancy test, but her seven-week scan, the one we do to determine whether the pregnancy is ongoing, showed no evidence of a heartbeat. As you can imagine, she was distraught. She and her husband have agreed that this will be their last attempt—she was thrilled when this most recent pregnancy test was positive—but they are naturally extremely anxious. I think she might be one of the women who said they’d be happy to talk to you.’

      ‘Who’s doing the scan?’ Niall asked.

      ‘I am,’ replied Sally. ‘I looked after her through her other treatments.’ She chewed on her lower lip. ‘I don’t know how she’ll cope if we don’t find a heartbeat. And I will hate being the one that has to tell her.’

      ‘Let’s just wait and see,’ Catriona said soothingly. ‘There’s no point in getting ahead of ourselves.’

      ‘I have a patient I’d like to discuss,’ Niall said. ‘It is a difficult case and I’d like to know how everybody feels—particularly the embryologists—before I see this lady.’

      Everyone turned curious eyes on Niall.

      ‘I have been approached by a woman who wants us to carry out PGD—pre-implantation genetic diagnosis,’ he said to Robina, for the benefit of the camera. ‘She has a family history of breast cancer in the family and all the female relatives in her family have either died or have had the disease. As a precaution, she decided to have a prophylactic double mastectomy when she was eighteen, after genetic testing showed that she carried the variant BRCA1 gene.’

      There was a sharp intake of breath followed by a murmur of sympathy from around the room.

      ‘Now that Isabel has joined us…’ he smiled at the curly-haired embryologist sitting on his right ‘…we are in a position to offer this service. But I want to know how everyone feels about it.’

      ‘Could you explain what it involves, Niall?’ Robina asked, knowing that this was exactly the kind of thing her viewers would be interested in. She only had a vague memory from researching her book of what the procedure involved and progress in this area was rapid.

      ‘I’ll let Isabel explain, as she’s the one who’d be doing the procedure.’

      ‘I’ll try and make it as simple as possible.’ Isabel took a sip of water. ‘We stimulate the ovaries, in the same way we do for our infertile ladies, and then fertilise the eggs in the lab. Once the eggs are fertilised they start dividing—one cell becomes two, two become four and so on. We wait until we have eight cells, then we remove one and test for the BRCA1 gene. If it’s positive, we move on to the next embryo and so on until we find one that doesn’t carry the gene. When we do, that is the embryo we replace.’

      ‘Don’t some people think this is too close to eugenics?’ Robina asked. ‘As in designer babies?’

      ‘Not at all,’ Niall interrupted quietly. ‘This isn’t selecting embryos based on hair colour or intelligence or anything like that. This is selection that will prevent someone almost certainly suffering from breast cancer later on in life.’