Midwives On-Call. Alison Roberts
I want to see.’
And Oliver supported her on one side and Rob supported her on the other, while Em gently encouraged.
‘She’s almost here. One more push … One more push, Maggie, and you’ll have a daughter.’
And finally, finally, a tiny scrap of humanity slithered into the world. And Em did as she did with every delivery. She slid the baby up onto Maggie’s tummy, so Maggie could touch, could feel, could savour the knowledge that she’d safely delivered a daughter.
The look on Maggie’s face …
Oliver watched her hand touch her tiny baby, he watched her face crumple—and he made a fast decision. He deliberately glanced at the end of the bed and carefully frowned—as if he was seeing something that could be a problem—and then he flicked the window to black again.
He put his head out the door as he did.
‘It’s great,’ he told Leonie and Connor, whose noses were hard against the glass, who turned as he opened the door as if to rush in, but his body blocked them. ‘You can see we have a lovely, healthy baby girl, but there’s been a small bleed. We need to do a bit of patching before you come in.’
‘Can we take her? Can we hold her?’
‘Maggie needs to hold her. The sensation of holding her, maybe letting her suckle, will help the delivery of the placenta; it’ll keep things normal. Maggie’s needs come first right now. I assume you agree?’
‘I … Yes,’ Leonie whispered. ‘But we agreed she wouldn’t feed her. I just so want to hold her.’
‘I suspect you’ll have all the time in the world to hold her,’ Oliver told her. ‘But the feeding is part of the birthing process and it’s important. I’m sorry but, promises or not, right now my focus is on Maggie.’
Em’s focus was also on Maggie. She watched while Maggie savoured the sight of her little daughter, while she watched, awed, as the little girl found her breast and suckled fiercely.
Her husband sat beside her, silent, his hand on her arm. He, too, was watching the baby.
Without words Em and Oliver had changed places—
Oliver was coping with the delivery of the placenta, checking everything was intact, doing the medical stuff. This was a normal delivery—there was no need for him to be here—but still there was pressure from outside the room and he knew that once he left Leonie and Connor would be in here.
‘You know,’ he said mildly, to the room in general, ‘there’s never been a law that says a surrogate mother has to give away her baby. No matter how this baby was conceived, Maggie, you’re still legally her birth mother. If you want to pull back now …’
But Maggie was smiling. She was cradling her little one with love and with awe, and tears were slipping down her face, but the smile stayed there.
‘This little one’s Leonie’s,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve seen Leonie at her worst—she’s been frantic about her baby and it was no wonder she was over the top at the end. But I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’ve given us space to say goodbye. To send her on with love.’
How could she do this? Oliver wondered, stunned. She’d gently changed sides now so the baby was sucking from the other breast. The bonding seemed complete; perfect.
‘It’s not like we’re losing her,’ Rob ventured, touching the little one’s cheek. ‘She’ll be our niece and our goddaughter.’
‘And probably a bit more than that,’ Maggie said, still smiling. ‘Our kids will have a cousin. My sister will have a baby. To be able to do this … She’s not ours, you can see. She has Connor’s hair. None of ours ever looked like this. But, oh, it’s been good to have this time.’ She looked up at them and smiled, her eyes misty with tears. ‘Em, would you like to ask them to come in now?’
‘You’re sure?’ Em asked, with all the gentleness in the world. ‘Maggie, this is your decision. As Oliver says, it’s not too late to change your mind.’
‘My mind never changed,’ Maggie said, serene now, seemingly at peace. ‘While I was having her she felt all mine and that was how I wanted to feel. Thank you for realising that. But now … now it’s time for my sister to meet her baby.’
‘How could she do that?’
With medical necessities out of the way, Oliver and Em were able to back out of the room. Leonie was holding her daughter now, her face crumpled, tears tracking unchecked. Connor, too, seemed awed.
Rob was still holding Maggie but the two of them were watching Leonie and Connor with quiet satisfaction.
‘Love,’ Em said softly, as they headed to the sinks. ‘I don’t know how surrogacy can work without it.’
‘Do you seriously think Leonie can make a good mother?’
‘I do. I’ve seen her lots of times during Maggie’s pregnancy—she’s been with her all the way. Yeah, she’s a corporate bigwig, but her life has been prescribed because she and Connor couldn’t have children. Maggie seems the ultimate earth mother—and she is—but she and Leonie love each other to bits. I suspect the over-the-top reaction we saw from Leonie in there—and which you saved us from—was simply too much emotion. It felt like her baby was being born. She wanted what was best for her baby and everything else got ignored. Mums are like that,’ she said simply. ‘And thank God for it.’
‘You really think she can look after the baby as well as Maggie could?’
‘I have no idea. I do know, though, that this baby will be loved to bits, and that’s all that counts.’
‘She can love it as much as Maggie?’
‘That’s right, you don’t think it’s possible.’ She lowered her voice to almost a whisper. ‘It’s a bleak belief, Ollie, caused by your own grief. Have you ever thought about counselling?’
‘Counselling?’ In the quiet corridor it was almost a shout. He stood back and looked at her as if she was out of her mind.
‘Counselling,’ she said, serenely. ‘It’s available here. We have the best people …’
‘I don’t need counselling.’
‘I think you do. You have so much unresolved anger from your childhood.’
‘I’m over it.’
‘It destroyed our marriage,’ she said simply. ‘And you haven’t moved on. I expected you to have a wife and a couple of your own kids by now. You were scared of adoption—are you worried about your reaction to any child?’
‘This is nuts.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ she said amiably, tossing her stained robes into the waiting bins. ‘And it’s none of my business. It’s just … I’ve got on with my life, Oliver. You kissed me on Saturday and I found myself wondering how many women you’d kissed since our split. And part of me thinks … not many? Why not?’
Silence.
She was watching him like a pert sparrow, he thought, as the rest of his brain headed off on tangents he didn’t understand. She was interested. Clinically interested. She was a fine nurse, a midwife, a woman used to dealing with babies and new parents all the time. Maybe she had insights …
Maybe she didn’t have any insights. Maybe she was just Em, his ex-wife.
Maybe that kiss had been a huge mistake.
Step away, he told himself. He didn’t need her or anyone else’s analysis. But …
‘Em, I would like to see Gretta and Toby again.’
Where had that come from? His mouth? He hadn’t meant to say it, surely he hadn’t.
But … but …