CAROL MARINELLI - Their Secret Royal Baby

Elias.

Her one-night stand, the father of her child.

‘No.’

She actually tried to launch herself and get off the trolley and declared she was going home.

She simply wanted to run.

Yet there was nowhere to go, the logical part of her brain knew that, and so did he for he caught her hands and held her loosely by the wrists as she knelt up on the trolley with the hastily put-on gown falling over her shoulders, and she knew her breasts were exposed.

And she cared not a jot any more.

He was so calm that she actually thought he might not recognise her.

Beth knew she would never forget him.

She had never thought she would see Elias again and yet she was staring into those grey eyes that had so easily seduced her and it was all too much to take in.

He was wearing rumpled navy scrubs and his hair was longer than it had been when they’d met. Now it fell forward and she wanted to push it back from his eyes, and she saw that unlike when they had met he was unshaven.

He looked as if he had just woken up.

‘Beth,’ he said. ‘The obstetrics team is on the way. For now, though, it’s me.’

She just stared back.

‘I’m one of the doctors working in Emergency tonight and I need to examine you.’

There was no choice, Elias knew.

He was the only doctor available in a critical situation.

Not that Beth understood.

‘Oh, no!’ She shouted it out. ‘I want an obstetrician!’

Valerie squeezed her shoulder.

‘Dr Santini knows what he’s doing,’ she reassured Beth. ‘He’s an emergency registrar. Just last month he delivered a lovely baby boy. You’re in good hands, Beth.’

It wasn’t his bloody qualifications she was objecting to.

It was the man himself, the man who, as Valerie helped her lie back, was calmly putting on a paper gown and then had the nerve to put on gloves.

‘You stop to...?’ She didn’t finish but Elias got the inference.

He had intimately explored her with his fingers, why worry with gloves now? And, no, he hadn’t stopped to put on a condom.

Here, perhaps, was the consequence.

He couldn’t think like that now. He could not addle his mind with the thought that he might be about to deliver his own child.

‘We need to focus on the baby,’ he said, and Beth looked at him and saw that despite the very calm demeanour there was concern in his eyes.

Serious concern.

‘Can she have some oxygen on?’ he asked Valerie, who was trying to pick up the baby’s heart rate with a Doppler machine.

The gown had long since gone.

She was naked, scared and vulnerable.

‘Can I examine you, Beth?’ Elias checked.

She could hear the chimes going off again. They were calling for an anaesthetist now and she thought of the man being given CPR. She had heard the nurses discussing the very sick child and if more staff needed to be sent down.

It was down to Elias, she realised.

Maybe this was hard for him too, she thought, because now she knew that he recognised her, for his voice was a touch strained as he requested her consent.

She nodded and then she told him her fear and why she was so confused.

‘It’s happening so fast. Just so-o-o fast. I was fine.’

‘How long have you been having contractions for?’ Elias asked, as Mandy helped her to lie down and lift her legs.

‘I don’t know,’ Beth said, and then she remembered standing outside the restaurant and looking at her phone as she pondered what to do.

‘Midnight.’

Elias glanced up at the clock—it wasn’t even twenty past twelve.

Poor thing, Elias thought.

Not just because it was Beth.

It was called a precipitate labour, one where the uterus rapidly expelled the foetus, and, though premature babies often came faster than full term ones, this was very rapid indeed. The contractions were often violent and exhausting, and the mother presented as drained and shocked.

‘Can you give me something to stop the labour?’ Beth asked as he examined her, and then she saw Elias’s jaw grit.

‘Beth, your baby’s about to be born. There’s nothing I can give you to stop it. We want to slow this last part down as best we can. You’re not to push...’

He would try and control the delivery with his hand as a very rapid birth could damage the baby’s brain, and also he badly wanted assistance to be here when the baby was born.

He looked over to Mandy.

‘Should we move over to Resus?’ he asked quietly, because there were more drugs and equipment over there, but Mandy shook her head.

‘It’s full. We’ve got everything in here and the team are on their way.’

Elias nodded.

He had seen them at work several times. They came with everything that was required. They could turn this room into a neonatal intensive care ward and also a theatre, if such was needed for Beth.

He was very glad to know that they were on their way.

His fingers were on the baby’s head, trying to control the delivery, and, unlike the large baby he had recently delivered, this head was tiny to his hand. ‘It’s coming again,’ Beth said. ‘I have to push,’

‘No, no,’ he told her, but not dismissively, more he suggested that she could resist. ‘Breathe through it, Beth. Take some nice slow breaths.’

She was taking short, rapid ones.

‘Slow breaths,’ he reminded her. ‘Let’s try to give this little one a gentle entrance to the world.’

Another contraction was coming and she moaned through the pain and the agony of not pushing when every cell in her body demanded that she do just that.

‘It’s too soon,’ she sobbed. ‘The baby’s too early...’

‘It is what it is,’ Elias said as the pain passed.

Odd, but those words calmed her.

They were the words her father used when one of his parishioners came to him during a tumultuous time in their life. Always Donald was calm and wise. He would listen as they poured out their dramas and fears, and then those were the words he would recite—it is what it is—and then he would do what he could to help them move forward.

Her father, though, had not been able to do that with her. It had been too much for Donald to accept that his gorgeous, well-behaved daughter had run so wild, let alone offer guidance.

Now Elias did.

His voice was assertive as he told Beth what to do and she was ready to listen.

‘Keep taking some nice deep, slow breaths so that your baby gets plenty of oxygen.’

She could do that.

‘Focus,’ Elias said.

‘I’m trying to but—’

‘Nothing else matters now.’

It didn’t.

His words were for both of them, a secret conversation between them, and he glanced up as he said it. ‘Just focus on the baby, the rest can all wait.’

Their history was irrelevant right now.

He could see that the baby was a redhead like its mum, but he would let Beth find that out for herself.

Any moment now.

He looked over at the equipment that was all set up and at the cot that was now ready and waiting. The overhead lights would warm the little one and he gave Mandy a small nod of thanks because she had it all under control. She was pulling up a drug that would be given once the baby was born to help with the delivery of the placenta.

There were scissors and cord clamps waiting. There was a sterile wrap she would take the baby from Elias with. And there was a little moment of calm.

‘You’re doing so well, Beth,’ he said.

He meant it.

She was exhausted, her auburn hair was as wet as if she’d just come from the shower. Her already pale skin was bleached white so that her freckles stood out.

And yet she was calm now.

Resigned that her baby was coming, whether she was ready or not, Beth was doing all she could to take slow breaths so that more oxygen could get to her child.

Valerie had found the baby’s heart rate with the Doppler and it was strong and fast and it felt as if it was the only sound in the room.

‘Do you know what you’re having?’ Valerie asked, and Beth shook her head.

‘I wanted it to be a surprise.’

And, at the oddest of moments, she and Elias shared a small smile.

It was certainly that.

Then she stopped smiling.

‘Another one’s coming,’ Beth said.

He heard her hum, and then she hummed louder and her thighs were shaking as she fought not to push.

And though Beth didn’t push, her uterus contracted and the head was out.

The cord was around the neck but only loosely and Elias slipped it over the little head.

‘Are you ready to meet your baby?’ Elias asked.

‘No,’ she answered, yet her hands were reaching out.

He watched as the baby’s little almond-shaped eyes opened and then the baby was delivered into his hands.

It was a little girl.

‘Hey, baby,’ he said, and Beth watched as he smiled and saw that there were tears in his eyes. She was so glad that her baby had been delivered with love.

Somehow, at the scariest, most petrifying time in her life, she felt safe.

He held the baby as Mandy clamped and cut the cord. She was blinking at the world and taking her first breath, startled. Her eyes screwed closed and then her mouth opened and she let out a small, shrill cry. As Mandy went to get the sterile sheet to take the baby from him, instead Elias passed her to Beth’s waiting hands.

That moment of contact with the baby had felt such a vital one that he wanted Beth to experience it as well, as he knew it would be a while before she got to hold her again.

The baby was vigorous and had started to cry as she was born but calmed as she met her mother.

‘A girl,’ Beth said, as her baby was passed to her, and she scooped her in.

The baby lay stunned on Beth’s chest like a shocked little bird recovering from a fright. The little eyes were open as she breathed in the scent of her mother and listened to the familiar sound of her heart.

Mandy put a blanket over the two of them and held oxygen near the baby’s face as Elias came over to do the initial assessment of the infant.

He could not afford to think of her as his so he pushed that aside as he checked the baby.

Her heart rate was rapid and her breathing was too and she was pink.

It was a moment.

Less than a moment that mother and baby shared.

Yet it was such a precious time. There was a beautiful time of calm and peace as she met her little girl.

‘Oh, baby,’ Beth sobbed, and she held her little daughter to her naked skin.

All the problems that had got her to this point just disappeared as she gazed at her baby and met her eyes.

‘We need to get her over to the cot,’ Elias said.

‘Let me hold her a little while longer.’

‘Beth, I need to check her.’

He could hear footsteps running towards them as he peeled back the blanket and lifted the baby off Beth. The baby cried in protest at the intrusion as he took her to the warmed cot.

‘How is she?’ Beth was calling out.

Her one-minute Apgar score was a seven, which, given how premature she was, was good. Her muscle tone was low but that was to be expected with a gestational age of twenty-nine weeks.

Elias handed over to the obstetrics team and watched as they set up their own equipment.

Mandy had dashed off again.

It was becoming increasingly noisy outside the cubicle but Elias couldn’t think about what was going on out there now.

He stared down at the little baby and with every passing minute she became increasingly exhausted, unlike the vigorous baby that had been delivered.

He could see that her nostrils were now flaring, which was a sign that she was having trouble getting enough oxygen, and her limbs were flaccid.