Evie's Bombshell - By Amy Andrews Page 0,50
I’m three minutes out with Evie Lockheart, who has gone into premature labour at twenty-eight weeks. I need the neonatal resus team there stat.’
He hung up and dialled another number, zoning Evie’s anguish out, doing what he had to do, drumming his fingers on the steering-wheel as he sped through a deserted red light.
The phone was picked up. ‘Marco? It’s Finn Kennedy. Evie’s gone into labour. I’m two minutes out from the hospital. The baby is coming now.’
Whether it was that particular note of urgency one doctor recognised in another or the background noise of Evie’s distress, Finn wasn’t sure, but Marco’s ‘I’ll be there in ten’ was all he needed to hear before he hung up.
He glanced at Evie and reached for her hand. ‘Everything’s ready. The neonatal team will be there and Marco’s on his way. We’re a minute out.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Hold on, okay?’
Evie squeezed back as contractions battered her body. She knew she was a snivelling mess, she knew she shouldn’t be, that she should be calm and rational and confident in modern medicine and the stats on premmie births, but fear pounded through every cell, rendering her incapable of reason.
Right now she was a mother. And she was terrified.
Finn screeched into the ambulance bay fifty-five seconds later. Mia and Luca were there with two nurses and a gurney, and they had a hysterical Evie inside in a cubicle within a minute. The neonatal team was already there, a high-tech cot with its warming lamps on ready to accept the baby, and Finn suddenly felt superfluous as the team went into action around him.
He felt lost. Outside his body, looking down. Usually in an emergency situation in a hospital setting he was the one in control. But not now. Right now he could do nothing but just stand around helplessly and watch.
Just like with Isaac.
‘Finn!’
Evie’s wretched wail as she looked around for him brought him back to the present, to the trilling of alarms, to the hive of activity.
‘I’m here,’ he said, stepping closer, claiming a position near her head, reaching for her searching hand. They weren’t in the dirt in the middle of a battle zone and she wasn’t dying. They were at Sydney Harbour Hospital with as good a medical team around them as anywhere in the world and she wasn’t dying. ‘I’m right here.’
The curtain snapped back and Marco entered, and Finn knew everything was going to be fine. ‘Well, Evie,’ Marco said in that accented way of his, ‘this is unexpected but don’t worry, you are in very good hands.’
Evie was grateful Marco was there but the feeling was swept away by a sudden overwhelming urge to push. She half sat forward, dislodging two monitoring electrodes and causing a cacophony of alarms to go off. ‘I need to push,’ she said, the noise escalating her panic to full-scale terror.
Marco nodded. ‘Don’t push, Evie,’ he said calmly as he snapped on a pair of gloves. ‘Pant. Let me just check you.’
Evie gritted her teeth. ‘I … can’t …’ she groaned as her abdomen contracted of its own accord.
Finn leaned in close to her ear, kissed her temple and said, ‘Yes, you can, Evie. Yes you can. Here, do it with me,’ he said, as he panted.
Evie squeezed his hand harder, fighting against the dictates of her body, trying hard to pant and be productive and not let the panic win.
‘Okay, the baby is crowning,’ Marco said.
‘No,’ Evie pleaded. ‘No, no, no.’ She turned to Finn, clutching their joined hands to her chest. ‘It’s too soon, he’s too small.’
‘And he’s in the best place,’ Finn said, hoping it was the right thing to say, the thing she needed to hear. He wished he could take the fear and anguish from her eyes. That he could take her physical pain and bear it for her. ‘And we’re all going to fight for him.’
‘Okay Evie, let’s meet your son,’ Marco said.
Evie cried and shook her head, still trying to stop it, to hold inside her the precious baby who needed more time, but the urge coming over her again couldn’t be denied and although she didn’t assist, she couldn’t fight it either, and because the baby was so small he slipped out into Marco’s waiting hands in one smooth movement.
‘Got him!’ Marco exclaimed, as he quickly clamped and cut the cord and passed the still newborn into the warmed sterile dressing towel held by the neonatologist.
‘He’s a good size,’ Marco said, looking up at