nodded, her heart bonging in her chest like the bells of a clock tower. ‘I’m here to catch.’
Thirty seconds later the scrawny bawling infant slipped into Mia’s waiting hands. ‘You have a boy.’ Mia grinned, laying the baby on the cloth seat and hoping that Caroline thought to bring back something warm to protect the newborn from the brisk air.
‘Let me see it,’ the father demanded.
But Caroline arrived, blocking his view as she handed Mia a pre-packaged emergency birth pack and some blankets fresh out of the blanket warmer. ‘Neonates are doing an emergency intubation in Labour ward,’ she said quietly. ‘They’ll get here as soon as they can.’
Mia nodded as she quickly laid the babe on a warm soft blanket, unwrapped the birth pack and efficiently clamped and cut the cord. She bundled the still crying baby up and handed him to Caroline.
‘Get him into Resus so we can give him a proper check over, although his lungs seem pretty fine to me.’
Caroline laughed as she turned to go.
‘Where are you taking it?’ the father demanded.
‘Inside,’ Caroline said calmly. ‘You can come too if you like.’
The father stalked after Caroline while Mia and Arthur helped Rhiannon onto the gurney. They covered her in warm blankets and pushed her inside to the resus cube next to her baby. The little boy was quiet now as he basked beneath the warm rays of a cot’s overhead heater.
The father was pacing the cubicle when they arrived and seemed agitated. ‘Red hair. It’s got red hair,’ the father growled at Rhiannon as he approached her with a sneer on his face.
‘Oh, for crying out loud, Stan. Your grandfather had red hair.’
‘Whose is it?’ he demanded, rattling the rail of the gurney. ‘Who’s the father?’
Mia felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck as the father’s puzzling behaviour gained some context. But context or not, he didn’t get to act like a bully in her ER.
Thoughts of her own father wormed their way into her head and she quashed them ruthlessly.
‘Sir!’ Mia stood between him and the exhausted Rhiannon. ‘You will not raise your voice in here. Whatever the issue is, this is not the time or place for it. Now, why don’t you go and shift your car from the ambulance bay? When you come back, you’d better have calmed down or I will call Security.’
Mia was used to dealing with emotionally charged situations. Also drunks, drug addicts and a whole bunch of other people who didn’t respect the sanctity of a hospital.
But she was a doctor. And Rhiannon and the baby were her patients. It was her duty to protect them.
The man scowled at her and left, muttering to himself.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rhiannon apologised. ‘He gets so paranoid sometimes but he’s harmless.’
Mia smiled. ‘It’s fine.’
A midwife from the maternity ward chose that moment to arrive. ‘The team’s going to be another twenty minutes or so,’ she apologised.
‘That’s all right,’ Mia dismissed. ‘I think this little tyke’s going to be fine.’
The ugly incident with Stan was forgotten as the midwife tended to Rhiannon, delivering the placenta while Mia gave the baby a check over. ‘They’ll probably want to keep him for the night in Special Care, given his early arrival, just to be on the safe side,’ Mia pronounced, ‘but everything checks out so far.’
She stood aside for the midwife to wrap the little boy up in that special way they did with babies so they looked just like glowworms, with only their little faces showing. Then Mia picked up the precious little package and asked, ‘Would you like to hold your son?’
Rhiannon nodded and Mia was walking the baby over to her when the curtain flicked back a little and Stan stood there, looking slightly mollified. The time away seemed to have helped. Mia changed tack. ‘Would you like to hold him?’ she asked.
In Mia’s experience, babies melted even the hardest of hearts. What man could resist such a gorgeous package? Hopefully this little impatient cherub would help Stan focus on what was important in life.
He looked uncertain for a moment then looked at Rhiannon. ‘Can I?’
She smiled at him and Mia could see the love shining in the other woman’s eyes. ‘Of course.’
Mia eased the little bundle into Stan’s arms. He seemed more dazed than elated but Mia knew that for some new fathers it was a big adjustment. He walked up and down the length of the cubicle with the baby, rocking him as he went, his gaze fixed