The Heart Doctor and the Baby

René quirked a brow. “All day? Why didn’t you say something?”

Claire shrugged. “Second-kid syndrome?”

Since Claire wasn’t due for another few weeks, she’d keep her eye on her as the meeting continued.

Phil shot up, forcing her to crane her neck toward the ceiling. His longish dark blond hair swept back from his face in a cavalier manner. Tanned and too handsome for his own good, he read his obligatory monthly OSHA report, and tortured them with rules running the gamut from what chemicals were acceptable to how to dispose of soiled dressings. She prayed the pulmonary faction of their group wouldn’t tell them it was time for another disaster drill. And if he did, how soon could she schedule a vacation?

Claire let out another gasp, this time grabbing her back. René checked her watch. It had only been one minute since the last one.

Chapter Two

JASON flew to his wife’s side, the one she was holding with both hands. “Sweetheart, is there anything I can do?”

Claire diligently practiced her birthing breathing as René knelt in front of her. She put her palm on Claire’s rigid stomach. The baby had dropped from yesterday’s appointment and, from the feel of the rock-solid mound, was already engaged.

“I have an idea,” René said. “Why don’t we adjourn this meeting, and I’ll take you to my office and examine you?”

“No argument from me,” Claire said.

The confirmed bachelor of the group, Phil, had noticeably paled beneath his Santa Barbara tan. “I guess I’ll take off, then,” he said, looking relieved.

Jason gingerly assisted his wife to stand, and escorted her, like the deliciously doting soon-to-be father he was, to René’s examination room in the clinic.

Jon stood perfectly still, obvious wheels turning in that wondrous mind of his. He glanced at René. “You need any help?”

“Don’t know yet,” she said, as she rushed out of the kitchen-turned-conference room. “Why don’t you stick around just in case?”

Five minutes later, René placed Claire’s feet in the stirrups on the table, gowned up and donned gloves, then started the examination. Holy smokes! Not only was she almost effaced and dilated, but her waters had broken.

“We’re having a baby here,” René called over her shoulder, which had Jason rushing into the room.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Claire said, worry knitting her brows.

“Do we have time to get her to the hospital?” Jason asked, sounding breathless.

“Not at this stage.” René gave Jason an assertive glance, then she saw Claire’s questioning expression. “Don’t worry, Claire. I’m here. I’ll take care of you.”

“Ask Mrs. Densmore if she can keep Gina tonight,” Claire said to Jason.

He stood at Claire’s side, eyes dilated and wider than René had ever seen them. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said, squeezing his wife’s fingers with one hand, fishing out his cell phone and speed-dialing their babysitter with the other.

From outside the door, she heard Jon’s voice. “How can I help?”

“Get a case of the absorbent towels, and warm some baby bath blankets, then start an IV for me,” she said.

A familiar-sounding scream tore from Claire’s chest. “Jason, get our morphine supply and an antiemetic. It might help Claire take the edge off before she goes into transition.” René waited for the contraction to diminish, then positioned the fetoscope to get an initial heart rate. She delivered babies at the local hospital, not in their clinic, and electronic fetal monitoring wasn’t available here.

“Oh, and call for standby ambulance transportation,” she added. After the birth, both mother and child would need to be admitted to the local hospital for observation. René bent her head and concentrated on timing the strong and steady beats. One hundred and thirty beats a minute. Good.

René stared into Claire’s stressed-out green eyes, sending her calming thoughts. Only thirty seconds later another contraction mounted, and perspiration formed around Claire’s honey-colored hairline. René continued listening for abnormal deceleration of the baby’s heart rate with the contraction, and was relieved to find a normal variation. Only a ten-beat dip.

Jason lurched back into the room with the IV supplies, and when his hands proved too shaky to stick his own wife, Jon stepped in and started the IV as Jason titrated a tiny amount of morphine into the line to help ease Claire’s pain in between the contractions. She didn’t want Claire too relaxed when it came time to push; the baby could come out floppy instead of vigorously crying.

The labor went on for another hour and a half, when René felt the rigid beginnings of a massive contraction. Now fully effaced and dilated, Claire had moved into transition.

“Push,” René said.

Though Claire seemed exhausted, she gave her all. This time the head fully crowned. When the next contraction rode in on the tail end of the first, René continued her encouragement. “Use the contraction, Claire,” René said. “Push!”

Jon hovered at René’s side. “I’ll get a basin for the afterbirth,” he said. “Are you going to need to do an episiotomy?”

“Don’t think so, but get a small surgical kit for me just in case.” She intended to do her part to slow down the passage of the head to avoid any tissue tear.

Jon dashed out of the room as if he were the expectant father, and when he returned, René put him to work tracking the baby’s heart rate through the fetoscope so she could concentrate on the birth. Not only was he fascinated with the listening device—typical of him—he was most likely figuring out a way to make a better one.

All was well, but the contractions came so quickly and hard that Claire didn’t have time to relax in between. Wringing with sweat, she looked exhausted, ready to give up. Along came another contraction.

“Bear down, Claire! Push! Push!” René urged, as she cupped the baby’s head in her hands and moved it downward as Claire pushed with everything she had. Her legs trembled and she let fly words René hadn’t heard since the last Lakers basketball game she’d attended.

She slipped the umbilical cord free of the baby’s face, and assisted as first the head, then one shoulder and then the other, slipped out. No sooner had the mouth cleared the birth canal, than the baby cried.

Obviously relieved after delivering the hardest part—the head—Claire wept.

René glanced up long enough to see tears fill Jason’s eyes. “Oh, my God,” he said. The room went blurry for her, too, but she couldn’t dwell on the swell of emotion taking over; she had a baby to finish delivering.

The baby slipped out, and René skillfully caught him, as she’d done so many times over her career, but this one felt more special than all the rest. It was her partner and friend’s baby. This infant sent her dreaming of birthing her own baby, of daring to hope she’d get the chance.

“It’s a beautiful boy,” she said, wiping the baby’s mouth and face with the warm and soft blanket that her new assistant, Jon, had handed her. He gave her another. After a quick check of the perfect little body, she wrapped the baby up as if the most precious thing in the world, and Jon produced a syringe bulb to suction the baby’s mouth and nose. He’d thought of everything. Had he thought of his answer yet?

The baby continued to make a healthy wail, music to her mother-longing ears. René laid the newborn on Claire’s stomach, and pressed to feel for another contraction, then prepared for the afterbirth. Jon held the large stainless-steel basin in readiness.

Jason hovered over Claire and the baby, as they laughed and cried together. René was too busy to hear everything they said, but knew love had been mentioned several times. And the name Jason James Rogers, Junior.

She glanced at Jon and saw the familiar look of wonder that new life always evoked. He met her gaze and held it, adding a smile. Could he read her thoughts, her desires? His short-cropped salt-and-pepper-brown hair had always made his eyes look intense, but she’d never seen that fiery excitement there before. Did he understand how she felt? How every cell in her body cried out for the chance to be a mother?

New life. Nothing compared with the wonder. Especially if the newborn belongs to you. Jon glanced back at the happy family, and she prayed they might perform a silent miracle on her behalf.

Jason kissed Claire’s forehead, as a distant siren rent the air. René could practically palpate their bonding. There was something about a baby that changed everything, that turned lovers into a family, and sealed a bond outsiders could never fathom. She’d seen it countless times, but this time it plunged straight into her heart.

Her chest clenched and ached for what she longed for, for the answer she depended on to provide the portal to her dreams. She couldn’t look at him again for fear she’d beg him to say yes.

“You want to do the honors?” She’d double clamped the umbilical cord and held it with gauze, handing Jason sterile scissors from the suturing pack. For a general practitioner, he looked apprehensive. She gave him an encouraging wink. When he’d finished, she applied the plastic clip on the baby’s end of the cord and smiled at the squirming newborn—healthy and strong, though small and a good three weeks premature by her calculations. Babies were nothing short of a miracle; she’d been convinced of that since her first delivery.

There went that clutch in her chest again, the one that made it hard to breathe. She couldn’t look at Jon, but felt his gaze on her.

“Congratulations, man,” Jon said to Jason. Memories of his wife giving birth flashed before his eyes. Nothing had awed him more, or given him greater satisfaction, than seeing his daughters brought into the world.

He didn’t have to look at René to know what she was going through; she’d thoroughly explained her deep hunger for motherhood to him last night. How must it feel to deliver babies for everyone else, and at the end of the day still be alone?