A Family Worth Waiting For: The Midwife's Miracle Baby

‘Nothing usually,’ Campbell reassured her, ‘there’s not a whole lot of room for the baby to move around now, so it’s common enough to go for longer than usual without feeling the baby move.’

‘Oh. OK. That’s a relief,’ Hillary exhaled loudly.

‘We’ll just listen for the heartbeat first and then see if we can’t prod it into giving us a kick.’

Hillary got up on the examination bed and Campbell waited while Andrea had squirted some gel on Hillary’s bulging abdomen, running the Doppler through it to locate the heartbeat.

Campbell watched Andrea try several spots where the heartbeat was usually found. Nothing. Andrea stopped and palpated the abdomen, locating the baby’s head low down in the pelvis, satisfying herself that she was indeed looking in the right places. Silence still greeted her attempts to find the heartbeat.

She turned to Campbell and handed him the transducer. Her eyes said it all. She was worried. Campbell felt the first prickles of impending doom.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Hillary, the worried edge back in her voice. ‘Why can’t we hear it?’

‘They can be tricky to find sometimes,’ Campbell said, injecting into his voice a confidence he didn’t feel.

He got Andrea to try and stimulate the baby to move while he ran the transducer all over, listening for the whup, whup, whup that indicated life. She poked and prodded. Nothing.

Campbell was very concerned now. ‘Get someone from Ultrasound up here now,’ he told Andrea, his voice calm but his eyes conveying urgency. She left immediately.

‘What’s wrong?’ Hillary asked, raising herself on her elbows, tears gathering in her eyes. ‘Why can’t you find it?’

‘Sometimes the baby’s position can make it really hard. Sometimes the mother’s heartbeat can confuse things. I want to get an ultrasound. We’ll know more after that. It’s probably just the baby playing hard to get.’ He smiled, trying to reassure her. ‘Why don’t we ring your partner to come and be with you?’

‘I rang Danny already. He should be here soon.’

Danny, Andrea and Darren from Ultrasound all arrived together a couple of minutes later. Campbell explained to Danny what was happening.

‘What’s the worst-case scenario, Doc?’ asked Danny, coming right to the point.

‘Let’s just get this picture first. I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves.’

Andrea switched out the lights and Darren applied more gel to Hillary’s tummy. Danny stood behind the bed, his hands on his wife’s shoulders.

The screen flickered and their baby came into view. Darren manipulated the transducer to get a look at the heart. Campbell’s worst fears were realised when no heart movement could be detected at all. He stared at the screen silently, willing the heart to move, to beat, but … nothing. The baby was dead.

Campbell felt an overwhelming, crushing sadness for this couple. He was going to have to give them news that would devastate them. Every part of him rebelled at having to be the one to do it. He ran his hands through his hair. Sometimes being a doctor really sucked.

He indicated to Andrea to turn the lights back on. ‘Page the social worker,’ he whispered to her as she passed him.

‘Hillary, Danny,’ he said, turning to them. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this but we’ve just looked at your baby’s heart and it’s not beating. I’m sorry, but your baby has died.’

Hillary’s face crumpled into a heap as she clutched at her husband’s shirt. ‘No, no, no,’ she wailed. ‘My baby, my baby.’

‘What do you mean, dead? How can that be? What happened?’ Danny demanded, his voice loud with anger and indignation.

‘I don’t know for sure,’ said Campbell quietly. ‘I’d like Darren to have a really good look and see if he can find the cause … if that’s OK.’

‘Do it,’ said Danny, Hillary’s sobs and cries of denial stimulating his aggression further.

Darren applied the transducer again and did a thorough ultrasound scan, looking for a reason for this tragic intra-uterine death. Hillary’s sobs echoed around the room during the procedure.

Darren stopped and pushed a few buttons. ‘There’s no blood flow through the cord,’ he said solemnly. ‘There …’ He pointed. ‘I think that’s the problem.’

‘Is that a knot in the cord?’ asked Campbell.

‘I think so—it’s kind of hard to tell. Might just be a lump but, given that there’s no flow, I’d say it’s probably a true knot. The cord is quite long, which does increase the risk.’

Darren wiped Hillary’s belly off and left the room. Andrea returned with Sharon, the social worker, and Campbell introduced her to the grieving couple.

‘Did you find anything?’ Danny asked, the angry edge to his voice dissipating as reality settled in.

‘We think that there’s a knot in the cord. We can’t be certain until after the baby is born—’

‘A knot? How can that happen?’ Danny was angry again, his voice incredulous and demanding.

Campbell didn’t take offence. The man had just had the rug pulled out from underneath him. Beneath Danny’s veneer of aggression was a grief-stricken father. Campbell would feel the same way if it had been him.

‘It’s very rare but some babies can be so active that they can swim around in the womb and tie a knot in their cord. If it pulls tight enough, it can completely deprive the baby of nutrients from the placenta and they die.’

‘I didn’t think there was enough room at this stage for that,’ said Danny.

‘At this stage there isn’t. It probably happened weeks ago, and the knot has been pulling tighter and tighter over the last few weeks as the baby grew more and there was less room to move.’

‘Oh, God! I should have come in earlier,’ sobbed Hillary. ‘If only I hadn’t been so busy … I should have been paying more attention.’ Tears streamed down her face.

‘It’s not your fault, love,’ Danny said gruffly, hugging her close, stroking her hair.

‘He’s right, Hillary. Cord knots are completely out of anyone’s control. It was a freak accident. The baby probably died some time in the night. You did say the last time you felt it move was last night?’

‘Yes, it was moving as I drifted off to sleep,’ she sniffed.

‘You weren’t to know. Coming in earlier would have made no difference.’

Hillary’s gut-wrenching sobs filled the room again and Campbell allowed them time to vent their grief. His skin puckered with goose-bumps as Hillary’s wailing displayed her utter devastation. Campbell’s heart went out to them. What did you say in this kind of a situation? He felt so helpless.

‘What happens now?’ asked Danny, wiping his tears and blowing his nose.

‘We induce the pregnancy and Hillary will give birth to the baby. We don’t have to rush into this. If you want time to think about everything, we could leave that till the morning.’

‘Oh, God.’ Hillary broke into loud sobs again.

‘I’m so sorry, I wish I could have given you better news,’ said Campbell, feeling wretched. ‘I’m going to leave you now for a while and let you speak to our social worker. I’m going to be out at the desk if you need me for anything. I’ll come and talk to you again after you’ve finished with Sharon.’

Campbell wandered to the nurses’ station and sat down. His heart was heavy with the tragedy that had just unfolded. He’d give anything to not be here right now. To not have met this couple under these dreadful circumstances.

He’d have given anything to be at home with Claire. He needed her more now than he ever had. Just to feel the comfort and solace of her arms, to forget the awfulness of the day in the magic of her lips and the secrets of her body. To be held by the woman he loved.

Campbell used this time to write a thorough report in Hillary’s notes. He documented everything from the beginning, including the ultrasound images that Darren had printed out for him. Such a waste, he thought as he signed the chart. So unfair!