The Surrogate's Unexpected Miracle. Alison Roberts

Her voice came out sounding oddly croaky. Frightened...

      Luke was crouched right beside her now, his face only a few inches from her own.

      ‘We need to get your baby out as soon as possible. You’re fully dilated and with the help of forceps we can do it. I’ve done a long stint in obstetrics and have experience in assisted delivery. Are you happy for me to go ahead?’

      There was nothing about this that Ellie was happy about. But there was something in those eyes that gave her something to cling to.

      Confidence. Hope...

      She nodded, giving her consent.

      ‘We can give you some Entonox but there’s no time for any other pain relief to kick in. It’s going to be a bit rough. I’m sorry...’

      He was sorry. He looked as though he would take that impending pain himself rather than inflict it on her. Ellie closed her eyes to hold back tears but she nodded again. ‘It’s okay...’

      She could feel the tension in the room around her. Hear the clatter of instrument kits being unrolled onto a stainless steel trolley. She felt her body being moved so that she was lying on her back, sterile drapes being folded around her and listened to the instructions Luke was issuing as her legs were lifted and supported.

      And he talked to her all through it, too.

      ‘I’m giving you a bit of local for the episiotomy. You’ll feel it sting for a moment.’

      It stung a lot but Ellie knew it was only the start. She sucked on the mouthpiece giving her the inhaled pain relief.

      ‘I’m inserting the first blade, now. And the second. And I’m locking them. When the next contraction starts, I’m going to need you to push—as hard as you can, sweetheart.’

      Sweetheart?

      The word cut through the fear and pain. It was just a word that should have evaporated into the ether the moment it had been spoken but it didn’t. It echoed in her head and sent ripples through her body. It was something warm and caring and lovely in the middle of something horrific. And when the instruction to push came moments after the next contraction started she pushed with every ounce of strength she could summon.

      And maybe she found more strength than she knew she had because, in the wake of being abandoned by the person she cared about most, he’d called her sweetheart...

      It only took two contractions, a minute apart, with her pushing as if her life depended on it and Luke pulling with the baby’s head cradled between the blades of the forceps and she could feel the baby coming into the world.

      ‘It’s a boy, Ellie,’ someone said.

      She knew that. Marco and Ava had known that, too. They’d already picked out a name. Carlos.

      Her train of thought vanished as she became aware of the silence in the room. There was no baby crying. And nobody else was saying anything, either. The silence was shocked. And shocking. Ellie jerked her head up to see a tiny, limp body that someone was rubbing briskly with a towel.

      A woman she didn’t know—the nervous young registrar, perhaps—saw her looking.

      ‘It’s okay, Ellie. We’re doing everything we can for your baby.’

      Tears that had been building for too long exploded from Ellie as she let her head drop back down.

      ‘But he’s not my baby,’ she sobbed. ‘And now nobody wants him...’

       CHAPTER TWO

      WHAT?

      Surely he hadn’t heard correctly?

      For a split second, Lucas froze, completely distracted from what he was about to do.

      Nobody wanted this baby?

      One of the department’s senior nurses, Sue, was right beside him.

      ‘This was a surrogate pregnancy,’ she told him quietly. ‘But I have no idea what’s gone wrong.’

      Lucas couldn’t give a damn about what might have gone wrong. There was a knot in his chest that felt like anger.

      He knew what it was like to be an unwanted child. To face a world where you were not worth enough for anybody to want you.

      No more than a blink of time had passed but Lucas snapped back to reality.

      ‘Give him to me,’ he snapped.

      Picking up the limp bundle, he carried it to the trolley that had been hastily prepared with neonatal resuscitation gear. He gently laid the tiny body onto the sterile drapes. The miniature mask seemed to cover half the face as he delivered puffs of oxygen. He put his hands around a chest that felt alarmingly fragile, positioning both his thumbs on the sternum. Gentle but rapid compressions. Sue had followed him and picked up the mask. One puff, three compressions. One puff, three compressions.

      You can do it... Come on... Fight...it’s worth it, I promise...

      Only Luke could hear the words in his head. Or were they coming from his heart?

      Someone’s going to love you...

      There weren’t any words that came with his next thought—it was just a flash of sensation that came from nowhere.

      I love you...

      He shook off the bizarre notion. Getting emotionally involved in this unexpected case wasn’t going to help anyone. He needed to think ahead. Professionally. Intubation as the next step... IV access through the umbilical cord...chasing up that specialist paediatric consult...

      And then the miracle happened. He felt the tiny body move between his hands. He paused the compressions and felt the push of that little ribcage against the pads of his thumbs as the baby took its own first breath.

      And then another. That tiny face scrunched itself into an angry expression and the third breath was enough to provide the power for a warbling sound. The next effort was much more convincing.

      This little guy was a fighter, after all.

      And then Luke heard another cry from a very unexpected direction. From behind him.

      From this new mother who didn’t want this baby.

      He could feel his face tightening as he turned. His heart hardening.

      And then he saw her face.

      Propped up on her elbows, Ellie must have been watching this whole resuscitation effort and she had definitely heard those first sounds of a new life awakening.

      Her hair was a tangle of blonde knots around a face that was pale enough to suggest she had lost a concerning amount of blood. And those eyes...

      Huge, dark blue pools that were telling him something very different than the last words he had heard her speaking—that this wasn’t her baby and that nobody wanted him.

      These were the eyes of a desperate woman. A mother...

      ‘Please,’ she whispered... ‘Please can I hold my baby?’

      * * *

      It had been that sound that had done it.

      The cry from that tiny human that had been nestled within her body for so many months had taken the world as Ellie knew it and tipped it upside down. It had entered her ears but gone straight to her heart and captured it in the fiercest imaginable grip.

      For a long, long moment, caught in what felt like a very disapproving stare from the doctor who’d just delivered her son, she thought that she was facing an impenetrable barrier. Someone who had no intention of letting her close to that tiny being she could just catch a glimpse of behind the solid figure of this new doctor.

      But Sue was picking the baby up now.