One Night With The Italian Doc. Kate Hardy

of the dip in the baby’s heart rate, looked in.

      ‘Page Anton,’ Louise said.

      Even on her left side the baby’s heart rate was dipping during contractions and Louise put some oxygen on Felicity. ‘We’ll move her over to Delivery,’ Brenda said.

      ‘Have you heard from Anton?’

      ‘I’ve paged him but he hasn’t answered,’ Brenda said.

      ‘I’ll see if he’s in the staffroom.’

      Louise raced around to check but Anton wasn’t there.

      She paged him again and then they moved Felicity through to the delivery ward. They were about to move her onto the delivery bed but Louise decided to wait for Anton before doing that as she listened to the baby’s heart rate. The way this baby was behaving, they might be running to Theatre any time soon.

      She typed in an urgent page for Anton but when there was still no response Louise remembered her phone was in Emily’s room. ‘Text him,’ Louise said to Brenda, and, ripping off a tracing, Louise left Felicity with Brenda and swiftly went to a phone out of earshot.

      ‘Are the pagers working?’ she asked the switchboard operator. ‘I need Anton Rossi paged and, in case he’s busy, I need the second on paged too, urgently.’

      She then rang Theatre and, because she had worked there for more than five years, when she rang and explained they might need a theatre very soon, she knew she was being taken seriously and that they would immediately be setting up for a Caesarean.

      ‘I can’t get hold of Anton,’ Louise said, but then she saw him, his phone in hand, racing towards them. ‘Anton! Felicity’s having late decelerations. Foetal heart rate is dropping to sixty.’

      ‘How long has this been going on?’

      ‘About fifteen minutes.’

      ‘And you didn’t think to tell me sooner! Hell! If Brenda hadn’t texted me …’ Anton hissed, taking the tracing and looking at it in horror, because time was of the essence. With pretty much one look at the tracing the decision to operate was made. For Anton it was a done deal.

      It was like some horrific replay of what had happened two years ago.

      ‘I paged you when it first happened,’ Louise said, but there wasn’t time for explanations now. As Anton went into the delivery room the overhead speakers crackled into life.

      ‘System error. Professor Hadfield, can you make your way straight to Emergency? Mr Rossi, Delivery Ward, room two.’

      Anton briefly closed his eyes.

      ‘Mr Rossi, urgently make your way to Delivery, room two. System error—pagers are down.’

      And so it repeated.

      ‘Is that for me?’ Felicity cried, terrified by the urgency of the calls overhead.

      ‘Hey …’ Louise gave Felicity a cuddle as Anton examined her. ‘It’s just that the pagers are down and so I had to use my whip a bit on Switchboard to get Anton here.’

      ‘Felicity.’ Anton came up to the head-end of the bed. ‘Your baby is struggling …’ Everything had been done. She was on her side, oxygen was on and she was still on the bed so they could simply speed her to Theatre. ‘We’re going to take you to Theatre now and do a Caesarean section.’

      ‘Can I be awake at least?’

      ‘We really do need to get your baby out now.’

      ‘I’ll be there with you,’ Louise said, as the porter arrived. ‘I am not leaving your side, I promise you. I can take some pictures of your baby if you like,’ Louise offered, and Felicity gave her her phone.

      ‘Can you let Theatre know?’ Anton said, before he raced ahead to scrub.

      It took everything she could muster to keep the bitterness from her voice. ‘I already have, Anton.’

      Louise and the porter whisked the bed down the corridor. There was no consent form to be signed—that had been taken care of at the antenatal stage.

      ‘I’m so scared,’ Felicity said, as they wheeled her into Theatre.

      ‘I know,’ Louise said, cleaning down her shoes and popping on shoe covers, then she put on a theatre hat and gown. ‘You’ve got the best obstetrician,’ Louise said. ‘I’ve seen him do many Caesareans and he’s brilliant.’

      ‘I know.’

      The bed was wheeled through and Louise’s old colleagues were waiting. Connor and Miriam helped Louise to get Felicity onto the theatre table and she smiled when she saw Rory arrive. He was a bit breathless and as he caught his breath Louise spoke on. ‘You’ve got an amazing anaesthetist too. Hi, Rory, this is Felicity.’

      Rory was lovely with Felicity and went through any allergies and previous anaesthetics and things. ‘I’m going to be by your side every minute,’ he said to Felicity. ‘Till you’re awake again, here is where I’ll be.’

      ‘I’ll be here too,’ Louise said.

      Theatre was filling. The paediatric team was arriving as Rory slipped the first drug into Felicity’s IV.

      ‘Think baby thoughts,’ Louise said with a smile as Felicity went under.

      Louise was completely supernumerary at this point. She was simply here on love watch for one of her mums. And so, once Felicity had been intubated, Louise simply closed her mind to everything, even bastard Anton. She just sat on a stool and thought lovely baby thoughts.

      She heard the swirl of suction and a few curses from Anton as he tried to get one very flat baby out as quickly as possible.

      Then there was silence and she looked up as a rather floppy baby was whisked away and she kept thinking baby thoughts as they rubbed it very vigorously and flicked at its little feet. She glanced at Rory as another anaesthetist started to bag him.

      But then Rory smiled and Louise looked round and watched as the baby shuddered and she watched as his little legs started to kick and his hands started to fight. His cries of protest were muffled by the oxygen mask but were the most beautiful sounds in the world.

      Louise didn’t look at Anton, she just told Felicity that her baby was beautiful, wonderful, that he was crying and could she hear him, even though Felicity was still under anaesthetic.

      Anton did look at Louise.

      She did that, Anton thought.

      She made all his patients relax and laugh, and though Felicity could not know what was being said, still Louise said it.

      He could have honestly kicked himself for his reaction but, God, it had been almost a replica of what had happened back in Italy.

      ‘He’s beautiful,’ Louise said over and over.

      So too was Louise, Anton thought, knowing he’d just blown any chance for them.

      Louise was beautiful, even when she was raging.

      Not an hour later she marched into the male changing room and slammed the door shut.

      ‘Hey, Louise,’ called Rory, who was just getting changed. ‘You’re in the wrong room.’

      ‘Oh, I’m in the right room,’ Louise said. ‘Could you excuse us, Rory, please?’

      ‘We will do this in my office,’ Anton said. Wet from the shower, a towel around his loins, he did not want to do this now, but Louise had no intention of waiting till he got dressed. She was far, far beyond furious.

      ‘Oh, no, this won’t keep.’

      ‘Good luck,’ Rory called to Anton as he left them to it.

      And then it was just Louise and Anton but even as he went to apologise for what had happened earlier, or to even