Kitabı oxu: «The Surrogate's Unexpected Miracle»

CHAPTER ONE

HOW COULD SO many things have gone so terribly, terribly wrong?

Ellie Thomas could feel the shape of the phone she was holding against her ear. The edges felt sharper as her grip tightened. They were tangible and real.

What she was hearing couldn’t possibly be real.

Could it...?

‘Ava—are you still there?’

A moment’s silence and then she heard her friend’s voice again. Her best friend since...since as long as she could remember. A bond that had lasted throughout childhood. Through the trauma of Ava’s surgery and chemotherapy as a teenager. With happy memories like being Ava’s bridesmaid two years ago and the darker memories of her best mate’s despair at not being able to become a mother—a side effect of the treatment that had saved her life.

A friendship that had seemed unbreakable. Until two weeks ago...

‘Yeah...I’m still here.’ A stifled sob could be heard. ‘And...I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ellie.’

Sorry? Did that somehow make this okay?

‘Where are you?’ Ellie could hear the sound of an announcement of some kind going on in a noisy background. Was Ava at a train station? ‘Talk to me, Ave. We can sort this out. I’ve been trying to call you since the beginning of last week.’

Ever since she had heard that Marco, Ava’s gorgeous looking but sometimes volatile husband, had packed a bag and walked out on her.

The day after that awful row... The last time she and Ava and Marco had been in the same room together.

‘I was getting frantic,’ Ellie added.

Terrified might be a bit closer to the truth.

The silence on the other end of the line was unnerving. Ellie could feel a tight knot of fear that was making it difficult to draw in a new breath. This couldn’t be happening. A friendship like this couldn’t just evaporate because of something that hadn’t even been her fault. Not after all they’d been through together and especially not with what they were going through right now.

‘I didn’t encourage him, Ava. You know that, don’t you? I was just as horrified as you were that he tried to kiss me.’

‘It wasn’t just you.’ Ava had stopped crying and there was anger in her low, fierce tone. ‘He’s been cheating on me the whole time. He admitted it. Said I would never have been enough for a man like him. That our marriage had been a huge mistake because I couldn’t accept that.’ The tears were obviously flowing again and her next words were totally broken. ‘...that trying to have a baby was just putting a Band-Aid on a wound that was already fatal.’

Ellie could hear an odd humming and there were bright specks in front of her eyes. Oh, yeah...

Breathe...

‘You’re not trying to have a baby.’ Her words came out in a voice she hardly recognised as her own. ‘You are having a baby. In about four weeks.’

‘But don’t you see? I can’t do it now. My world’s fallen apart, Ellie and I can’t hang on to anything. It’s not even my baby...’

Technically, this was true. Technically, this was Ellie’s baby. Ellie and Marco’s. The gift that was the one thing that could make life perfect for Ava. It had been such a huge decision, offering to be a surrogate, but Ellie hadn’t really hesitated. This was something she could do for the most important person in her life—the only real family she had left.

Fear was morphing into anger, which was a relief because it made it easier to breathe again.

‘I’m thirty-six weeks pregnant, Ava. With your baby. Yours and Marco’s. A baby I would never have dreamed of having otherwise. I’m single, remember? I don’t have any family to support me. I don’t even have a boyfriend, as you well know. I’m supposed to go back to work in six weeks and if I don’t, I won’t be able to pay my rent. And you’re sorry?’

The silence against the background noise was astonishingly loud. Time seemed to be standing still. It could have been seconds but it felt like minutes or even hours. And when it was finally broken, the words Ellie could hear were almost too strangled to understand.

‘Got to go...last call...can’t miss my plane...’

Fear was strong enough to feel like pain, now.

‘Plane? Where are you going? Ava...? Ava?’

The beeping of a disconnected line said it all but Ellie couldn’t hang up. She lowered the phone and stared at it. Any moment now, the dropped line would be abandoned and she would see the image that was on the screen of her locked phone. The picture of herself and Ava, with their arms around each other, Ava pressing a kiss to her cheek and the smile on Ellie’s face making it clear that she was the happiest person in the world.

And there it was...

Ellie dropped the phone on the floor. She wrapped her arms around the huge bump that was her belly now and bent her head to try and deal with the wave of fear and pain that was threatening to wash her over the edge of an unimaginably high cliff.

A pain that was an overwhelming swirl of loss and anger and bewilderment and terror.

It wasn’t going to ebb any time soon, either. It filled her chest and made it impossible to breathe again but then it seemed to move to her back as well. And then to her belly, where it gripped harder and harder...

Ellie could feel the muscles under her hands tightening with the strength of a vice. This wasn’t just emotional—it was becoming very, very physical.

She was an emergency department nurse, for heaven’s sake. She knew what this was but it took another five minutes and the start of another contraction to admit it. When she saw the blood trickling down her leg fast enough to be pooling on the worn linoleum of her floor, she realised just how much trouble she might be in.

Gripping the armrest of her chair, she managed to lower herself onto her knees on the floor and reach for her phone. The call was answered instantly.

‘Ambulance... What is your location...?’

* * *

Lucas Gilmore was getting used to pushing through the overgrown shrubs on the front path. He’d find time to trim them soon but there had been more important things to do. Like making the house habitable.

The man walking behind him stopped beside the front steps and brushed pollen and spider webs off the dark trousers of his dress suit. The smile was a little forced but an aspiring leader in local real estate like Mike knew how to disguise distaste.

His smile faded, however, as he turned his head to look at the rambling garden and the exterior of the huge, old wooden villa with its rusting, corrugated iron roof.

‘Bit run down, isn’t it, Dr Gilmore?’

‘Yes. My mother’s been in a rest home for several years and the house has been rented out. The agency clearly wasn’t doing the job they led me to believe they were doing. The last tenants left nearly a year ago and no maintenance was done, unfortunately. And the inside of the place looked like a bunch of possums had got in through a broken window and had a party.’

‘Hmm. You would have done better to use our firm. We’re into rentals now.’ Mike climbed the steps onto the veranda and a board creaked ominously beneath his feet. ‘Hope the inside of the place is in better shape as far as maintenance goes or it’s going to be a bit hard to get a good price.’

The smile reappeared. It was almost a grin. ‘Having said that, Auckland prices are going completely crazy and it’s the land that’s going to sell this place. You’ve got access to an almost private beach and acres of native forest. This is an amazing property. Ripe for redevelopment.’

Lucas could feel a scowl emerging. Redevelopment was a dirty word for him right now. The house was important. Okay, it might be run down but it was a glorious example of an early nineteenth century New Zealand villa—with return verandas and even a turret, for heaven’s sake.

‘I’m working on fixing the house. I got commercial cleaners in as soon as I arrived back in the country three weeks ago. The garden’s next on the list but I’ve been a bit busy.’

‘Did you say you’re working at North Shore General hospital?’

‘Yes.’ Lucas pushed open a front door in need of a new paint job. ‘I took a locum position for three months. I figured that would give me plenty of time to sort things out here.’

And to decide where he wanted to go next to take his career as an emergency specialist to even greater heights.

‘And you’re sure you want to sell?’

Lucas covered his silence by ushering Mike into the house and walking down the wide hallway with its polished wooden floorboards towards the kitchen at the back. Beams of light made mottled red and green coloured shadows on the wall, thanks to the stained glass window over the door behind him.

Did he want to sell the only house that had ever been a home for him?

No. Of course he didn’t. This had been the first place he’d felt wanted. When he was a troubled young teen on the verge of being too old to find another foster home, the Gilmores had taken him in.

And loved him.

It didn’t make any difference that he’d kicked off to accelerate the abandonment process before he could get to like the place. And man, there’d been so much to like. The beach with its tempting surf, the secret silence of the beech forest. The generous home-cooked meals. Even having to take a country bus to the nearest high school had been different enough to be fun. It would have been the biggest wrench ever when the inevitable happened and he wasn’t wanted any longer.

The Gilmores might have been much older than most foster parents but they had been made of tough stuff and they’d seen something no one else had ever seen. They had decided he was worth the effort.

‘You might as well stop acting up,’ they’d told him. ‘Kicking holes in the walls isn’t going to change anything. You’re not going anywhere, son. We’ve adopted you and that’s that.’

But, yes. He did want to sell. There was nothing here for him now. There hadn’t been, ever since the death of Eric Gilmore had revealed that he’d been covering the signs of his wife’s dementia for some time and the heart breaking decision that Dorothy Gilmore needed specialist care had had to be made. He’d found the best home available as close as possible to where he was living and working.

A shame it was in Sydney, Australia, because it meant taking Dorothy away from the area she’d been born and raised in but the alternative was in Auckland and the biggest city in this country had been just as foreign to Dorothy as Sydney and he certainly couldn’t have made his twice-weekly visits. And it hadn’t been long before she didn’t know who he was any more so it really didn’t matter what city was outside the walls of her haven.

And—after five years of being cared for so well—Dorothy had died, at the grand old age of ninety-five, just six weeks ago.

It hadn’t been a surprise to find that he’d inherited this property that had been rural when he’d arrived about twenty years ago but was now within easy commuting distance of what was touted as one of the most desirable cities in the world to live in. What had been a surprise was the distant cousin, Brian Gilmore, a man in his late sixties, who’d emerged to contest the will.

‘You were only a foster kid,’ he’d informed Lucas. ‘Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Eric never formally adopted you. You’ve got no right to inherit anything.’

Brian dabbled in property development. This house and its sprawling garden covered an area of land that had enough space for half a dozen properties. Or a retirement village, perhaps, with this perfect, peaceful location and amazing views of the sea and all the islands in the Gulf.

That would only happen after the house was demolished, of course. And probably more than half the native forest bulldozed.

He’d reached the kitchen. A long room with a slate floor and French doors between big windows that looked out over the garden that Dorothy had loved so much. Down to the huge vegetable garden that had been Eric’s pride and joy. Amongst other outdoor jobs, his contribution to family chores had been to help Eric manage that garden.

He’d hated it, at first.

He’d actually set fire to the potting shed one evening but even that hadn’t been enough to persuade his new parents that they’d made a mistake.

The wash of loss was hard enough to make Lucas pause and take in a long, slow breath. Dorothy and Eric might have been old enough to be his grandparents when they’d taken him in but they were the only real parents he’d ever had and he’d come to love them fiercely. They’d been so proud of him when they’d come to watch his graduation from medical school.

‘We knew you could do it, son. We knew you were special.’

‘This is nice...’ Mike was looking up at the beamed ceiling and then his gaze ran swiftly over the old cooking range and the arched doorway into the big pantry that had once been a creamery for the original farm. He frowned at the masking tape crisscrossing one of the windows where a pane of glass was badly cracked and he was making rapid notes on a tablet device. ‘Good thing you left it fully furnished. It looks like someone’s living in it and these antiques look original.’

‘Some of them probably are,’ Lucas agreed. ‘And it certainly is a lovely home. It needs to be sold to a family that will love it.’ As the Gilmore family had. ‘I’m not selling to anyone who wants to demolish this house.’

Brian’s words still stung. Maybe Dorothy and Eric hadn’t realised what was involved in a formal adoption process. They’d changed his name before enrolling him at his new school and somehow that had been enough and he’d slipped through the system. He’d been Lucas Gilmore ever since.

He’d been their son.

And he wasn’t about to let cousin Brian destroy any part of the miracle that had turned his life around so completely. He had his solicitor working on the legality of the unexpected claim and he was hopeful he could have it overturned in court.

A family of his own was never going to happen—he knew too well the nightmare of things going wrong—and even if he had been planning one, it wouldn’t be here—where the ghosts of what had gone so wrong in his own early life were never very far away.

But that was what this house needed.

A family. Laughter echoing through the rooms and love to be celebrated in meals taken at this old, scrubbed pine table.

Hopefully, what was left of the three months he had signed up for at Auckland General would be long enough to see that happen. As if prompted by the thought, he turned his head to where the grandfather clock in the hallway was ticking again. A slow, steady sound that had always been the heartbeat of this old house.

‘How ’bout I leave you to have a look around at the rest of the place, Mike? If you pull the front door closed, it’ll lock itself. I’m due to start my shift in Emergency in less than an hour and you never know what the traffic’s going to be like on the motorway. I’d better get my skates on.’

* * *

If she hadn’t been so frightened, Ellie would have been mortified, arriving at any emergency department like this, let alone the one she worked in herself!

She was on a narrow ambulance stretcher. On her knees, with her head on her hands and her bottom up in the air.

Knowing she was bleeding had been enough to scare her. The speed with which the paramedics checked her out, got an IV line in and fluids running and then headed for the nearest hospital using lights and sirens told her they were just as worried about the situation as she was. And, moments before they had arrived at the hospital, her waters had broken and, in the wake of the rush of fluid, she knew things had just become a whole lot worse.

‘Something feels weird,’ she told them. ‘I think I might have a cord prolapse.’

A quick glance by the lead paramedic confirmed her fears.

‘As soon as we get you out, we’ll get you head down, on your knees and use gravity to take pressure off the cord. We’ll support you and move slowly, okay?’

‘Okay.’ She felt the clunk as the wheels of the stretcher came down and locked. With help, she turned to get on her knees, putting her elbows on the mattress and lowering her head between her hands.

The warning not to start pushing even if she felt the urge had been unnecessary. Ellie knew how dangerous this was. If the baby’s head put too much pressure on the cord, it would cut off the oxygen supply and lead to a stillbirth. She couldn’t let that happen. Ava and Marco would sort things out. They had really wanted this baby. They’d all gone to that first ultrasound appointment together and there had been tears of joy all round. Surely nobody would really plan to bring a new life into the world just to fix a failing relationship?

The contractions were at increasingly shorter intervals but she hadn’t felt any urge to push.

Yet.

The hospital would have had advance warning of her arrival and the problem with blood loss but there hadn’t been time to warn them about this new complication. Would there be a specialist obstetrician waiting for her in one of the resuscitation rooms already?

In this undignified position, Ellie couldn’t see anybody’s faces. Just their legs, as she was wheeled carefully past the triage desk, with the paramedics on either side of the stretcher, both with one arm over her body to support her balance.

She could recognise voices, however.

‘Cord prolapse,’ one of the paramedics said. ‘Waters broke about two minutes ago.’

‘It’s okay, Ellie. We’ve got this...’ That was Sue—one of her best friends here. ‘Resus One, guys.’ The hand that had given her back a quick, reassuring rub disappeared and Sue’s voice faded as she turned away. ‘Has anyone got an update on that obstetrics consult? Luke? Can you take this in the meantime?’

Ellie watched sets of wheels flash past. That was an ECG monitor and those were a tangle of IV stands. A drug trolley was being pushed in the opposite direction. She could hear the sounds of a busy emergency department all around her. If she’d been on her feet, in her scrubs, with her stethoscope around her neck, this would all be perfectly normal.

She’d never been on this side of the fence before.

Or realised just how horribly vulnerable it made you feel.

‘We’re going to get you onto the bed,’ someone told her. ‘We’ll lift you. Don’t try and help.’

‘We’ll put her in an exaggerated Sims’ position to start with.’ Ellie didn’t recognise this male voice. ‘Left lateral with at least two pillows to support the pelvis. Lower the head of the bed, too. And get some oxygen on the mother.’

The mother? Ellie squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She wasn’t supposed to be about to become the mother. This was a nightmare. Maybe she’d wake up in a minute to find Ava and Marco standing there. Smiling. Excited to be about to meet their new baby...

This was a slightly more dignified position, at least, but she still had a restricted visual field. She could see the length of the body in dark green scrubs beside her, but it wasn’t until he crouched that she could see the face that belonged to that new voice. Tanned skin. Kind of wild brown hair with blond streaks. Hazel eyes. He looked like he’d just come out of some surf, on a hot summer’s day, with a board casually slung under one arm.

‘Hi, Ellie. I’m Luke Gilmore, one of the doctors here. I’m just going to have a look and see what’s going on, okay?’

As another contraction gathered force, Ellie could only nod.

Luke Gilmore? He had to be new here. A locum? She’d stopped work three weeks ago to rest and prepare for the birth so she hadn’t met him. She hadn’t even heard his name.

Or had she? It did seem vaguely familiar...

With the contraction reaching its peak, the thought was obliterated by pain. She pushed her fist into her mouth but couldn’t stifle a cry.

For a long moment, nothing existed except the pain but then she became aware of the voices around her.

‘What was the time interval for that last contraction?’

‘Two minutes.’

‘Estimated blood loss?’

‘Five hundred mils on scene.’ The paramedics were still there. ‘We put in a wide bore IV and she’s had a litre of saline so far.’

‘She’s still bleeding. Let’s get another litre going.’

That was this Dr Gilmore’s voice. Did he know what he was doing? He certainly sounded confident enough. Ellie could feel that her lower body was bare now. Maybe it was a good thing that she didn’t know this person but there were plenty of people she did know seeing a lot more of her than they ever had before. Not that she cared. Nothing mattered right now other than to get through this safely. There was a baby’s life at stake. Maybe even her own, if she was still losing so much blood.

She could feel a hand inside her.

‘Ah...’ The sound was hard to interpret. Satisfaction...or concern? ‘Ellie? You’re going to feel me pushing. I need to take the pressure off the cord.’

He still sounded calm, this Luke. And she could feel him pushing hard against the baby’s head.

‘Any risk factors in the pregnancy?’

‘Not that we know of.’ The paramedic sounded embarrassed. It was a question they should have asked.

‘Low lying placenta,’ Ellie said, but her voice was muffled behind the oxygen mask.

‘Sorry, what was that?’ Luke was still pushing against her baby’s head to ensure it was clear of the cord but he leaned sideways so that she could see his face as she turned her head. In the bustle of people and activity around her, there was something very calming in the steady gaze of those hazel eyes that were visible again.

‘I’ve had a low-lying placenta. Only marginal but I was due for another scan this week and possible admission for observation and a C section if indicated.’

She saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes at her clinical information.

‘Ellie’s a nurse,’ someone behind him said. Sue had come into the resus area. ‘She’s one of our best ED nurses, in fact.’

Luke’s face disappeared from her line of sight. ‘Where’s our Obs consult?’

‘Here.’ A female voice who sounded rather nervous.

‘This is Anne Duffy,’ Sue said. ‘O&G registrar.’

Maybe Luke had picked up on the nervousness. ‘Have you got a theatre available? We’ve got a cord prolapse here. She’s fully dilated but still in stage one. We’re looking at either an emergency C section or an operative delivery.’

‘No.’ Anne sounded young as well as nervous. ‘We’re in the middle of a C section for triplets. It’s got most of our staff tied up for a while but it shouldn’t be too long until one of the consultants is available. Is the baby distressed?’

Maybe it was her imagination but Ellie thought she heard Luke sigh. ‘Have we got that foetal monitor hooked up yet?’

‘Yes. Baby’s heart-rate is one-thirty. No, hang on...one-ten... It’s dropping...’

Ellie could feel her own heart-rate increasing. This was suddenly getting very serious. If the baby’s heart-rate was dropping, it meant that the head was finally putting too much pressure on the cord despite the interventions. The clock was ticking now...

And something else was changing.

‘I need to push,’ she said.

‘Don’t push.’ The registrar definitely sounded nervous now. Terrified, even? ‘Take deep breaths. Try and go limp. Relax your pelvic floor.’

If Ellie had had any spare breath right then, it might have come out as an incredulous huff. Just how much experience had this junior doctor had? She fought the urge to push, her face scrunched as tightly as possible against the pain.

‘Heart-rate’s down to eighty,’ someone said.

‘Not too long isn’t good enough.’ There was a different note in Luke’s voice now. He had made a decision and was taking control. ‘Lay out the forceps kit, please. Can someone put out an urgent page and get a paediatrician down here, stat? Anne—take over here. Two fingers on the baby’s head and upward pressure, okay?’

‘Got it.’

‘Have you done a forceps delivery?’

‘I’ve assisted with one.’

‘Ellie? Can you hear me?’

‘Y-yes.’ 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.