The Pregnant Registrar

‘Patrick Spence.’ Corey stopped at the incubator where they had first met. ‘He’s six days old now…’ his eyes moved to the little boy still struggling with each ragged breath ‘…which makes it your one-week birthday tomorrow, little guy.’ Rubbing his hands with the mandatory alcohol, Corey put his hands inside the incubator and stroked the tiny infant’s cheek, and such was the tenderness in his touch Lydia felt her breath catch in her throat. They had stopped at every incubator, Corey had regaled the most painful tales but not for a second had he erred from professional detachment.

Till now.

Handling of sick infants was kept to a minimum, yet here was Corey gently stroking this baby’s brow and there was an expression on his harsh, sun-battered face Lydia couldn’t read.

‘We normally save the cuddles for Mum and Dad, but this little guy’s missing out on both counts,’ Corey offered by way of explanation, his eyes never leaving the babe. ‘But we’re more than happy to fill in, aren’t we, Patrick?’ Clearing his throat, he pulled his hand out, fiddling with the oxygen-flow meter for a moment or two before carrying on.

‘Patrick’s mother arrived at the labour ward in advanced second-stage labour. She’d received no antenatal care and a rapid labour followed. Born at thirty-two weeks gestation, as well as being premature, he was also small for dates. Multiple anomalies were noted at birth and on investigation he was found to have major cardiac defects.’

He was silent for a moment as Lydia read the cardiac surgeon’s reports, along with endless reams of ultrasounds, chewing thoughtfully on her lips as she did so. ‘He’ll need surgery,’ she murmured, ‘and preferably sooner rather than later.’

‘Or later rather than sooner.’ The irony in Corey’s voice wasn’t aimed at her and Lydia didn’t have to look up to realise that. Babies this sick and this small were a constant juggling act: drop one ball and the whole lot came tumbling down. To survive, Patrick needed his heart defects corrected, but for his tiny body to make it through the complex surgery he desperately needed to gain some weight and stabilise medically if he was to stand a chance. ‘Twenty-four hours after admission his mother became agitated, and was finally diagnosed as suffering with alcohol withdrawal. Valium was given and the drug and alcohol liaison service notified.’

‘Patrick has foetal alcohol syndrome?’ As Corey nodded, Lydia looked back at the small babe. Foetal alcohol syndrome was one of the few completely preventable causes of congenital anomalies. The babies suffered various levels of handicap, from mild learning difficulties and facial deformities to cardiac problems and marked retardation, but from Lydia’s brief assessment of Patrick, his visible anomalies didn’t entirely fit the picture. Heading to the wash basin, she scrubbed her hands before examining the babe more thoroughly.

‘Have we sent off for a DNA work-up?’ Lydia asked, examining Patrick’s hand and feet, peering closely at his face and taking in the almond-shaped eyes and low-set ears.

‘We have,’ Corey responded, and for a second as she looked up Lydia thought she saw a flicker of admiration in those guarded green eyes. ‘What do you think?’

Lydia gave a brief shrug but it was far from dismissive. ‘He looks like a trisomy baby; of course Down’s syndrome is a far more palatable diagnosis title than foetal alcohol syndrome, but in this case I think it could be both.’

‘It’s a tough call,’ Corey said thoughtfully, ‘but I’m actually glad to hear someone say it. As soon as Jenny, the mother, started to show signs of alcohol withdrawal Patrick was basically labelled as an FAS baby, but I think it might be a touch more complicated, I guess we’ll have to wait for the labs, and on current form we could be waiting another couple of weeks.’

‘How is his mother coping with the news?’

‘She won’t come and see him. Apparently Jenny’s admitted she has a problem with alcohol and has agreed to rehab, but to date she’s refused to come and visit Patrick. She’s talking about putting him up for adoption.’

Which was far easier said than done. The world seemed to be crying out for healthy pink babies but a handicapped child with special needs would take months, years even to place.

If ever.

‘What about the father?’

Again Corey hesitated. Handing her a wad of notes, he gave a small shrug.

‘What father?’

His two words said it all.

Glancing down at the patient notes, she read quietly for a moment. Patrick really had had a difficult start to life. Not only was he born eight weeks before nature intended, with major health problems, he had succumbed to several of the obstacles premature babies faced. His immature lungs had meant he had required forty-eight hours on a ventilator but he had been weaned off that now and was breathing with the help of continuous positive air pressure, a direct, measured flow of oxygen, commonly known as CPAP, but his marked jaundice was still proving to be a major problem and Lydia rummaged through the unfamiliar order of this hospital’s files, trying to verse herself on Patrick’s relevant issues.

‘Here.’ Taking the notes, Corey turned to the back of the folder, locating the blood results for her in a second, not even acknowledging the quiet murmur of thanks Lydia imparted as she studied the blood-work closely. Despite the intensive phototherapy to correct his jaundice, Patrick’s serum bilirubin was still rising and her forehead puckered in concentration as she plotted his results on the graph before her. If they couldn’t get the levels down, Patrick would need an exchange transfusion to remove the toxic blood and replace it, which would hopefully prevent organ damage.

Corey was obviously thinking along the same lines. ‘It’s an uphill battle at the moment, but we’ll get another blood result around midday and hopefully there will be some improvement.’ His eyes moved back to the little baby and they stared for a solemn moment at their small charge, watching the almost transparent abdomen rising painfully up and down with each rapid, exhausting breath, his face grimacing with the pain and effort of merely staying alive.

‘Do you ever just want to take them home?’

‘Heavens, no!’ Her response was immediate, a sort of knee-jerk reaction, an instant erection of the barriers Lydia created just to survive her work. But even as the words left her lips Lydia realised how awful she must have sounded, watching the tiny headway they had made disappear in a puff of smoke. As Corey’s eyes narrowed, she realised he hadn’t actually expected an answer, that he had been talking more to himself than to her. ‘I mean…’ Swallowing hard, Lydia gave a helpless shrug. How could she tell him she was having enough trouble getting her head around the fact she’d be bringing her own child home from hospital in a few short months, let alone someone else’s? ‘I just try not to get too involved.’

When he didn’t respond she pushed on regardless, trying to somehow rewind, to wipe the slate clean without revealing too much of herself. ‘It’s sad and everything, awful actually…’ Her voice trailed off, realising how awful she was sounding, as if she had a plum in her mouth, hating the sound of her own voice as she reeled off a few more platitudes while knowing it was useless.

Unfeeling bitch.

She could almost feel him punching out the letters as he labelled and pigeonholed her, but as Dr Browne and his entourage swept into the ward the rather uncomfortable conversation was left behind as Corey gave a small eye roll. ‘Ready for the off?’

The ward round took for ever. Dr Browne was rather old school and even Lydia was slightly taken aback by the in-depth discussions at the cots, sure the barrage of scenarios he detailed wouldn’t be very comforting for the anxious parents. After a rather gruelling hour it was a rather washed-out Lydia who finally sat down at the nurses’ station, simultaneously clicking away at the computer and wrestling with a mountain of notes to write up the ward round findings and formally prescribe new courses of treatment as the junior doctors set to work on the barrage of tests and drug charts that needed completing. Looking up, Lydia noted Corey quietly making his way around the unit, talking in turn to each of the parents, presumably answering the multitude of questions the ward round would have thrown up and hopefully clarifying a few issues.

He was good, she had to admit it. Most NUMs would be dashing off to a meeting or holing themselves up in the office by now, but Corey had barely left the shop floor all morning.

He was good-looking. too.

Where that thought had appeared from Lydia had no idea. For the last few months she had wandered the world in a curiously asexual state, too focused on her own troubles to register irrelevancies like looks, gender, emotions. Now suddenly here she was, five months into the most nauseous pregnancy in history, sworn off men for the next millennium at the very least, staring across the ward at a man she knew absolutely nothing about and who, more to the point, was probably gay! Giving herself a mental shake, Lydia dragged her eyes back to her notes, trying to cross-reference some lab results on the computer as she filled in the patients’ history in her vibrant purple scrawl. Even though she was a registrar, even though she probably wrote the blessed word five times a working day, as she stumbled through the mental block that the spelling of the word ‘diarrhoea’ eternally produced she found her eyes drifting back to him.

Very good-looking, she mentally reiterated, in a rugged sort of way. Dark curls that needed a cut coiled on the back of a very thick neck, and the set of his wide shoulders made him look more like a rugby player than a neonatal nurse, which, however politically incorrect, begged a question in itself which Lydia answered this time in a nano-second.

Corey Hughes was definitely not gay.

He looked up then, a slightly confused smile crinkling his eyes as he caught her staring. An extremely unbecoming blush whooshed up Lydia’s cheeks as he made his way over.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked, frowning in concern as Lydia fanned her cheeks with a prescription chart.

‘Everything’s fine. It’s just a bit hot in here.’

‘Did you want something?’

She was about to say no but, remembering she’d been caught staring, Lydia forced a hasty question. ‘I’m trying to get into the computer to see if Patrick’s labs are back. I haven’t had much luck.’

‘Have you used the right password?’ Coming round to her side of the desk, Corey peered over her shoulder, leaning forward and tapping away as Lydia sat rigid, staring at the back of his very large hands and trying and failing not to check for a wedding ring.

Absent, as was her pulse for a second as Corey’s arm brushed her cheek.

‘You’re already in,’ he said, bemused. ‘Did you type in the correct UR number?’

‘That must be it.’ Lydia flushed even more as Corey tapped away and Patrick’s results appeared on the screen. ‘They’re still not back.’

‘They won’t be till lunchtime.’ Corey frowned. ‘I already told you that.’

‘So you did.’

He obviously wasn’t one for small talk. He made his way back across the ward and resumed whatever it was he had been doing as Lydia stared helplessly at the screen, cheeks flaming, heart pounding, trying to ignore the delicious lingering waft of his after-shave, stunned at the response he’d elicited from her, curiously irritated at her body’s rather unloyal response.

She was pregnant, for heaven’s sake.

Wasn’t that supposed to exalt her to some sort of nun-like status?

Wasn’t her libido supposed to vanish with her waist line?

Not that it made a scrap of difference. From the black looks Corey flashed at her every now and then, from the rather terse way he addressed her, this was one relationship that was clearly set to stay professional.