A Change of Heart for the Cornish Midwife by Jo Bartlett

5

Becky and Luke had sent a gift to the midwifery unit every day for the first week after the delivery of baby Pip. There were enough chocolates and biscuits to open a shop, and enough hampers of pampering gifts for the midwives to start their own spa. As lovely as it was, it had almost been a relief when the gifts had eventually stopped coming and a final card had arrived from Becky thanking them not just for bringing Pip safely into the world, but for their discretion. The press were clamouring for pictures of the baby and no-one even knew her name. Ella had seen the only picture the couple had released online, of baby Pip’s feet, which had just served to stir the press up even further. Ella had experienced her own, albeit very brief, brush with fame, when a video of her first fiancé breaking up with her on the steps of the registry office at The Old Marylebone Town Hall had gone viral. The aftermath had driven her home to Port Agnes, but she’d hated every minute of the attention that had come from it and the feeling that everyone she met was talking about her. So, despite everything they had, she wouldn’t swap her life with Luke and Becky’s. She wouldn’t swap it with anyone’s.

The appointment with Hamish had been reassuring, thank goodness. Although he’d acknowledged that Ella’s symptoms could potentially be something serious, he’d also said it was far more likely that they could be caused by minor conditions, all of which could be exacerbated by stress. He’d referred her for an MRI and advised her to cut her hours down for a few weeks, but that wasn’t something she’d shared with Dan or Anna. Toni had already reduced her hours because of her pregnancy and the area the team covered kept being extended by the Trust. She couldn’t take time off without putting extra pressure on everyone else, so she’d just keep going. It was the way she’d always handled it when things got tough and it helped her to keep her mind off waiting for a date for the MRI too.

Today Ella was running an antenatal clinic and her fourth patient was a woman called Lily Mitchell. Ella had already met Lily at her booking-in appointment, when she’d been eight weeks pregnant, and her notes showed that her twelve-week dating scan had taken place with no issues recorded. The scan had confirmed Lily’s expected due date and she was now sixteen weeks pregnant. At this check-up, Ella would run through with Lily what to expect at her upcoming twenty-week scan, test her blood pressure and urine, and listen to the baby’s heartbeat. Lily had been too early on in her pregnancy at her booking-in scan to hear her baby’s heartbeat, so this would be a big moment. It was somehow different to the sound the sonographers listened to at an ultrasound, and there was something about hearing the baby’s heartbeat, when you weren’t staring at an image on the screen, that was really special in its own way.

It could seem like a long time between appointments for women at this stage of their pregnancy, especially first time around when they tended to worry far more. The good news was that it all looked to be going well, but Ella was still expecting Lily to have lots of questions. Waiting to hear the heartbeat could be almost as nerve wracking for the midwives as the mums-to-be. Any midwife who’d had to break the news to one of their patients that no heartbeat could be found – as Ella had done more than once, when she’d worked in London – dreaded ever having to face that again.

‘Morning. I’ve bought my friend, Hayley, with me. Is that okay?’ Lily poked her head around the door after Ella had called her to come in. ‘My husband’s working today and seeing as Hayley’s going to be godmother to this little bean, I thought it would be lovely if she could be here to hear the heartbeat.’

‘Of course, it’s fine. Come on in.’ Ella smiled. It was always lovely when this moment was shared.

‘I might need to move that chair for Hayley’s wheelchair. Is that okay?’

‘Don’t worry, I can do it.’ Ella pulled one of the chairs into the corner of the room so that Lily and Hayley would be able to sit side by side.

‘Thanks so much.’ Hayley smiled as she came into the room, just behind Lily, and she was radiating excitement. ‘I’ve been looking forward to this since Lils invited me, but I thought it might be partners only.’

‘Not at all; we’re happy for our patients to bring family and friends for support too. Strictly speaking, we’re supposed to limit it to a maximum of two people, but we’ve had four generations of the same family in here before, because it was such a special moment for the great-grandma, and I’m a sucker for those being shared.’ Ella returned Hayley’s smile and turned to Lily. ‘We’ve got some other checks to do, but do you want to listen to the baby’s heartbeat first?’

‘That would be amazing.’ Lily was already half-way to the examination table.

‘It might take a little while to find the heartbeat, especially if we’ve got a wriggler on our hands. The baby’s still quite tiny and there’s a lot of space to move around in at this stage, so don’t worry if I can’t find it straight away.’ Ella picked up the doppler, as Lily got on to the examination table and pulled up her top.

‘She gave us quite a hard time during the ultrasound; she kept turning her back when the sonographer was trying to get a clear image.’ Lily laughed. ‘But we got there in the end.’

‘Does that mean you’ve found out the gender?’ Ella had often wondered if she’d be able to hold out and wait for the surprise, when she and Dan eventually had a baby, but most people chose to find out and the truth was she probably wouldn’t be able to wait either.

‘They said at the first scan that they were 60 per cent sure it’s a girl, but the twenty-week scan should be able to confirm it. We had a private gender scan on Sunday, though, and they said we’re definitely having a girl.’ Lily gestured towards Hayley. ‘Lucky really, because a certain someone had already been out and bought a whole wardrobe full of outfits for her goddaughter.’

‘Hey! I’m never going to do this myself, so I’m making the most of being a godmother.’ Hayley was smiling again, but there was a rawness to the tone of her voice that explained the tears filling her eyes.

‘You’re going to be the best godmother ever.’ Lily sat up and grabbed hold of Hayley’s hand. ‘And my daughter is going to be so lucky to have you.’

‘Getting to share this with you has made the decision much easier.’ Hayley gave a shuddering sigh and Ella almost felt like she was intruding, but then Hayley turned to look at her. ‘I’ve got a form of muscular dystrophy which is progressive. Me and my husband met with my consultant and then had counselling before we made a final decision that we weren’t going to have a baby, but I know it’s the right thing for us because I couldn’t bear the thought that I’d have a baby who’d end up being my carer. Or even worse, that I might pass the MD on.’

‘That can’t have been easy.’ Ella’s thoughts immediately drifted to Jemima and Leo, and the choices they now needed to make.

‘It wasn’t, but I’m mostly okay with it. It’s just that sometimes things knock me off my feet. At least they would if I wasn’t already off them.’ Hayley was perfectly deadpan for a moment and then she started to laugh. ‘Sorry, terrible joke, but you’ve got to have a sense of humour about it.’

‘You do, although some people don’t know how to take it when you make a joke of things. Then there are those who don’t expect you to laugh at all.’ Lily pulled a face, as she turned towards Ella. ‘My brother-in-law for one. The first time he met Hayley, he kept saying he didn’t expect someone who uses a wheelchair to have a sense of humour.’

‘That’s terrible.’ Ella felt the back of her neck prickle, but Hayley was already laughing again.

‘It’s all right, I told him I didn’t expect a tax inspector to have a personality and only one of us could be wrong.’

‘It took him about two hours to work out whether or not that was an insult!’ Lily grinned again.

‘Sounds to me like this little one will have some very strong women to look up to.’ Ella couldn’t help smiling too. ‘Shall we see what she’s up to?’

‘Yes please.’ Lily lay back down again and for a couple of moments everyone was quiet. Then there it was, the sound they’d all been waiting for: a good strong heartbeat.

‘I can’t believe that’s her.’ Hayley had tears in her eyes again, but this time there were no jokes, and it was obvious they were happy tears. If Ella didn’t already love her job, she would have fallen in love with it all over again in that moment and she was more certain than ever that she never wanted to do anything else.

* * *

After the antenatal clinic, Ella spent the afternoon on home visits. Her last appointment had been to visit a five-day-old baby boy, Cameron, and his mother. They were living in Mercer’s Row, a terrace of cottages on the harbour in Port Agnes, just across from where Ella’s parents had their bakery. When Ella had first come back to the seaside village where she’d grown up, Mercer’s Row had been under threat of demolition and it was Dan who’d ensured it was saved and renovated, to retain its history as a centuries-old terrace of fisherman’s cottages. It had helped remind Ella who Dan really was as a person and had even convinced her dyed-in-the-wool Cornish father, Jago, to stop seeing Dan as an emmet and welcome him into the family. Dan might have moved to Port Agnes with his family when he was in his late teens, but it had still taken Jago a long time to think of him as anything but an interloper.

By the time she’d completed the heel prick test on Cameron, Ella had fifteen minutes to stop by her parents’ place before she needed to head over to Jess’s house. Jemima had asked her if she would go to the meeting with her, to speak to Jess and Nicole about the realities of IVF. Jess was off work, having had her egg retrieval at the IVF clinic the day before, and had offered to bake a cake they could have with a cup of tea, to make it all a bit less daunting for Jemima. But Ella had insisted she bring some cakes in instead. It would be good for Jess to rest for another day or two and the last thing Ella wanted was for her friend to overdo it.

When Ella had left to see Cameron and his mother, it had been a beautiful winter’s afternoon. The sun dipping down in a cloudless sky and a nip of frost in the air had made her feel somehow energised. But by the time the appointment was over, the sun had dipped below the horizon and the lights on the boats bobbing in the harbour were reflected in the water. Mehenick’s Bakery was in a row of buildings that curved around one side of the harbour and Ella headed round to the back door of her parents’ property. She could smell the delicious aroma of her father’s baking drifting into the air, the notes of cinnamon and vanilla making her mouth water. It smelt like home.

‘Hello darling, you look tired.’ Ruth, Ella’s mother, folded her into a hug. She’d been born to be mother and, with Ella an only child, she poured all her love into her daughter, which meant she worried about her. A lot. She always thought Ella was taking too much on, that she wasn’t eating enough and could do with coming home for a few days to be looked after. Ella had to admit that just lately the offer had been tempting and she hadn’t dared share with her mum just how rough she’d been feeling. Ruth would only start to panic and there was no need to tell her anything yet. When the MRI scan gave her the all-clear, she could tell her mum then. Delivering the news that she had a trapped nerve, or migraines, or whatever it was that was behind her symptoms, would be easier than making Ruth worry for no reason.

‘I’m fine, Mum, and you look great. I love the new haircut.’

‘I had it booked in for the wedding, so I went ahead and did it.’ Ruth breathed out. It had been obvious that she’d been trying her best, but failing, not to cry when Ella had decided to postpone the wedding. But Ella knew her mother had understood the reason why. ‘It was great, because this way if I’d hated the colour, there would have been time to sort it out before the new wedding date. Now that I know I love it, I can have it done again ready for July the fourth.’

‘It’ll come round before you know it, Mum.’

‘It will and your dad has been busy trying out some new recipes for the cake. He’s planning six tiers now, because there are so many different flavours he wants for the sponges, and of course there’s got to be a fruit one that will keep until the christening.’ Ruth’s smile was even broader now.

‘Let’s not jump the gun.’ Ella touched her mother’s hand. Ruth should know better than anyone that there was no guarantee a baby would automatically follow, because of the struggles she and Jago had faced having Ella. But just as she’d been born to be a mother, becoming a grandmother as soon as possible was now Ruth’s only ambition in life. ‘I just don’t want to jinx things and assume I’ll find it easy, when some of my friends are facing struggles of their own.’

‘Okay my love, I’m sorry. I just can’t help getting over-excited sometimes.’ Ruth hugged her daughter again. ‘Dad has made you a spread that would probably feed ten, never mind four.’

‘Are you taking my name in vain?’ Jago suddenly appeared in the doorway of the kitchen with a box in his arms. ‘Your order’s cooling on the trays over there, but I’ve packed up what we had left in the shop today too. I thought Jess could give some to Dexter and Riley, and you can take some home to Dan. There’s a couple of pies and two pasties in there, and a few slices of saffron cake.’

‘Dan will love me even more if I save him a pasty, although not as much as he’ll love you for making it.’ Ella planted a kiss on her father’s cheek, trying to ignore the tightness in her calf muscle as she rose up on to her tip toes. Another new symptom to worry about was the last thing she needed.

‘He can buy me a pint at the weekend. We must be well overdue a boys’ night.’ Jago attempted to look nonchalant, but Ella could have kissed him again. It made her heart sing knowing that her father was desperate to spend time with Dan. They were the two men she loved most in the world and there’d been a time when she’d worried her dad might never understand why she loved Dan as much as she did, but the fact that he called him son whenever he saw him now, was just one clue to how he’d come to feel.

‘He’s just been busy with renovations at the farm lately, but he’ll definitely be up for a pint or two at the weekend.’ Ella smiled. ‘I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to get to Jess’s place; Jemima’s a bit nervous about talking to them on her own. Maybe I can cook lunch for you on Sunday, and Mum and I can take Daisy for a walk afterwards, while you and Dan get some guy time together?’

‘Sounds good to me, but you’re doing too much already.’ Ruth waggled a finger in her direction. ‘Why don’t we all have lunch at the pub?’

‘Now that’s a plan.’ Ella hadn’t missed the look that crossed her father’s face at the prospect of missing out on some time by himself with Dan, and neither it seemed had her mother.

‘I’ll book it then and don’t worry, Jago.’ Ruth laughed. ‘We’ll leave you and Dan to it afterwards, so you can have your precious boy time!’

‘It’s a deal.’ The relief in Jago’s voice was obvious. ‘Let me just put your other pastries in the box.’

‘Thank you. I’m really sorry I’ve got to rush off, but I don’t want Jemima to get there before I do.’ Ella kissed both of her parents again and took the box from Jago. ‘I’ll see you on Sunday.’

‘Bye darling,’ her parents called out to her in unison and she glanced at her watch, as she headed out of the back door of the bakery. She had ten minutes left to make it to Jess’s place and the stiffness in her calves was getting worse. It was just too much rushing about, that was all, or the trapped nerve causing problems in a different place. She didn’t even have time to stop and massage the cramp away, let alone to get it properly checked out.