‘THAT’S NOT GOOD,’ Nadine said.
Luci agreed but at least Nadine was in town, and Seb was only metres away in the building next door.
But before Luci had a chance to say anything further Nadine gasped and doubled over.
‘Contraction?’ Luci asked.
She looked up at Luci and her dark brown eyes were filled with fear. She nodded and said, ‘It’s too early.’
Luci knew that Nadine was unsure of her dates and today’s appointment had been an opportunity to narrow them down, but there was the distinct possibility that it was far too early. In some cases labour could be delayed, even if the membranes had ruptured, but that was a clinical decision and once the contractions had started Luci knew there was very little they could do.
‘Dr Hollingsworth is just next door,’ Luci said, trying to sound calm and reassuring even as she fought back her own concerns. ‘Do you think you can walk or shall I fetch a wheelchair?’
‘I can walk if I can lean on you.’
Jenny, the child-care director, had seen what was happening and she came across the room, carrying an armful of old towels. Being a centre filled with preschoolers, they were well equipped for dealing with accidents similar to this.
‘Jenny, we need to leave Byron here,’ Luci said as Jenny dropped the towels on the floor.
‘Of course.’ She squatted down to mop up the mess. ‘What about your older children?’ she asked Nadine.
‘They’ll go home on the school bus,’ Nadine managed to say, before another contraction swamped her. She gripped tightly onto Luci’s arm. The contractions were close together and strong. Luci didn’t like the look of this at all. She needed to get Nadine next door to Seb. And quickly.
Byron was engrossed with a big box of building blocks and trucks and didn’t look up as Luci ushered his mother out of the centre.
‘Heather, can you call Seb, please?’ Luci started speaking to the receptionist in the community health clinic as soon as she and Nadine walked through the clinic doors. ‘And an ambulance. Nadine is in labour.’
Heather stood up from behind the desk. ‘Take her through here,’ she said, directing Luci into one of the old hospital rooms. She wheeled a trolley over to the bed and handed Luci a hospital gown. ‘There are gloves, scissors and basic clinical supplies on here. I’ll call Seb and the ambulance and then check back to see if there’s anything else you need. We’re not fully equipped any more but I’ll do my best.’
Luci nodded her thanks. ‘You’d better phone ahead to Dubbo and warn them too. Nadine was on her way there for an antenatal appointment,’ she added as Heather left the room. She turned back to Nadine, who was still clinging to her arm. ‘Let’s get you into this gown so that Dr Hollingsworth can examine you when he gets here.’
‘Can you stop the labour? It’s too early.’
Luci shook her head. ‘Once your waters have broken there’s nothing much we can do. These babies are on their way.’ The best they could hope for was that the ambulance arrived before the babies did.
Seb hurried in just as Luci had finished helping Nadine to change.
‘Nadine! I wasn’t expecting to see you today. What’s going on?’ He sounded cool, calm and collected but there was no doubt he’d come at a run.
Luci handed him a paper hospital gown and he slipped his arms into the sleeves and waited as Luci tied the strings before he repeated the process for her. He washed his hands and pulled on a pair of surgical gloves as Luci wrapped a BP cuff around Nadine’s arm.
‘Let’s see what’s happening,’ he said, as he positioned himself at the foot of the bed and got Nadine to lie back and bend her knees. ‘Eight centimetres dilated,’ he said.
There wasn’t going to be much time to spare. But just as Luci was praying that the ambulance was close by Heather came into the room and dashed her hopes.
‘The ambulance is forty-five minutes out of town at the scene of a car accident. They’ll get here as quickly as they can but expect them to be a while,’ she informed them.
Nadine was in the middle of another contraction and Luci didn’t think she’d heard a word Heather had said, which was probably just as well. It wasn’t great news but it didn’t appear to faze Seb.
‘It looks like your babies are going to be born in Budgee,’ Seb told Nadine once her contraction had passed. ‘Luckily for you, we’ve done this before.’ There wasn’t a trace of panic in his voice and he even had Luci believing it would all be all right.
‘You okay?’ He looked at Luci and mouthed the question. Nadine wouldn’t be able to see his lips as her belly was blocking her view.
Luci wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to deal with a woman in labour. She’d managed to cope with Nadine’s pregnancy yesterday, but actually delivering babies was a different thing altogether. But Seb didn’t need to hear about her issues now. He needed her help. Somehow she’d get through this. She would focus on one thing at a time.
She nodded. Seb needed her. She would do her best to keep it together and wouldn’t think about things that were out of her control.
‘How quick were your other labours?’ Seb asked Nadine. ‘Have you been caught off guard before or have you been able to get to the hospital?’
‘My third one was fast. She was born out at Frog Hollow.’
‘But other than that it all went fine?’
Nadine nodded, unable to speak as another contraction gripped her. She was covered in a sheen of sweat and Luci wiped her forehead with a flannel.
‘Were there any complications with your other deliveries?’
‘No,’ she puffed.
Seb picked a stethoscope up from the trolley and listened to the babies’ heartbeats. They were both around one hundred and forty beats per minute—perfectly normal. Everyone else might be stressed but at least the babies weren’t.
Heather returned and this time she was wheeling two small cots side by side. She parked these in the corner of the room and lifted out a pile of blankets and a set of scales. She wiped out the cots and folded some of the blankets, putting them back into the cots to act as makeshift mattresses before covering them with clean sheets. ‘We had these in storage but there’s not much else,’ she said. ‘There’s pethidine if you need it but that’s about it.’
Seb got the message. He doubted he had time for pethidine to work to provide any pain relief for Nadine—these babies were in a hurry and Heather’s underlying message was that there was nothing else on hand to help him manage premature infants medically. There were no drugs, no Vitamin K injections, no heat lamps and no emergency team standing by.
Babies had been born for thousands of years without all the modern interference but Seb knew the survival rate of premature twins had been low in those days. He would do his best and hope that the ambulance arrived soon. He prayed silently that everything would go right.
His gaze swept the room, looking for anything at all that might come in handy. There was an oxygen tank attached to the wall. He looked at Luci and then back at the cylinder. ‘Can you see if that works?’ he asked her.
Luci put down the flannel and crossed the room. She had been very quiet and he hoped she was coping okay with the drama, he wasn’t really sure how much experience she had with this sort of situation. But her movements were practised and efficient. She knew the basic procedures and he just had to hope that he could prevent an emergency.
Luci opened the valve on the oxygen tank. She nodded.
That was one thing he had up his sleeve if needed, he thought as he turned back to Nadine.