Snowkissed!: The Midwife's Marriage Proposal. Fiona Harper

any of the women there make it to health centres of any sort, and plenty of other cultures think that home is the place to give birth. I once looked after a woman who insisted on giving birth in her garden, surrounded by candles.’

      Lucy gave a hysterical laugh. ‘But none of them chose to deliver in a howling gale on a mountainside.’

      ‘You’ve certainly picked the best view,’ Sally agreed with a laugh, grabbing the Pinard stethoscope from the rucksack and pressing it against Lucy’s abdomen. ‘This might be asking a bit much, but I want to try and listen to the baby’s heart.’

      For a few moments all she could hear was the wind and Lucy’s gasps, and then she shifted the stethoscope slightly and there it was. The wonderfully reassuring gallop of the baby’s heart.

      ‘That’s fine, Lucy.’ She straightened. ‘He or she seems to be perfectly happy. Obviously enjoying being outdoors.’

      By now Lucy was inside the tent and she and Tom had manoeuvred a sterile sheet underneath her.

      Lucy gave a low moan. ‘I’m so scared. This isn’t how it should be …’

      ‘There’s nothing to be scared of,’ Sally said immediately. ‘You’re doing beautifully. Are you warm enough?’

      Lucy nodded. ‘I am, but what about the baby?’

      ‘Well, at the moment he’s still inside you so he’s fine,’ Sally said. ‘We’ll worry about his temperature once he’s safely out.’

      ‘You keep calling the baby he,’ Lucy gasped, and Sally smiled, aware of Tom by her side.

      ‘It’s a boy. Definitely.’ Her tone was dry. ‘Only a man could cause this much trouble.’

      Despite the tension of the situation, Lucy giggled. Tom picked up the banter. ‘You’re going to find out just what trouble is when this is over, Sally Jenner,’ he threatened, his blue eyes gleaming as they locked on hers.

      But despite his mockery and the kick of her heart, Sally couldn’t be anything but glad that he was there.

      She knew that if Lucy got into trouble, she was going to need him.

      Lucy chuckled and then groaned. ‘Don’t make me laugh—it hurts. How can you be so relaxed?’

      ‘Because there is absolutely nothing to be tense about,’ Sally replied immediately. ‘Childbirth is perfectly natural.’

      Lucy grimaced. ‘Until something goes wrong.’

      ‘That’s my line,’ Tom muttered. He glanced at Sally and she rolled her eyes.

      ‘Don’t get all pessimistic on me, please, or I’ll send the pair of you home and do this by myself.’ She opened another pack and looked at Tom again. ‘Could you draw up some Syntometrine? If you and Lucy are just going to sit there, panicking, I’ll have to give the orders.’

      He lifted a hand to show her that he’d already done it and it occurred to her that, despite everything that had happened, they were still a good team.

      Lucy gave a gasp and shifted onto all fours. ‘It’s coming … I can feel it …’

      Sally snapped on a new pair of gloves and glanced over her shoulder at Tom. ‘We’re going to need all the layers you can find, and I want a space blanket, too. OK, Lucy, the head is crowning. I want you to stop pushing if you can. That’s it, good girl. Pant now, pant—that’s it. Great.’

      She used her left hand to control the escape of the head and reduce the chances of perineal tearing. As the baby’s head was delivered she allowed it to extend and quickly checked that the cord wasn’t around its neck.

      ‘Fantastic, Lucy,’ she said, glancing at Tom to check that he was ready to give the injection with the delivery of the anterior shoulder.

      She saw the tension in his broad shoulders, the lines of strain around his eyes.

       He was waiting for something to go wrong.

      ‘Everything’s fine,’ she said quietly, as much for Tom’s benefit as Lucy’s. ‘It’s fine. And this is much the nicest delivery I’ve ever done. All we have to do is keep this baby warm once it’s born.’

      She could see that Lucy’s body was doing everything it was supposed to do and there was no real reason why there should be problems. Their biggest problem was going to be keeping the baby warm once it was born.

      Somewhere in the background she could hear the clack-clack of a helicopter, but she ignored it, waiting instead for the contraction that would finish the delivery of the baby.

      Lucy screwed up her face and pushed again. Sally delivered the shoulders and finally the baby shot into her arms, yelling and bawling.

      ‘Brilliant, Lucy! You clever girl!’ Sally’s eyes filled and she quickly blinked back the tears. ‘You have a little boy.’

      Tom immediately cleared the baby’s airway and together they clamped the cord and then placed the child against Lucy’s breast, wrapping mother and child up together.

      Lucy gave a sob of disbelief. ‘Is he all right?’

      ‘He seems fine, but obviously we need to keep him warm and get him to hospital as fast as possible. As soon as your placenta is delivered and you’re able to move, we’re going to load you into that helicopter.’

      Sally slid a hand over the top of Lucy’s uterus, checking that it was contracting, and moments later the placenta was delivered.

      She examined it closely and looked at Tom. ‘It seems intact to me, but we need to take it to the hospital with us.’

      He nodded. ‘I’ll talk to the helicopter crew about how we’re going to do this.’

      Satisfied that Lucy’s uterus was contracting nicely and that she didn’t seem to be losing more blood than was normal, Sally turned her attention to the baby, showing Lucy how to latch him onto the breast.

      ‘Feeding will help your uterus contract and it will warm the baby up,’ she explained, smiling as the little boy clamped his jaws around the nipple and started to suck. ‘No problems there. He obviously has a natural ability. I told you he was a boy!’

      Lucy looked at her, tears in her eyes. ‘I can’t thank you enough. You were amazing.’

      ‘It was wonderful,’ Sally said honestly, glancing over her shoulder as Tom stuck his head into the tent. ‘Are we ready? The baby’s feeding.’

      ‘Great.’ He smiled at Lucy. ‘When you’re ready to move we’ll get you to the helicopter and take you to hospital. It’s a very short hop.’