‘I take it that’s Ella,’ said a dark brown velvet voice in her ear. ‘It’s Seth Gifford here. Somebody paged me.’
‘Yes. I—I did…or rather Carol asked me to,’ she stammered, completely thrown by the tremor of awareness that spiralled through her at the sound of his voice. She thought she could even hear amusement in his tone.
‘Mira Connolly is on her way in,’ she continued, hastily dragging her wayward thoughts back to the important matter in hand. ‘Apparently she’s bleeding.’
‘Damn!’ she heard him say forcefully. ‘I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. I expect Carol’s organised the ultrasound?’
‘Yes. And a bed in case she needs to be admitted.’
‘Well done.’
The sharp click in her ear told her that he’d cut the connection but it took her a second to relinquish her hold on the receiver.
‘How soon can he be here?’ Carol prompted.
‘He’s already on his way, by the sound of it. He doesn’t waste time on small talk, does he?’
‘You’d be surprised,’ she argued. ‘I’ve never seen him watching the clock when a patient needs reassurance.’
The sound of the lift arriving had both of them craning their necks around the doorjamb to see who was arriving. A wheelchair emerged at speed expertly wielded by a porter. The tearstained woman huddled in it was obviously their patient while the tall man following them, his thinning blond hair wildly dishevelled and devastation in his eyes, was equally obviously her husband.
‘This way, Mick,’ Carol called when the porter paused briefly to look both ways along the corridor. ‘We’re all ready in here.’
‘Is Mr Gifford here?’ the woman demanded tearfully as soon as she caught sight of the two of them. ‘I need to see Mr Gifford. He’ll be able to do something, I know he will. I can’t lose this baby. Not this time!’ She dissolved into racking sobs that continued right through her transfer onto the examining couch. Even Carol’s repeated assurances that the consultant was on his way couldn’t comfort her.
Ella wasn’t sure what she expected Seth to do when he arrived but it certainly wasn’t the way he walked straight across to sit on the edge of the couch and wrap a comforting arm around the patient’s shoulders.
‘Hush, Mira,’ he murmured. ‘Hush, now. You don’t even know whether there’s anything to cry about. You haven’t even given me a chance to check yet.’
‘But…but I’m b-bleeding again. I’ve l-lost the b-baby again. I know I have!’
‘Mira, listen to me,’ he demanded sternly, deliberately holding her gaze. ‘Have I ever lied to you?’
‘N-no.’ She shook her head miserably.
‘Well, I won’t start now. Obviously as you’re bleeding there is a chance that you’ve lost your baby. You’ve been through this often enough to know that. But, until I’ve checked you over, none of us can know for sure. Even women who aren’t on IVF sometimes have intermittent bleeding for one reason or another, and then go on to have perfectly normal healthy babies.’
She nodded, but Ella knew the poor woman didn’t really believe it.
‘Well, I hope you trust me enough to know that I’ll always tell you the truth, whatever it is,’ Seth said softly as he straightened up off the side of the examining couch, relinquishing his position with a gesture to her husband to take his place.
Ella was certain that the rest of them in the room had been trying to look as if they were busy with something else to give her the semblance of privacy, but she knew that she’d been riveted by Seth’s compassion while he’d been calming Mira down. She certainly hadn’t noticed the arrival of the ultrasound technician.
‘How long ago did you empty your bladder?’ the motherly woman asked quietly as she began to set up the equipment, switching on the computerised display and thoughtfully warming the probe.
‘Actually, I need to go now,’ Mira admitted, looking fearfully at the blank screen that would soon display the presence or absence of the baby in her womb. ‘Should I go before you start?’
‘It’s not necessary for you to go anywhere,’ she said soothingly. ‘It’s actually better if your bladder is full. We can get a better picture.’
Ella stepped forward to help rearrange Mira’s clothing to expose her abdomen, draping her with a towel so that the conductive jelly didn’t make a mess.
‘Lie very still now,’ the technician warned as she took the probe in a smooth sweep across the pale skin of her lower abdomen.
Ella couldn’t see the screen from her position so had to content herself with watching Seth’s expression.
He started off with his dark brows drawn together to form a deep furrow above his nose as he concentrated on the shadows and blurs that the screen would display. At one point he murmured something to the technician, his grey eyes piercingly intent as he pointed at something on the screen, and Ella found herself holding her breath.
In spite of the number of people in the room and the hum of the equipment, she was certain she could have heard the proverbial pin drop while they waited for the verdict. When he straightened up and turned to face Mira again the expression on his face had hardly changed but some sixth sense told her that the news was going to be good.
‘I don’t think you’ve ever seen one of these scans before, have you?’ he began conversationally, pulling the trolley full of electronic gadgetry over slightly so that his patient could see the picture on the screen more easily without having to move her position.
‘This is your uterus,’ he continued, tracing the outline on the screen. ‘And this dark tadpole, just here, is your baby. The head is smaller than the width of two of your fingers and from the top of the head to its little rump is less than the length of your little finger.’
They all heard Mira swallow before she could force herself to speak, her eyes glued to the tiny shadow on the screen.
‘Is it still alive?’ she whispered fearfully, clutching so tightly to her husband’s hand that his fingers were turning white. He seemed to be too engrossed in the screen to even notice.
‘See for yourself,’ Seth urged with a nod to the technician to run the scan again. ‘That was a still frame you were looking at, while this is what is happening inside you while we’re looking at it. Can you see that little fluttering movement?’
‘Yes,’ they agreed breathlessly, still without taking their eyes off the screen.
‘That’s your baby’s heart beating inside you, and the last time I checked an ultrasound, only live babies had hearts that beat that strongly.’
Mira burst into tears, but this time they were accompanied by a tremulous smile. Ella was hard put not to join her, concentrating on wiping up the jelly and righting Mira’s clothing while she regained her composure.
‘So why was she bleeding?’ Mira’s husband finally asked, obviously very close to tears himself.
‘We might never know,’ Seth admitted candidly. ‘Most people don’t realise that only one in six of normally conceived babies ever survive to birth, and the proportion is even lower for assisted pregnancies like yours. But if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that Mira just lost the twin.’
‘The twin?’ he echoed, obviously too befuddled to think clearly.
‘You remember that we put two embryos back in when we did the implantation?’ Seth prompted patiently. ‘It’s