2. Malcolm
Malcolm
“Can somebody help me? My wife's having our baby!” A middle-aged man yells after bursting through the emergency department doors—the doors meant for those in ambulances.
“Check-in for obstetrics is on the other side of the building,” the nearest nurse informs him.
“No. She’s having it now. In the back of our car. She says she can feel the head.”
“Rory, grab a trolley,” I tell my closest friend, who also happens to be the only male nurse I’m ever on shift with. It’s not that I can’t be friends with the female nurses, but growing up with three sisters, I’m glad to have a man-friend at work.
“Yes, doctor. Right away.”
I roll my eyes. Rory likes to get teasingly professional every time I give him orders.
“Alright. What’s your name, sir?”
“William Cameron. And my wife’s Jen.”
“Alright, Mr. Cameron. Don’t fret, we’ll take good care of your wife.” I step outside and follow him to his car, where I find his wife quite far along in her labor.
“Hello, Mrs. Cameron. I’m Dr. Robertson. I’m going to have a look and see if we can get you inside to deliver this baby.”
She growls through a contraction in response, then I take a look. She is definitely close to having this baby. I can see the top of the head. Well, they made the right call coming straight here.
“Okay. After your next contraction, we’re going to get you on the trolley and get you inside.” I hear the trolley roll up behind me as the next contraction begins. “Rory, get ready. We’re about to move her.”
Rory nods, and as soon as her contraction ends, I do a quick check to make sure there has been no change in the baby’s station.
When there isn’t, Rory and I carefully get her onto the trolley, and Rory drapes a sheet over Mrs. Cameron’s legs.
She’d abandoned her breeks and pants at some point on her ride to the hospital.
“Elsie, call Delivery. Tell them to come down and bring a warming bed,” I say as we push the trolley toward the nearest room.
“I did. The doctor is in another delivery, but a nurse is coming with a warmer.”
I nod at Elsie. The nurses here are really on top of things.
I lock the trolley wheels and hear the door close behind me. “Alright, Mrs. Cameron. Let’s see about you meeting your baby.”
She responds with another contraction, so I bend to check and find the top of the baby’s head entirely in view.
I don’t typically deliver babies, but I’ve delivered quite a few over the course of my career.
I always wonder if the mother would like me to tell her if the baby has hair.
Is that a fun update to receive when you’re lying there between excruciating bouts of pain? I’m not sure.
“You’re doing well. It won’t be long now,” I tell Mrs. Cameron, leaving out the fact that her baby appears to be completely bald.
Mrs. Cameron pushes through three more contractions, then the slimy pink baby is in my hands.
“You’ve got yourself a braw lassie.”
I lay the bairn on her mother’s chest, and Rory is right behind me with a blanket to cover them both. Mr. Cameron, standing opposite me, stares down at them with tears in his eyes.
I’m stepping back to continue tending to Mrs. Cameron when her hand shoots out and grabs mine. If she’s grossed out by the bloody glove, she doesn’t show it.
“Thank you.” She gives my hand a squeeze. “What’s your name again?”
“Dr. Robertson. Malcolm Robertson.”
“Hmm … this little one doesn’t have a name, but neither of those will do,” she says.
“Roberta?” her husband suggested.
She turned her nose up at that. “No. We need to keep thinking.”
This wasn’t the first time someone had, or had tried, to name a baby after me.
About three years ago I delivered a lad who’d been named Robert.
I saw him here again just last year because he’d put a pencil eraser up his nose.
His father had forgotten me, and the reason for his name, but his mother reminded me who they were immediately.
I’m so grateful for the highs of this job, because they go a long way toward balancing the lows. Delivering Robert, and this little one today, definitely count toward the highs.
Apart from the arrival of baby Olivia, my shift was as tame as they come. Rory asked if I’d like to go for a dram, but I declined. I’m ready to get home. I’m heading to Edinburgh tomorrow to see my sister, Fiona, for a couple of days between shifts.
Now I’m home, sitting in the back garden, enjoying my BLT piece in the sunshine.
I love summer. It’s nine at night, and the sun will be shining for another hour.
It’s nice to come home in daylight when my shift ends in the evening.
In winter, it’s dark as early as four in the afternoon.
I don’t mind it too much, but the summer’s nice.
I’m hit with a memory of one of the last times I was out here with my ex, Cait, and it really dampens my peaceful mood. I didn’t know she was already making plans to leave town while we were out here. She knew she was ending things when she let me kiss her by the rhododendron.
It’s been a while since I last thought about that, and at this point, it bothers me more that she had already made her plans that night, than it does that she left.