Page 8 of Close Pursuit

He tried to argue with her next. No go.

He appealed to the grandmother, and she tried to bully her granddaughter into letting him help her. But the girl refused to budge. She was having no part of letting him touch her.

It was outrageous that he had to stand here and do nothing when he could be attempting to turn the baby before it entered the birth canal. Granted, given how young and small the girl was, he wasn’t at all sure he could turn the baby. He needed to consider performing a C-Section sooner rather than later.

“Tell her we need to consider a C-Section.”

Katie got out one sentence about cutting the baby out of her belly before the girl completely lost her shit, sobbing and wailing. Abruptly, he was grateful for the howling winds that would drown out the girl’s noise.

Grandma wasn’t keen on the idea, either. She reluctantly confessed she hadn’t told her granddaughter’s husband she was bringing the girl to a western doctor. Granny wouldn’t be able to hide what she’d done if her granddaughter came home with a neatly sewn up incision in her abdomen. The woman thought her grandson-in-law would kill her and his wife for going to a male infidel for help.

Alex threw up his hands in disgust. “This is no way to practice medicine.”

Katie said quietly, “And to think. This is still better than what’s otherwise available to this child.”

He and Katie traded grim looks.

The tension in the tiny space mounted over the next hour as the girl’s labor dragged on and her moans turned into sharp cries of pain. “Don’t let her push!” he ordered. “At all costs, she mustn’t push.”

The cries turned into screams muffled by the grandmother’s head scarf that the woman twisted into a rope and pressed between the girl’s teeth for her to bite down on.

God, this is barbaric, he thought.

“I can set an epidural. Administer painkillers. At least let me put the portable heart monitor on the baby,” he said urgently to Katie But as she relayed the suggestions, the girl, wrenched in agony, shook her head in the negative.

“Katie,” Alex ground out, “find a way. Make her understand that she and her baby are in danger. This is why she came to me. Let me do my job!”

His impotent fury mounted as the girl’s screams turned into low, hoarse groans indicative of exhaustion. He didn’t need Katie to tell him the girl’s labor was not progressing.

He finally turned to the grandmother and said sharply, “How will your grandson-in-react if you let his wife and child die? For the love of God, let me do my job. If I don’t do somethingnow, you’re going to lose them both.”

Grandma stared at him for several long seconds of indecision. She nodded abruptly and bit out, “Help her.”

Thank God. As he expected, the girl was so far gone in the agony of a difficult birth that she barely noticed him working frantically to shift her baby into some sort of birthable position.

Katie leaned over the girl, making a production of wiping sweat off the girl’s face, but mainly using her body to block sight of him from the girl. Smart.

Although he doubted the patient was paying the slightest attention at this point. Her body heaved as another contraction hit, and he went to work fast. He was able to loop two fingers around the baby’s ankles and guide them into the birth canal. He didn’t feel umbilical cord wrapped between or around the baby’s legs, which was a blessing.

He waited for the next contraction, which was only seconds in coming, and grabbed hold of the baby’s ankles firmly—which was a challenge, because babies were slippery.

The baby’s tiny feet cleared the birth canal. Now for the hard part. Delivering its shoulders and head through the girl’s immature pelvis. On the one hand, young bones were flexible. On the other hand, this girl wasn’t fully grown, herself.

The contraction ended, and he hung onto the baby desperately until the next contraction.

It came, and he pulled for all he was worth. It sickened him to think of the damage he was doing to this poor girl’s body. The girl let out one long continuous scream as he forcibly extracted the child from her body.

But it was that or risk the baby suffocating in the birth canal.

Working fast, he suctioned the infant’s nostrils and rubbed its back and chest vigorously. Finally, the baby drew a shuddering breath and let out a weak wail. Alex winced. The birth cry should be big and loud, But hey. The baby was alive.

“It’s a boy,” he bit out.

He cut the cord and thrust the baby at Katie to clean up and keep warm, instructing, “Monitor his breathing like a hawk.”

“I’m on it.”

Good. Because he had bigger problems at the moment.

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