West Wing to Maternity Wing!(11)

She shook her head and rubbed her hands across her stomach. 'I don't  think I've got room for any more. Junior takes up more space in here  than you think.'

'Junior?' He raised his eyebrow at her. 'That's what you're calling your baby?'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'Well, I know I'm having a boy and I have  picked a name, but I want to wait until he's here before I share it. So  for the moment he's Junior.'

Lincoln's brow furrowed. 'I'm kind of surprised you found out what you  were having. I would have taken you for a surprise kind of girl. We used  to call you Miss Unpredictable on the boat.'

'You did?' Her eyes widened. She'd never heard the nickname before and,  what's worse, it suited her-or at least it used to. She couldn't afford  to be unpredictable any more. Amy's lips tightened. 'I wanted to plan  ahead. Decorate the room for the baby coming, pick him some clothes, buy  a stroller.' She stared off into the distance. 'I always thought I'd  want it to be a surprise too, but when the time came I had to have a few  detailed scans and because I work in a hospital where they do maternity  care I'm used to looking at scans-it was kind of hard to hide the  obvious.'

Lincoln's brow furrowed. 'Why did you need detailed scans? Did they  suspect a problem?' He hadn't seen anything in her notes that would have  made him think there was something wrong with the baby.

Amy lifted her eyes to meet his and for the first time tonight he  noticed how heavy they were. She was exhausted. She leaned her chin on  her hands. 'No. No problem. It's just that the clinic where I had my IVF  wanted to keep a close eye on me. My embryos had been frozen for five  years and then there was a problem … '

'What problem?'

She sighed. 'I had been planning on using the embryos but I was going to  wait until I was five years clear of disease and I'd had my  reconstruction surgery.'

'So what happened?'

'The storage facilities were compromised.' She lifted her hands. 'We  live on the San Andreas fault. Earthquakes are an occupational hazard.'

'An earthquake? Surely any IVF storage facility made plans for that?'

'Even the best plans can be compromised. The DEWAR tank containing my  embryos developed a slow liquid nitrogen leak. Some of my embryos  perished in the thawing process but I was lucky. A few good-quality  embryos survived and I had to make a decision quickly about what I  wanted to do.'

He gestured towards her stomach. 'So you went ahead with implantation before you were ready?'

'I had to, Lincoln. This was my only chance to have a child of my own.'  She leaned back in her chair again. Was it the conversation making her  uncomfortable or was it something else? That was the third time she'd  shifted position in as many minutes. She shrugged her shoulders, 'I'm  not really that different from lots of other people who find themselves  pregnant before they'd planned to be.'

He shook his head, 'But you are different, Amy. You've got a completely  different set of circumstances. You had a disease that threatened your  life. This baby didn't materialise out of thin air-or as the result of  failed contraception.'

'I know that, Linc.' Her eyes clouded over. 'You can't possibly  understand.' Her voice lowered. 'You can't possibly know how it feels to  have the world whipped out from under your feet. One minute you think  you have your whole life to plan a family, to choose when you have it  and with whom. Then the next minute you're asked hard questions and  you've got about two minutes to make up your mind-because they have to  schedule surgery for you and a whole plan of chemotherapy. And in the  meantime the clock is ticking because every second you delay could be  the second that means your cancer grows and spreads somewhere it  shouldn't. The second that could be the difference between life and  death for you.'

Lincoln drew in a deep breath. She was tired, he knew she was tired. It  was two o'clock in the morning and she was sitting in a strange place,  with symptoms that could affect her baby, and with someone she hadn't  seen in six years. So why did it feel as if someone had just fastened a  thick fist around his heart and squeezed tightly? Why did the  heart-wrenching words she'd just said make him feel as if his stomach  had just turned inside out?         

     



 

She fixed her green eyes on his. 'This was it for me, Linc. This was my  only chance to have a baby of my own-and even then there was no  guarantee that the embryo would take. But I had to try. I couldn't give  up that one chance just because the timing wasn't perfect.'

'And the father?' It was a loaded question, and the one he was most interested in.

She gave a rueful smile. 'I didn't have a significant other when I was  diagnosed with breast cancer and I was advised to freeze embryos instead  of eggs. So I used a sperm donor. What else could I do?'

A sperm donor. An anonymous man who would never know he was the father of Amy's baby. Did that make him feel better or worse?

The words were echoing in his head. She didn't have a significant other  when she was diagnosed. But she could have. She could have had him.

He looked down. The plate of pancakes and scrambled eggs that had seemed  so appetising ten minutes ago now seemed to turn his stomach. The last  time he'd felt like this he'd been out on the town with his friends and  had had no idea how or when he'd got home.

Amy shivered. The hairs on her arms were standing on end. How stupid of  him. He was sitting here in theatre scrubs and a white coat and all she  had on was a hospital gown. He was an idiot. He pushed his chair back.  'Come on,' he said as he walked around the table and put his arm around  her shoulders. 'You're cold. It's time I tucked you into that extremely  comfortable hospital gurney and let you get some rest again.'

She rolled her eyes and nodded as she stood up next to him, her small frame fitting perfectly under his arm.

Then something struck him. Amy was wrong. He did know how it felt to have the world whipped out from under your feet.

It had happened to him six years before when she'd gone on holiday and had never come back.





CHAPTER FOUR

LINCOLN glanced at his watch as he strode down the darkened corridor.  Twenty-four hours later and he still hadn't left this place. Sleep was  apparently for the faint-hearted. At least that's what Val, the nurse  practitioner, had told him when she wakened him at 2:00 a.m. to come and  help with baby Esther.

Jennifer Taylor was really struggling with breastfeeding. Esther, on the  other hand, had taken to cup feeding like a duck to water. She was  already sleeping for two-hour stretches, but still showed no interest in  latching onto her tear-filled mother.

Lincoln knew that the next few days were crucial in helping establish  the feeding and that mother-baby bond. There was also the small issue of  the world's press. They had developed a persistent interest in how the  premature First Baby was being fed. There was no way he was going to say  that even though the First Lady had attempted to breastfeed, it had so  far been unsuccessful. What kind of message was that to send? And more  importantly how would that make Jennifer feel? If people knew that the  First Lady had chosen to breastfeed her baby, it could encourage other  expectant mothers to do the same. This was a chance to try and influence  other people to give their baby the best start in life.

Then there was the matter of Amy. And how he felt about her being here.

In one way, he was relieved he'd finally seen her again. But  circumstances for both him and her weren't great. Had she really just  come looking for him again to be her baby's doctor? Or could there be  something else?

There was no getting away from the fact she was pregnant, had  pre-eclampsia, and in all likelihood would deliver this baby early. But  deep down Lincoln really wanted to believe there was more to this. More  than just the fact he was a good doctor.

He stopped at the door to the side-room and pushed it gently open. 3:00  a.m. and Amy was sleeping soundly on her side with the arm with the  blood-pressure cuff attached lying above the covers. The soft hum of the  cuff starting to inflate began and Amy started.

'Damn cuff,' she muttered under her breath.

Lincoln smiled and sat down on the chair next to her bed. She was  definitely a restless sleeper. Her brow furrowed and her nose twitched  as she lay against the pillows, her long red curls spilling over the  covers.

He almost felt guilty watching her like this. But he hadn't had much of a  chance to talk to her today and she'd been moved from the E.R. to one  of the ward side-rooms for monitoring.

Her eyelids flickered open as the cuff tightened on her arm. 'Linc?' she whispered, peering at him through sleep-filled eyes.

He leaned forward and touched her arm. 'Hi, Amy.'

She didn't move, didn't seem surprised to see him. Instead, she seemed  to snuggle even closer into the pillows, as if she was sinking into a  dreamlike state. 'Hi, yourself,' she murmured as a smile danced across  her lips. 'Did you bring food?'         

     



 

He blinked and held up his empty hands remorsefully.

'No, sorry.' His eyes flickered around the room to the empty bed table  and locker. Amy didn't know anyone here. She wouldn't have had any  visitors today. No one to bring her grapes or magazines or the  occasional bar of chocolate. Why hadn't he thought ahead? 'Do you want  me to go and get you something?'