Page 39 of Coming Home to Inishbeg Cove

Chapter 25

Sarah

I had barely hung up when Greg came rushing in through the door of the post office. His ice-cream parlour was just up the street, but he must have dropped everything as soon as I had called.

‘What’s happened?’ he said. His face was grey, and panic and worry threaded his voice.

I locked the door behind him so we wouldn’t be disturbed.

‘I’m cramping and bleeding.’ I began to cry. Why had I let myself get my hopes up? Why had I thought I could have a happy-ever-after?

‘Okay, we need to get you to the hospital,’ he said calmly, taking charge of the situation. He was cool-headed and in control. I was glad I had him by my side when I was such a mess. He locked up the post office, guided me out to his car and we set off for Limerick. I placed my hands on my stomach and silently prayed for my babies to stay with me.

We barely spoke on the journey to the hospital; we were wrapped up in our own thoughts. The road hugged the wild Atlantic coastline where, beyond the window, the sun swept shadows like a cloak being pulled across the rolling green fields, and dairy cows grazed the luscious grass. Stone walls – painstakingly built by the bare hands of generations of farmers as they toiled to rid their land of rocks – cut seams through the landscape.

I was still in so much pain. Every few minutes I would be assaulted by a cramp so severe that I had to grip the dashboard until it passed.

‘It’ll be okay, Sarah,’ Greg tried to reassure me after we had stopped in a gateway to let a tractor pass us on the narrow road. He reached across and gave my hand a squeeze.

I wasn’t feeling so hopeful. Cramping and bleeding could only mean one thing. These babies were not meant to be.

Almost two hours later, we pulled into the hospital car park. After the long drive over the spine of the mountains and down the other side, I was glad to get out of the car to stretch my legs. My heart was hammering as we headed inside and towards the maternity unit.

We were greeted at the desk by a midwife who took my details before directing me to the emergency room. As we entered the waiting area, there were several other couples there, all waiting anxiously like us. Instantly I felt like a fraud; all around were women with large bumps. Some were even in early labour, but what about me? I had barely managed to make it past five and a half months.

Finally, my name was called.

‘Sarah Klein?’ a woman in blue hospital scrubs called out. It took me a moment to realise it was me they were referring to. I was still getting used to my married name.

Greg jumped up straight away. ‘Come on, Sarah,’ he said softly, holding my hand.

‘My name is Sheila, I’m one of the emergency room doctors,’ she said, shaking our hands. We followed her into a cubicle, where she directed me onto the bed. She asked me about my symptoms, and her expression gave nothing away as I described the vicious cramping and bleeding I had been experiencing. She spread the cool jelly on my stomach. Greg and I hardly dared to breathe as she began to scan me. I tried to make out the shapes of our babies on the screen, but it seemed to be a blur of black and white.

‘Well, the good news is that I can hear two heartbeats,’ she announced eventually. ‘The fluid around the babies looks good too.’

Greg looked at me with incredulity and we looked back at the screen again.

‘Here, would you like to listen to them?’ she asked. Suddenly the room was filled with the welcome sound of the steady, thumping beat of our babies’ hearts, like horses’ hooves thundering over arid land. I looked at Greg, he looked at me, and we grinned.

‘It would appear, though, that you have a low-lying placenta, which can often cause bleeding,’ the doctor said. ‘Usually the placenta will move up by itself later in the pregnancy.’

‘Oh, thank God.’ I exhaled in relief.

‘So there is nothing wrong then?’ Greg asked.

‘The babies seem happy to me, but we’ll do a CTG trace to check their heartrates, just to make sure everything is okay.’

She strapped two large elastic bands around me, attached to monitoring equipment, then she left us alone to watch the machine as it printed out a heartrate graph for both babies.

‘What a relief.’ Greg sighed heavily when we were alone again.

‘I really thought we’d lost them.’ I began to sob as the events of the day hit me. ‘I got such a fright.’

‘Hey,’ Greg soothed, wiping my tears away. ‘These babies are strong, like their mom – they’re fighters.’

Sheila returned a short time later and examined the graphs. ‘The traces are reassuring, which is good,’ she said. ‘Everything looks as it should be, so we’ll let you go home. Make sure you keep an eye on the babies’ movements and keep a record every day. If you notice a reduction or even if you’re just unsure or feeling worried, come straight in to see us again. In the meantime, take it easy. Make sure you take lots of time to rest.’

Relief flooded over me. When we had come to the hospital a short time earlier, I thought my chance of motherhood had been snatched away from me, but leaving, still pregnant, felt indescribable. It felt like I had won the lottery not once but twice.

We both thanked the doctor profusely as we gathered up our things to leave.

‘Come on, let’s get you home,’ Greg said, swinging his arm around my shoulders as we walked back out to the car park.