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It was all he could do to stay this side of the screen and not march around that blue curtain and demand to know exactly what was going on. But staying here was as much about trying not to crowd or frighten Archie as it was about stopping himself from trying to tell Catherine Jarvis how to do her job. As much as she might like and respect him, Catherine wouldn’t think twice about calling him out for interfering where one of her patients was concerned.
‘Right,’ Catherine addressed Archie. ‘Let’s clean you up and then you can sort yourself out. When you’re ready, come back around and we can all have a bit of a chat.’
His stomach lurched. It was exactly the professional, calm tone he used when he suspected a serious issue but didn’t want to worry anyone. Or perhaps it was his imagination.
It was strange, being this side of the proverbial table. He felt ill at ease, lost, and he didn’t like it at all.
So how must Archie feel?
An unexpected wave of...something flooded through him. He’d told her that he wasn’t about to play happy families. And that was true, he didn’t want that. But there was something else there, too.
Had any other woman walked back into his life and declared herself pregnant with his child he might have expected to feel anger, resentment, and maybe there was a little of that with Archie. But there was something more. Like it was his duty to look after her. To protect her?
It was like a physical blow. For a moment all he could do was fight to maintain his balance, rocking on the balls of his feet. His whole career he’d fought for his patients. To the last moment and without exception. Because it was his duty, and because they mattered.
He’d felt a kind of protectiveness towards her as a kid, but that had been completely different. Certainly never in his entire adult life had he felt the urge to protect someone because he cared about them, on some...emotional level. He hadn’t even thought he was capable of such an impulse.
What was he even to do with such sentimentality?
Unnerved, Kaspar thrust the plethora of questions from his head. He would concentrate on the medicine. That, at least, would make more sense. Sitting down, he forced himself to engage in polite conversation with his colleague, none of which he could recall even a minute later, and waited for Archie to appear.
The sight of her wan, nervous face twisted inside him. Instantly, he switched into cool surgeon mode.
‘What did you find, Catherine?’
‘Right. So, I did a full examination of you, Archana, and I would concur that you are approximately twenty weeks pregnant.’
‘What is the issue?’ Kaspar prompted sharply. This might not be his field of expertise but he wasn’t considered a top surgeon for being oblivious to other fields. The way his colleague’s examination had progressed, and the comments and questions she’d been asking didn’t fit with a smooth, non-complicated pregnancy. Sure enough, she turned to him with an almost imperceptible nod. One colleague to another.
‘I did see faint evidence of funnelling but I stress it is faint. I could send you for an MRI but I’d prefer to concentrate on the cervix length before making any firm decisions.’ She turned back to Archie. ‘However, I don’t have a baseline length without calling your doctors and requesting your notes.’
Kaspar nodded, turning expectantly to Archie, whose expression was even more pinched and white. Instinctively, he reached out to take her icy-cold hand in his.
‘Archie,’ he prompted gently.
Slowly, so slowly, she turned her head to him, her eyes taking a little longer to focus.
‘Archie, we need your doctors’ details so that Catherine can contact them.’
‘No one told me there was a problem.’ Her voice was so quiet they had to strain to hear her.
‘Archana.’ Catherine’s voice was gentle, coaxing. The way his usually was with other patients. But this wasn’t other patients, this was Archie. ‘Would you like me to explain this in more detail?’
Archie nodded stiffly. She didn’t look at him but her fingers gripped his surprisingly tightly. Something shot through him, a powerful but fleeting sensation. He couldn’t identify it. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to.
‘All right, during pregnancy the cervix, or the neck of your womb, normally remains closed and long, rather like a tube. As the pregnancy progresses and you get ready to give birth, the cervix begins to soften, shortening in length and opening up.’
Catherine paused, waiting for confirmation as Archie jerked her head in a semblance of a nod.
He bit back his own questions. He couldn’t take over, he had to let Archie go at her own pace.
‘However,’ Catherine continued gently as Archie mumbled a vague acknowledgement, ‘in your instance, there is evidence to suggest that the neck of your womb might be shortening. It’s very faint and without knowing what the measurements were at the start of your pregnancy I can’t be sure. It isn’t, at this point in time, less than twenty-five millimetres, which is the point at whi
ch I would usually advise having an emergency, or rescue, cervical suture. However, with your past history of miscarriage I would suggest that there is a high enough risk of premature delivery for me to consider performing the suture on you.’
‘So...? We...wait?’ Archie managed, frowning as if she was having trouble processing it all.
‘For right now, yes. But we don’t want to wait too much longer.’ Catherine shook her head. ‘After twenty-four weeks we don’t usually perform cervical sutures either here in the US or back at your home in the UK. The standard of care for preemies is of such a high standard that it’s generally considered that the risks of being born early is less than the risk to the baby of attempting to delay labour with an emergency suture.’
