A Merry Little Christmas

Chapter 2

Merry

‘PPROM?’ Merry repeated the acronym back to the doctor who was standing beside her bed, jotting notes on her records.

‘Preterm prelabour rupture of membranes,’ the doctor explained, dropping the clipboard on the bed beside Merry’s feet. ‘It’s the term we use when waters break before thirty-seven weeks of pregnancy and the mother hasn’t gone into labour.’

It was 9 a.m. and she’d spent her first ever night in hospital. It had felt interminable. Thankfully, Nell had had a phone charger in her bag yesterday, so at least Merry had been able to catch up with the shop’s social media activity and online orders while she’d been stuck on the ward all night.

Nell had also popped down to the hospital shop last night and picked up some emergency toiletries, while Olek had distracted Merry with stories of his son’s birth, which apparently had been so swift that his first wife hadn’t even had time for pain relief. She’d been glad when Nell had returned to save her from a detailed description of baby Max’s first bowel movement. The couple had left once it had been established that there was no imminent danger of Merry giving birth, but despite being shattered, Merry had barely slept. Now all she wanted was to be told she could go home and have a bath and that there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Judging by the serious expression on Dr Hill’s face, that was looking unlikely.

Merry had had a few pains last night which she’d thought might be the start of her contractions, but they’d disappeared and the nurse who’d looked after her had been confident that all she’d felt were Braxton Hicks.

‘Is that bad?’ Merry asked the doctor, making a mental note to google it on her phone as soon as he’d gone.

‘Not ideal and not without risks, but with conservative management, all should be well.’

She’d prefer something a bit more concrete than that, but before she had a chance to probe any further, Dr Hill attached a blood pressure cuff to her arm and indicated to her to stay quiet. He inflated it so much that she was almost at the point of complaint when he finally released the air, frowning as he listened to the whoosh of her blood through his stethoscope.

‘ Should be well?’ she queried, once she deemed it safe to speak.

‘As long as you look after yourself and don’t do anything silly.’

‘I’ll cancel my ice-skating lessons immediately,’ Merry replied.

The doctor looked sternly at her over his glasses. ‘I assume that was a joke, but in my job, you get used to taking nothing for granted. Sex is off the menu too.’

Merry pressed her lips together to prevent herself from saying she’d been banking on that to kick-start labour. Someone in her antenatal class had said it had worked for her with her first baby. ‘What does “conservative management” mean?’

He took the stethoscope from his ears. ‘We watch and wait.’

Merry let out a breath. ‘Good. I can do that. So I can go home?’

‘Not yet.’ He shook his head gravely. ‘Your blood pressure is high. I’m going to keep you in for a day or so. I’d like to monitor you and, judging from the way you’ve refreshed your emails several times since I’ve been talking to you, I suspect you could do with forty-eight hours of complete rest.’

For a fleeting moment, the idea of lying down for two days with nothing to do except say yes to tea and toast, brought in bed to her like this morning, was very appealing. But there was no way she could agree to that; she had far too much else on her plate besides complimentary toast.

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ she said, pulling herself upright.

The doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘It is possible, and most certainly preferable to the alternative.’

‘Thank you, yes, I can see her.’ Cole’s voice floated to her from the entrance of the ward.

Merry spotted him at the nurses’ station and her heart squeezed with a mix of joy and relief at the sight of him. Thank goodness he was home.

‘ Guten Tag .’ She waved sheepishly to him as he strode towards her bed.

‘Good morning, Mrs Robinson, and good morning, doctor, please excuse me while I kiss my wife.’

He kissed her lips tenderly and stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb. His hair was tousled, and he smelled of cold morning air and toothpaste, and Merry felt a rush of love for her handsome husband.

His eyes scanned hers and he touched a hand lightly to her baby bump. ‘How are you? Are you very uncomfortable? Do you know what’s going to happen next?’

‘Fine, not too bad,’ Merry replied, counting her responses with her fingers, ‘and the doctor was just telling me that we don’t need to do anything.’

Dr Hill reprised his stern look, but, thankfully, Cole missed it.

‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you last night,’ he murmured. ‘We were lucky to get the last two seats on this morning’s flight. Dad came to the airport to collect Astrid, so I could come straight to the hospital.’

‘It couldn’t be helped, and Nell and Olek looked after me.’

Merry reached up to put her arms around his neck and he gave a soft groan as he enveloped her with a hug – a long hug which went on so long that she started to giggle.

‘Sorry about my husband’s protracted greeting,’ she said, addressing the doctor when Cole finally released her. ‘We haven’t seen each other for five days.’

‘No apology necessary,’ the doctor said, smoothing his wiry moustache with his forefinger and thumb. ‘The longer the hug, the better. If I could prescribe hugging on the NHS, I would. Your body is now releasing a hormone called oxytocin, which will help to lower your blood pressure.’

Cole frowned. ‘Is her blood pressure too high?’

‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ Merry answered hurriedly. ‘I feel fine now. The baby isn’t coming early, which was my big worry, and I’m really ready to go.’

‘I know you are,’ said the doctor. ‘There’s no better place than home, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to put up with Hotel NHS for a bit longer.’

‘Why, is there a problem?’ Cole stiffened, gripping Merry’s hand.

‘Seriously, doctor, I’ll be fine at home. I can watch and wait there.’ As much as she was delighted about Cole’s arrival, she would have preferred him not to hear what the doctor had to say so that she could cherry-pick what she wanted him to know. He was such a worrier.

‘Watch and wait for what?’ Cole asked, wide-eyed, proving her point.

‘Just for baby Robinson to arrive,’ she answered. ‘No big deal.’

Dr Hill let out a barely audible sigh. ‘Now that your waters have broken, you’re at a greater risk, not only of infection, but also of going into labour. Have you got a busy week planned?’

‘Um …’ Merry chewed her lip, wondering how honest on a scale of one to ten she should be.

Cole laughed. ‘My wife lives every day as if it’s her last, she has a never-ending to-do list, which gets longer as the day progresses.’

‘Cancel everything except the essentials for the next few weeks,’ said Dr Hill. ‘Doctor’s orders.’

‘Everything is essential.’ Merry was full of indignation.

‘Nothing is more important than the health of you and your baby,’ the doctor replied. ‘You have just over three weeks until your baby will be deemed full term, at which point you will be induced. I make that the …’

‘Twenty-eighth of December,’ Cole supplied.

‘I’ll have to be induced?’ The thought that it would all happen to a timetable was quite disappointing.

‘Wouldn’t that be marvellous timing?’ said the doctor. ‘A birthday to celebrate in future in the boring bit between Christmas and New Year. The family will thank you for it.’

‘Um.’ Merry had been planning on spending those few days getting the nursery ready for the baby’s arrival. She simply didn’t have a spare moment before then. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Right then. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Don’t do anything daft for the next twenty-four hours and, with any luck, I’ll discuss discharging you in the afternoon.’

The doctor reattached the clipboard to the end of her bed and moved to the next patient.

‘We’ve got four candle workshops this month,’ Merry exhaled in frustration. ‘We’ve got a festive shopping night on the thirteenth. Our free gift-wrapping service has just kicked in and the flat needs an overhaul in case we get any last-minute Airbnb bookings over Christmas. Plus, there is all our Christmas shopping to do.’

‘Hmm.’ Cole took her hand and kissed it.

‘Are you listening?’

‘Sort of, I’m also gazing adoringly into your eyes.’

‘Cole!’ Merry said, frustrated. ‘This is a disaster.’

He smiled fondly. ‘No it isn’t. A disaster would have been if the baby had arrived early last night, partly because it would be premature, which might have brought its own problems, but also because I wouldn’t have been there with you to see the birth of our child and for you to squeeze the living daylights out of my hand while you were in labour.’

‘I suppose so,’ she conceded. ‘And at least now we’ve got a deadline to move into the new house by. We have to be settled by the twenty-eighth, so that when baby and I come out of hospital, we can go straight to the new house.’

He stared at her in disbelief. ‘Darling, it can’t be done. The doc just said you need to cancel as much as possible. We’ll have Christmas at Holly Cottage like last year and postpone moving in until the end of January.’

‘No, Cole.’ Her heart began to race. ‘The baby doesn’t have its own bedroom at the cottage.’

‘I know.’ He smiled fondly. ‘But newborn babies don’t need a nursery. He or she could sleep in a drawer if necessary.’

‘What?’ Merry couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘We’d pull the drawer out of the chest, obviously. I mean, I’m sure there are rules about shutting babies in a chest of drawers,’ he teased, clearly not picking up on her distress.

Merry’s jaw tightened. ‘This isn’t funny. You promised me we’d be in before the baby came. We have to be in, I mean it. I’ll sleep on the floor if I have to, but when I leave hospital with our new baby, I’m going straight to our forever home. And that’s that.’

The smile slid from his face. ‘I know you had your heart set on moving in before the baby arrived, but I’m sorry, it can’t be done.’

‘You’ve never known what it’s like not to have a home. I have.’ She pushed the bed sheets off her lap and swung her legs round, ready to stand up. ‘All my life I’ve sworn to myself that when I have my own family, I’ll do it differently. My baby is not going to sleep in a drawer. It’s going to sleep in the beautiful cot we bought, which is currently still flat-packed and in its box in the hall, along with all the other equipment we haven’t got room for.’

Merry didn’t have many memories from her childhood, but she did know that her mum had been allocated emergency housing in a small studio flat after giving birth to her. Having a stable home and a family had been Merry’s goal ever since she could remember. Her eyes swam with tears. Now, when her dream was so close, why was it slipping away from her? All she wanted was a welcoming home to bring her first child into, was that so much to ask?

‘Darling.’ Cole rested his hands on Merry’s shoulders. ‘You heard what the doctor said, you’re in danger of going into labour if you’re not careful. If you aren’t going to be sensible, I’m afraid I will be. Leave everything to do with Christmas to me and delegate everything to do with Merry and Bright to Nell.’

Merry hesitated before nodding. As much as she loved and trusted Cole – and Nell, for that matter – when you’d been deserted by those who should have looked after you during childhood, it became very difficult to let down your guard later in life. Cole’s upbringing had been the absolute opposite of Merry’s: an idyllic childhood supported by two adoring parents. No wonder he didn’t understand how important this house move was to her.

Merry’s life was spinning out of control, and right now, she had never felt more vulnerable.