LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FIVE

      Boxing Day—Sunday

      ‘JOSH. JOSH.’

      He was awake instantly, and he could hear the note of panic in Amy’s voice. ‘What’s happened?’

      ‘It’s Hope. She feels really hot and she hardly drank any milk just now. I think there’s something wrong.’

      ‘Hold on. Where’s the light? I’ll take a look at her.’

      She switched on one of the lamps in the living room.

      Josh took the baby from Amy’s arms and gently examined her. ‘You’re right—she does feel hot.’

      ‘I have one of those ear thermometers. Maybe we should take her temperature and see how bad it is?’ Amy suggested.

      ‘Unfortunately, those thermometers are too big for a newborn baby’s ears,’ he said. ‘We need a normal digital thermometer. I’ve got one in my bathroom—I’ll go and get it.’

      Amy frowned. ‘But surely you can’t stick a thermometer in a baby’s mouth?’

      ‘Nope—you stick it under her armpit,’ he said.

      ‘Oh.’ Amy looked at him. ‘Anything I can do?’

      ‘Strip her down to her nappy and a vest while I get the thermometer, then hold her for me and talk to her,’ he said. ‘And if you’ve got some cooled boiled water, we’ll try and get her to drink some.’

      When he checked the baby’s temperature, he wasn’t happy with the reading. ‘It’s thirty-eight degrees. It’s a bit high, but a baby’s temperature can go up and down really quickly because at this age their bodies haven’t worked out yet how to control their temperature. I’m ninety-five per cent sure this is nothing serious, because the soft spot at the top of her head isn’t sunken and she isn’t floppy,’ he reassured Amy. Though that left a five per cent chance that this was the early stages of something nasty. ‘But, given that we don’t really know the circumstances of her birth, there’s a chance she might have a bacterial infection,’ he said. And in that case she would get worse. Quickly, too, though he wasn’t going to worry Amy about that now. ‘The only way to find out is by a blood test and urine analysis, which I can’t do here.’

      ‘So we need to take her to hospital?’ Amy asked.

      He sighed. ‘I’d rather not have to do that, with all the viruses going around, but babies this young can get very unwell quite quickly, so if it is an infection I’d want her treated for it as soon as possible. Though, at this time of the morning, the department will be relatively quiet, so we won’t have to wait too long.’

      ‘Just take our turn with the drunks who’ve fallen over after a party or had a punch-up?’ she asked wryly.

      He smiled. Clearly she’d remembered his grumpy assessment of the seasonal waiting room. ‘Yes, but she’ll be triaged. We prioritise when we see our patients, depending on their symptoms and how old they are. Hope will get seen really quickly because she’s a newborn with a temperature.’

      ‘We don’t have a car seat or a pram. How are we going to get her to hospital?’ Amy asked.

      ‘We can’t risk taking her in the back of the car in her Moses basket,’ Josh said. ‘Apart from the fact it’s illegal and we have departmental guidelines, so we can’t let anyone take a child from hospital without an appropriate seat, I also know most accidents take place within a mile of a home. We’re going to have to call an ambulance.’

      ‘OK. I’ll get Hope dressed again while you call the ambulance, and then I’ll throw on some clothes. Give me two minutes.’

      She was as good as her word, he noticed, taking only a couple of minutes and not bothering with make-up or anything like that. Practical. He liked that.

      ‘They’ll be here in another five minutes,’ he said. ‘I told them we’d wait in the lobby.’

      Between them, they tucked Hope into her Moses basket; Amy grabbed the notebook so they had a record of everything the baby had drunk, and they waited in the lobby until they saw the ambulance pull up outside.

      ‘Josh! You’re the last person I expected to see—nobody thought you were even dating anyone, let alone had a new baby,’ the paramedic said.

      Oh, help. He could really do without any gossip at work. ‘The baby’s not mine,’ he said hastily.

      The paramedic looked intrigued. ‘So you’re helping your...’ she glanced at Amy ‘...friend.’

      ‘The baby’s not mine, either,’ Amy said. ‘We’re looking after her temporarily.’

      The paramedic’s eyes rounded. ‘Together?’

      ‘We’re neighbours,’ Josh added. ‘And you might have seen something about the baby in the news.’

      ‘Oh, hang on—is this the Christmas Eve doorstep baby?’

      ‘Yes. Her name’s Hope,’ Amy said, ‘and she’s got a temperature.’

      ‘Thirty-eight degrees, axillary,’ Josh said, ‘and we stripped her off and gave her cooled boiled water, but we don’t have any liquid paracetamol. I need blood tests and urine analysis to rule out a bacterial infection. She’s not floppy or drowsy so I’m not panicking, but given her age and the fact that we don’t know the circumstances of her birth or anything about her medical history...’

      The paramedic patted his arm. ‘Josh, you’re off duty. Stop worrying. We’ll handle it. Right now you count as a patient, not staff. Are you coming in with her?’

      ‘We both are,’ Josh said.

      * * *

      It was the first time Amy had ever travelled in an ambulance. And even though Josh was able to answer most of the paramedic’s questions and she had the notes about Hope’s feeds, it was still a worrying experience.

      Especially when the paramedic put a tiny oxygen mask on the baby.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ Amy asked.

      ‘It’s a precaution,’ Josh said. Clearly he could tell how worried she was, because he took her hand and squeezed it to reassure her. Somehow her fingers ended up curled just as tightly round his.

      The drive to hospital was short, but it felt

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