the time,’ the midwife explained, when Izzy said the next day would be fine. ‘It’s no problem.’
Except, privately, frankly, Izzy would have preferred to sleep.
Izzy knew she was a likely candidate for postnatal depression.
As a doctor she was well versed in the subject and the midwives had also gently warned her and given her leaflets to read. Gus too had talked to her—about her difficult labour, the fact she had been separated from her daughter and her difficult past. He’d told her he was there if she needed to talk and he had been open and upfront and told her not to hesitate to reach out sooner rather than later, as had Jess.
She sat in a wheelchair at the entrance to NICU, at the very spot where she had first flirted with Diego, where the first thawing of her heart had taken place, and it seemed a lifetime ago, not a few short weeks.
And, just as she had felt that day, Izzy was tempted to ask the midwife to turn the chair around, more nervous at meeting her baby than she could ever let on. Diego was on a stint of night duty and she was nervous of him seeing her in her new role too, because his knowing eyes wouldn’t miss anything. What if she couldn’t summon whatever feelings and emotions it was that new mums summoned?
‘I bet you can’t wait!’ Izzy’s mum said as the midwife pressed the intercom and informed the voice on the end of their arrival. Then the doors buzzed and she was let in. Diego came straight over and gave her a very nice smile and they made some introductions. ‘Perhaps you could show Izzy’s mother the coffee room.’ Diego was firm on this as he would be with any of his mothers. If Izzy had stepped in and said she’d prefer her mum to come, then of course it would have happened, but Izzy stayed quiet, very glad of a chance to meet her daughter alone.
‘I already know where the coffee room is,’ Gwen said, ‘and I’ve already seen the baby.’
‘Izzy hasn’t.’ Diego was straight down the line. ‘We can’t re-create the delivery room but we try—she needs time alone to greet her baby.’
Which told her.
‘You know the rules.’ He treated Izzy professionally and she was very glad of it. They went through the hand-washing ritual and he spoke to her as they did so.
‘Brianna is looking after her tonight,’ Diego said. ‘Do you know her?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘She’s great—she was there at the delivery. I’ll take you over.’
Nicola, Toby’s mother, was there and gave Izzy a sympathetic smile as she was wheeled past, which Izzy returned too late, because she was already there at her baby’s cot.
Brianna greeted her, but Izzy was hardly
listening. Instead she stared into the cot
and there she was—her baby. And months of fear and wondering all hushed for a moment as she saw her, her little red scrunched-up face and huge dark blue eyes that stared right into Izzy’s.
Over the last three days Diego had bought her plenty of photos, told her how well she was doing and how beautiful she was, but seeing her in the flesh she was better than beautiful, she was hers.
‘We’re just giving her a little oxygen,’ Brianna explained as Diego was called away. ‘Which we will be for a couple more weeks, I’d expect...’ She opened the porthole and Izzy needed no invitation. She held her daughter’s hand, marvelling that such a tiny hand instinctively curled around her index finger, and Izzy knew there and then that she was in love.
‘She looks better than I thought...’ Izzy couldn’t actually believe just how well she looked. Her mum had been crying when she’d returned the first day from visiting her granddaughter and Richard, the consultant paediatrician, had told her that her baby had got off to a rocky start.
‘She struggled for the first forty-eight hours, which we were expecting,’ Brianna said calmly, ‘but she picked up well.’
Diego had said the same, but she’d been worried he’d just been reassuring her, but now she was here, now she could see her, all Izzy could feel was relief and this overwhelming surge charging through her veins that she figured felt a lot like love.
‘Now, would you like to hold her?’ Brianna said to Izzy’s surprise. ‘She’s due for a feed, but she needs it soon, so would you like to give her a cuddle first?’
She very much would.
Brianna brought over a large chair and Izzy sat, exhausted, then got a new surge of energy.
‘Open up your pyjama top,’ Brianna said
‘It’s popping open all the time...’ Izzy said, staring down at her newly massive breasts that strained the buttons.
‘Your skin will keep her warm and it’s good for both of you.’
She hadn’t expected so much so soon. Her dreams had been filled with tiny floppy babies like ugly skinned rabbits, yet her baby was prettier and healthier than her photos had shown. Brianna was calm and confident and then there she was, wearing just a nappy and hat and resting on her chest, a blanket being wrapped around them both, skin on skin, and Izzy at that moment knew...
She knew, as far as anyone could possibly know, that the doom and gloom and the shadow of PND was not going to darken her door.
She could feel her baby on her skin and it was almost, Izzy was sure, as if all the darkness just fell away from her now, as pure love flooded in.
A white, pure love that was tangible, that was real. All the fears, the doubts, the dark, dark dread faded, because she had never been sure, really, truly sure that love could win, that love would come, that it would happen.
But it just did.
Diego witnessed it too.
He had seen many moments like this one, both in NICU and in the delivery room, and it was more something he ticked off his list than felt moved by—especially in NICU, where bonding was more difficult to achieve. Only it wasn’t a list with Izzy, because it did move him, so much so that he came over and smiled down as he watched.
It crossed so many lines, because he didn’t want to feel it, and also, as Gwen came over, Diego realised he had sent her own mother away.
Yet he was here.
‘She’s a Ross all over, isn’t she?’ Gwen said, and Diego saw Izzy’s jaw clench as her mother stamped her territory on her granddaughter and told her how it would be. ‘There’s nothing of him in her.’
Of course, Henry’s parents begged to differ when they came two days later to visit.
They had been in France, trying to have a break, after the most traumatic of months, and had cut their holiday short to come in and visit what was left of their son.
It was an agonising visit. Emotions frayed, Henry’s mother teary, his father trying to control things, telling Izzy their rights, blaming her at every turn till she could see clearly where Henry had got it from! And, that evening, as soon as they left, Izzy sat on the bed with her fingers pressed into her eyes, trying to hold it together, wondering if now tears would come.
‘Bad timing?’ Izzy jumped as heard footsteps and saw Josh, the new consultant, at her door. ‘I’ll come by another time.’
‘I’m fine.’ Izzy forced a smile. ‘Come in.’
‘You’re sure?’ he checked, and Izzy
nodded.
‘I’m sorry to mess up the roster.’
‘That’s the last thing you should be worrying about,’ Josh replied, just as any boss would in the circumstances, and it was going to be an awkward visit, Izzy knew that. A guy like Josh didn’t really belong in the maternity ward with teary women. ‘Ben’s on leave, but he rang and told me you’d be stressing about details like that, and could I come up and tell you that