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They reached the car and found a nurse kneeling at the open rear door, with a wheelchair, a gurney and several onlookers clustered nearby. The nurse stood up to make room for Marty.

‘FHR is strong, the feet showed then retracted but are well out now. I know theoretically about gentle traction on the feet, legs and pelvis in a breech delivery, but what’s gentle?’

She introduced Marty to the woman and her husband.

‘You’ve done just fine,’ Marty assured the nurse, squatting down so she could say hello to the woman and introduce Carlos, explaining who they both were and what she had to do, then taking hold of the protruding legs and body and slipping the forefinger of her left hand along the baby’s back so she could rotate his torso while his shoulders came free.

‘It’s a gentle pressure,’ she explained to Carlos. ‘We wait for a contraction, then use a finger to get the shoulder blades free. You’re doing really well,’ she added to the mother. ‘This isn’t your first?’

‘It’s her fifth,’ the father replied. ‘We had all the others at home but this was a new midwife and she felt the baby was in the wrong position and couldn’t turn it so told us to come to the hospital, then, while we were stopped at traffic lights, this happened. My wife had to push and I saw the feet!’

‘They’ll both be fine,’ Marty assured the man, who had obviously been prepared to deliver his child head first but had panicked at seeing feet. She was also reassured herself. After four children the woman’s pelvimetry should be flexible enough to expand to release the head. She turned her attention back to the labouring woman. ‘You’re the boss, so we’ll wait until you’re ready to push again then rotate him so his arms follow each other out.’

She turned to check the instrument tray, seeing the Piper forceps on it, should she need them to help deliver the head. She’d prefer not to, but if the baby’s head was hyper-extended, they’d definitely be needed.

‘Now,’ the woman gasped, while her husband, who was supporting her, leaned forward over her labouring body to see what was happening.

The arms came free and Marty continued with her instructions to Carlos who stood, bent almost double, beside her.

‘Now, with two hands, the left one underneath, you use your forefinger again, only this time you slip it into his mouth to keep his head flexed. Then with the next contraction, we pull down, then lift and pull at the same time. Wait for the push, then—bingo! One brave little boy comes backwards into the world.’

She held him while the nurse wiped his face and gently suctioned his nose and mouth, then handed the baby, who was squalling lustily, to the mother, took a soft towel from the nurse to cover him, then helped move mother and child to a wheelchair so she and the infant could be formally admitted to hospital.

‘You don’t do an Apgar score straight away?’ Carlos asked, and, still smiling about the successful delivery, she turned towards him.

‘He cried—that’s enough for me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s more important for his mother to hold him—to see for herself that he’s OK. We’ll still get the first Apgar done within a minute—or pretty close to it. Then another at five minutes, but, really, with healthy babies that’s stuff to put on charts.’

Their patient was wheeled into one of the trauma rooms in A and E to await the third stage of her labour, and for her new son to be checked out and his birth documented for posterity. But first things first. Marty clamped the cord in two places then handed a pair of surgical scissors to the father so he could cut the cord.

‘A son!’ the man said, touching the cheek of the baby who was held to his wife’s breast.

‘A son!’ Marty heard Carlos echo, and, turning, saw a look of wonder in his eyes, and although she experienced this same sense of miracle each and every time a new child was born, she had to wonder if he would have felt differently towards Emmaline if he’d been present at her birth.

Or if she’d been a boy?

‘Please, no drugs,’ the woman said, as Marty gently massaged her abdomen to encourage expulsion of the placenta.

‘Providing everything is OK, I’ll go along with that,’ Marty assured her. ‘But you’ve had a difficult labour and there could be damage to the uterine wall. I won’t make any promises at this stage.’

The woman seemed satisfied with this, though it was with reluctance she gave up the baby to be checked, weighed, cleaned and dressed.

‘A fine little boy,’ Carlos said, when the woman had been admitted—for observation only, Marty had assured her—and the two of them were having a cup of coffee in the staffroom.

The remark reminded Marty of his earlier exclamation and suspicion made her ask, ‘Would that have made a difference? To you, I mean? Would it have been different if Emmaline had been a boy?’

He looked genuinely puzzled.

‘Why would you think that?’

Marty shrugged.

‘Preconceived ideas of Latin men, I suppose. Where are you from? Italy?’

‘Spain,’ he snapped. ‘And on behalf of all so-called Latin men I find your assumption offensive.’

‘Do you?’ Marty said, challenging him with her eyes. ‘I’ll retract the Latin bit, if you like, but don’t tell me that most men wouldn’t prefer at least their firstborn to be a son.’

‘Nonsense!’ Carlos exploded, so genuinely upset she knew she’d been wrong. So wrong that she held up her hands in surrender.

‘OK, I apologise, but from where I sit it was an easy assumption to make. Do you know what Marty’s short for? Martina! And, no, I’m not named after a tennis star, but after my father, Martin, who’d wanted a son and when I arrived, the firstborn, named me after himself anyway. I’d like to think that some malign fate is working on the situation but I know it’s something to do with his chromosomes. Three marriages and five half-sisters later, he’s still without a son. His attitude has skewed things for me.’

She was talking too much again, but the man made her nervous in a way she’d never felt before. She drained her coffee and stood up. She wasn’t due on duty for another three-quarters of an hour and it felt like the day was already half-over.

‘I have patients to see on the ward then a list of out-patient appointments. Have you met whoever you’ll be working under in A and E?’

‘Anxious to be rid of me?’ Carlos asked.

‘Anxious to get to work,’ Marty retorted, although her habit of getting to work an hour or two early had only begun with Natalie’s admission. Since Emmaline’s birth, she’d been coming to work earlier and earlier, checking the baby first, then tackling paperwork, so she could free up small pockets of time later in the day to spend with the newborn infant.

‘Not up to the NICU?’ Carlos said, as Marty stood up and moved towards the sink with her coffee mug.

Marty spun towards him.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Exactly what I said! If you were not in the habit of visiting Emmaline before you started work each morning, I have seriously misjudged you.’

‘And is that good or bad—this misjudgement thing?’

He held up his hands as she had earlier.

‘It is neither. I have spoken clumsily. I am trying to say that I appreciate what you have done, and realise you have grown attached to the baby. I have nothing against you continuing to visit her. In fact, I would appreciate it.’