She pulled herself together and went back to Helen.

This was her first pregnancy, it had been utterly straightforward and uncomplicated to this point, and there was no reason to suspect that anything would go wrong even if she did give birth early. The baby was moving normally, its heartbeat was loud and strong, and Helen relaxed visibly when she heard it.

‘Oh, that’s so reassuring,’ she said, her eyes filling, and she was still caressing her bump with a gentle, contented smile on her face when Ben arrived.

‘OK, Helen, let’s have a look at this baby and see how we’re doing,’ he said, and Amy watched the monitor.

The baby was a good size for her dates, there was no thinning of Helen’s uterus as yet, and her contractions might well stop at this point, if she was lucky. Not everyone was.

She sucked in a breath and stepped back, and Ben glanced up at her and frowned.

‘You OK?’

‘Just giving you a bit more room,’ she lied.

He grunted. It was a sound she understood. Matt used to do the same thing when he knew she was lying. Maybe they were more alike than she’d realised.

‘Right, Helen, I’m happy with that. We’ll monitor you, but I’m pretty sure they’re just Braxton Hicks’ and this will all settle down. We’ll give you drugs to halt it if we can and steroids to mature the baby’s lungs just to be on the safe side, and then if it’s all stable and there’s no change overnight, you can go home tomorrow.’

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