A Sneak Peek «

Here’s an excerpt from Oh Baby!…

“Be careful, Molly. Dr. Reynolds’s bite is worse than his bark.”

I spun around to see my friend Lissy Franklin hurry past me pushing a med cart. “Tiptoe softly,” Lissy mouthed before turning into one of the birthing rooms on the third floor of the Bradshaw Medical Center.

I took a deep breath and recalled all I’d heard about Dr. Reynolds in the few short weeks he’s been at Bradshaw General. It isn’t pretty, at least not from my professional perspective.

He’s a great ob-gyn physician, no doubt about that. His reputation preceded him from his former position at a large hospital in California. He’s only been practicing medicine in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul for three months and already women are booked weeks in advance to be his patients. I, however, hadn’t had a client who was his patient until today.

He’s cute, too. Gorgeous, actually, with dark hair, impossibly blue eyes and a trim physique that, it’s rumored, comes from running and working out two hours a day. Where a doctor gets time like that, I don’t know, but maybe it helps take the edge off his temper. It’s his personality that gets low points from all the nurses. He demands perfection and settles for nothing less. Felicity, or Lissy as I usually call her, says he can make them cry with a look.

Maybe not all the rumors are true. Fortunately, at least one of my personal experiences with him has belied that opinion.

“I’m so glad you agreed to come to this visit with me,” new mother Tiffany Franks had told me several weeks ago as we sat together in the waiting room of her pediatrician’s office. “I didn’t want to go to the baby’s first doctor visit alone. My husband said he couldn’t take time away from work and no one else was available. I’m still so nervous with the baby.” The baby in question was a solid sleepy lump in my lap, hardly a reason for Tiffany’s anxiety.

A week or two of experience would resolve that. “The doctor will tell you little Max looks great and you will feel a hundred percent better in no time.”

We were examining Max’s chins—all four of them—when a man strode into the office and up to the receptionist’s desk. “Is Dr. Harley in?”

The receptionist looked up at him and her eyelashes began to flutter like hummingbird wings. “Why…uh…who?”

“Dr. Harley,” the insanely handsome Dr. Reynolds said. “Your boss?”

“Oh, yes.” She blushed. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Do I look like I should?” he snapped impatiently as he opened his hands to show that there was no baby in them.

His legs, however, told a different story. A blond toddler with lemonade curls and sapphire-blue eyes had glommed onto his left leg. She held her teddy bear in one hand and clung to his calf with the other. On his right leg, a little boy proceeded to run a Matchbox car up and down as if his expensive trousers were a vertical racetrack. Two or three other children were creeping closer to get a good look at the man.

“I’ve never seen anything like it!” Tiffany whispered. “He’s like the Pied Piper. The children don’t seem to have any fear of him at all.”

He appeared accustomed to being a human jungle gym.

“I’m Dr. Reynolds,” he told the starstruck receptionist. “We’ll be working closely since I deliver babies and he picks up where I leave off. I need to talk with him.” His words were clipped.

“Of course. I’ll just…” The woman’s voice trailed off. She seemed to have lost track of her job description under his expectant and impatient gaze. “Now.”

That woke her up. She jumped to her feet and trotted toward the examining rooms.

As she did so, Dr. Reynolds picked up the blond cherub. “Hi, baby girl. How are you?”

The child gurgled gleefully and patted his cheeks with her little palms. “Where’s your mommy?”

A young woman in jeans stood up and came forward.

“She’s beautiful,” he said as he handed her the child.

The woman flushed with pleasure. Dr. Reynolds might have said more, but the little boy with the toy car held his arms out to be picked up.

“He’s a kid magnet,” Tiffany whispered. “They aren’t the least bit afraid of approaching him even though he snapped at the receptionist. Remarkable.”

I’d thought of the incident several times since. Dr. Reynolds has subsequently put a number of Bradshaw employees in their places for minor infractions and he has the personnel tiptoeing on eggshells. What did little kids know about him that the staff didn’t?

As I pondered the question, a nurse’s aide walked by. Her eyes were wide.

I caught her arm. “What’s going on?”

“Dr. Reynolds, that’s what. He just kicked everybody out of the birthing room because they were in the way. He said no one but the baby’s father could stay. The family is up in arms, and he won’t budge. He’s stubborn, that one.”

She looked at me appraisingly. “All I can say is that I’m glad I’m not you. When you come in with one of your clients, he’s going to chew you up and spit you out.”

That’s not a rosy prospect. The kid thing at the pediatrician’s office must have been an anomaly. Too bad.

What is a driven man like that going to do with me, an innocent doula, whose client unfortunately insists her baby be born at this hospital, with this attending physician? Bradford is a private hospital that hasn’t experienced a lot of birthing coaches in the past, and from what I’ve heard of Dr. Reynolds, that pattern won’t be changing anytime soon. I’m not too eager to be the bomb-sniffing dog who is first to go in and check for booby traps.

So far I’ve chalked his negativism toward my profession up to lack of sleep, pressure and the fact that he’s not yet settled into the routine at the hospital, but those justifications are wearing thin.

I walked into my client’s room. Brenda Halbert’s face cleared and her shoulders relaxed, but she still kept her telephone to her ear. She patted her belly, which looked like a gigantic haystack hovering under the bedding.

“You have got to cover for me on the Smyth case. We were supposed to meet today at three, and there’s no way I’ll make it.” She scowled at the response from the other end of the line. “I’m having a baby, not getting my hair done! It’s not as if you can expect me to drop by the hospital and then hurry back to work. Besides, you’ll do a great job. It’s just a deposition, after all, but we can’t take any chances….”

She gestured at me to sit down and mouthed, “I’ll be off in a minute.”

I see more and more women already in the hospital tying up loose ends so they can have a baby without worrying their cell phones might ring during delivery. Well, maybe it’s not that bad, but it is getting ridiculous. More than once in my acquaintance with Brenda, I’ve feared she’d bring a briefcase to the delivery. Then I glanced around the room and spotted a suspicious looking attaché case in the corner. Oh, my.

“There you are, Molly Cassidy.” She greeted me as if I were the one who’d been on the phone. “I don’t want to do this without you, you know.”

The room was sunny and welcoming. The necessary medical equipment for a healthy birth was still stashed away behind closed doors. The room looked more like a comfortable efficiency apartment than the delivery room it would become. Bradshaw is known for its upscale amenities. I vaguely wished my own house looked this good.

“No need to worry about that.” I plumped the pillows behind her back and handed her fresh ice chips. I felt honored to be trusted by a woman who, in her ordinary, everyday life is a highly capable trial attorney. “I’m stuck to you like glue unless you tell me otherwise.”

She smiled beatifically at me and leaned back against the pillows. That lasted for only a moment before she began chuffing and huffing like the Little Engine That Could.

“Another contraction?” I moved closer to put a comforting hand on her arm. “Focus, just focus.”

She glared at the gigantic orange lollipop I’d taped to the wall on the other side of the room, concentrating so deeply on the brightly colored sucker that nothing else mattered but her breath and the baby preparing to be born.

I love my job. Being a professional labor assistant is the greatest occupation in the world. Better even than my former occupation as a preschool teacher, which was a pretty exciting and entertaining job. Talk about never knowing what will happen next! I always kept a change of clothes in my car while I was teaching because I never knew when I was going to be splatter painted, thrown up on or hugged repeatedly by little ones with sticky hands.

As a doula I provide emotional support, loving touch and comfort to a woman in childbirth. It is the best of both worlds. Not only do I get to soothe and cheer for the mom, I am present for the miracle of birth. I’m useful, too. Having a doula present at birth tends to result in shorter labors, fewer complications and less requests by the mother for pain medications.

That’s why it puzzles me that Dr. Reynolds is rumored to be so against doulas and barely tolerates medical midwives. Gossip has it that he came to this post saying he wanted as few people as possible involved with his patients’ births and has so far discouraged clients from hiring the likes of me. Most doctors don’t pay much attention to who is there to support the mothers as long as they aren’t causing trouble. Reynolds, however, appears ready to campaign actively against my profession.

It’s no wonder I’m nervous. In such a state, Lissy’s warning did not help one bit.

He can’t do much about it if a mother requests a doula in her birth plan, but he certainly doesn’t encourage anyone to do so. A birth plan is devised by a mom and her husband to let their preferences for their labor and delivery be known in order to make it the experience they want. It’s not guaranteed to work out exactly as planned—babies choose to come when and where they want and come in very small and very large sizes, both of which may change the birth plan in a heartbeat. Still, it allows the people supporting the parents to know their ideal and to strive for it.

It also makes the new parents feel heard. I insist on having scrambled eggs when I eat breakfast in a café, not over easy, not poached. …

Here’s an excerpt The Baby Chronicles…

Monday, March 1

My assistant, Mitzi, canceled the office waiting room subscriptions to Vogue and Elle and replaced them with Fit Pregnancy and American Baby. I realize now that I should have appreciated it when she was only giving me fashion advice.

Frankly, the one magazine Mitzi should be allowed to read is her signature publication, Harper’s Bizarre (sic).

My name is Whitney Blake Andrews, and today I’m starting a new volume of my personal journal. It’s been quite a ride since that first day two years ago when I began keeping what I fondly call The Whitney Chronicles. My best friend, Kim Easton, has overcome breast cancer, and her son Wesley has turned three. I’ve been made vice president of Innova Software, located in downtown Minneapolis, and been married for almost two years to Dr. Chase Andrews, the most incredible husband in the universe. That’s my personal bias, of course.

And Mitzi Fraiser is still the most aggravating person on this planet, but she’s my aggravating person, so I love her anyway. Most of the time…at least some of the time…in brief spurts…Hmm…I do remember having a pleasant thought about her sometime between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I think.

Kim stopped over after work tonight so that we could debrief each other on our day at the office. She likes to come to my house for three reasons. There is no LEGO embedded in the carpet, Ernie and Elmo are not the anchormen during the evening news, and there is always chocolate.

I’ve been sacrificing myself in the name of medical science, researching the curative uses for chocolate. It has the same health-promoting chemicals as fruits and veggies. It’s the least I can do for the good of mankind. How often did I dream Mom would tell me to eat my chocolate cake instead of my Brussels sprouts?

Oh, yes, that’s another thing I don’t understand about Mitzi. She hates chocolate. This is another indication that she is an extraterrestrial—something Kim and I have suspected all along.

“What’s up with Mitzi these days?” Kim curled her feet beneath her on my overstuffed couch, looking all of fifteen, instead of her actual thirty-three years. “She’s been acting weird lately.”

“More than usual? How can you tell?”

Kim grinned and took a piece of milk chocolate with almonds. “The magazines, for one thing. I got a copy of Pregnancy in my mailbox this morning. And the fact that she’s turned into the food police. Did you see her whip that Twinkies out of Bryan’s hand yesterday? You’d have thought he was having a toxic-waste sandwich.”

Bryan Kellund was my assistant before Mitzi was assigned to me. He’s the only person I’ve ever known who can disappear in plain sight. He fades into the background as though he’s wearing wallpaper camouflage. That’s why I’m so amazed that he found a girlfriend who’s even more inconspicuous and retiring than he. They cook tapioca pudding to spice up their dessert menu.

Bryan’s current idea of subterfuge is sneaking into the office break room and substituting decaffeinated coffee for the fully leaded stuff and then patiently watching and waiting for Harry’s and Mitzi’s energy to wane. I’ve caught him a time or two, but I never say anything about it because I’ve done it myself. Anything that makes Mitzi and Harry a little less hyperactive is fine with me.

“I’ve learned not to attempt to figure out what Mitzi is up to,” I said. “Frankly, I’m more curious about Harry.”

My boss, Harry Harrison, is a software genius and our office mascot. Okay, Harry’s not our mascot, exactly, but his hair is. Two or three years ago he discovered the curly perm and he’s resembled a Chia Pet ever since.

“I think he’s depressed,” I murmured, more to myself than to Kim.

“Harry? Don’t you think I’d recognize it if Harry were depressed?”

Kim has battled depression much of her life. She now has it under control with medication and lots of exercise to get those endorphins moving.

“Wouldn’t you be depressed if your claim to fame was being washed down the shower drain?” I persisted. “Have you looked, really looked, at Harry’s head lately?”

Understanding dawned on Kim’s pixielike features. “His thinning hair, you mean?”

“Thinning? Kim, he’s only six strands away from a comb-over.”

“Shades of Rudy Giuliani—you’re right. No wonder he skulks into the office wearing that wool felt hat that makes him look like an Indiana Jones wannabe.”

“We need to be nice to Harry. My own dad’s hair is starting to thin, and he’s very sensitive about it. Mother caught him wearing a baseball cap in the shower last week. She says he can’t stand to see the reflection of his head in the mirror.”

And that’s only one of the many weird aging games my parents play. Dad now insists he’s in male menopause. What it really is is revenge for what my mother put him through when she was “of a certain age.”

“‘…vanity of vanities! All is vanity,”" Kim intoned.

“You can say that again. Harry and Dad may be prime examples, but look at all the silly, pointless things we’ve done….”

“The grapefruit diet?”

I never did get into that. I was in love with a cabbage soup diet that produced enough gas to replace fossil fuels.

“Remember the Approved Veggie Diet? The only ‘approved’ vegetables were arugula, chicory, bok choy, kohlrabi, leeks and dandelion greens.”

We waxed nostalgic about the smoothie diet—best made with ice cream; the metabolism-revving diet—basically seasoning everything with cayenne pepper; and “EEAT”—Ecclesiastical Eaters Anonymous Training, a diet group at church that actually worked.

Kim rubbed her brow. “What does my weight matter when Wesley is etching new creases here every day? No one cares about my figure when they see the Grand Canyon on my forehead.”

“‘Can any of you by worrying add a single day to your life span?”" I quoted, knowing just how crazy she is about that naughty little buzz saw of a boy. “But back to Harry. If food is the way to a man’s heart, then good hair is the way to his ego. If Harry actually goes bald, he’ll have to start therapy.”

“Men are definitely wired differently from women,” Kim agreed. “I see it in Wesley already. He and his dad spend hours piling blocks into pyramids and knocking them down. They laugh and high-five each other like they’ve just invented football. Yet when I ask Kurt to vacuum the floor, he says ‘Didn’t I just do that last month?” as if he detests repetition in any form.”

“Knocking things down and picking things up are two entirely different concepts. One is male, the other, female. Even Chase says so.”

Chase. Two years of marriage, and I love him more than ever. God really knew what He was doing when He put us together. It doesn’t hurt that his sandy hair is shot with gold, his eyes are an inky Crayola blue, and his physique…There’s only one way to describe it—hunky. Oh, yes, and he’s crazy about me, and a doctor besides. This morning he sent me yellow roses for no reason at all except that he loves me.

“Now you’re thinking about him,” Kim observed grumpily. “You’ve got that moonstruck look on your face again.”

“And you don’t feel that way about Kurt anymore?” I teased.

“Of course I do.” Kim’s attention drifted from me to some private thought of her own. “I wish…”

“Wish what?” I held the candy dish under her nose to refocus her with the scent of chocolate.

“Kurt and I have been talking lately—” Kim reached in and took a piece of Dove dark chocolate, fortifying herself for a heavy-duty conversation “—about having another baby.”

My stomach took a roller-coaster ride from peak to valley and up again.

“Wesley will love a baby brother or sister! That’s wonderful….”

Frankly, Wesley has become a bit of a tyrant, having control as he does of two entire households—Kim’s and mine. It wouldn’t hurt a bit to have a new baby around, someone who instinctively knows how to establish a dictatorship. It may seem absurd to think of a baby as a despot, but I can’t think of an autocrat more qualified to put Wes in his place.

My excitement evaporated when I saw the expression on Kim’s face. “Isn’t it?”

“Of course it is!” she blurted, and burst into tears. At that moment, a flurry of activity erupted as my cats, Mr. Tibble and Scram, growling and hissing, rolled together past our feet in a single absurd kitty ball.

“Ignore them,” I advised.

“Won’t they hurt themselves doing that?” Kim snuffled.

As she spoke, Mr. Tibble tired of the game and went limp, as if his bones had liquefied. Scram tumbled halfway across the room by himself before he realized he’d been abandoned, then stood up and marched off huffily, his tail straight in the air in a gesture of disdain.

I’d insulted Mr. Tibble deeply when I introduced Scram into his peaceful kingdom, but he’d taken on the kitten with aplomb, taught him who was boss and generally made Scram a being subservient to his own royalty. Just like what Mitzi tries to do with us at work.

“So tell me about this new-baby conversation,” I urged, “and why it makes you cry.”

“If we don’t hurry up, Wesley will be grown-up. I don’t want a large age gap between him and a baby brother or sister.”

There’s not much danger of being all grown-up when one still sucks his thumb, refuses to sleep without his blankie and demands Cheerios in church, but when Kim is emotional, logic flies out the window.

“What’s stopping you?”

Kim looked pained. “Kurt is worried about my health. He’s been on the Internet trying to find out if getting pregnant with my personal history of breast cancer will increase the risk of the cancer recurring.”

“And…?”

“If the cancer returns while I’m pregnant, treatment options are limited. Chemotherapy can be given without hurting the baby, but it is not given in the first…