The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 42

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 42
Inside the Delivery Room.
William and Allen stood at the doorway, while Helen positioned herself at the Pregnant Woman’s lower abdomen, and the three of them faced off in tense silence.
Helen’s voice cut through the air, sharp and commanding.
“So you’ve come trooping in like a gang of outsiders! Don’t you know that unrelated men bring spiritual contamination to a birthing chamber? Out. Now.”
William fixed the old woman with a cold gaze, then turned to the homeowner with an accusatory look.
The homeowner was the one caught off guard.
He scrambled to salvage the situation.
“These gentlemen have considerable experience in obstetrics, and I thought perhaps they might prove helpful…”
“Contamination! Get them out!”
Helen would not bend.
Allen paused to take stock of the situation, then quietly but firmly stepped into the room.
Helen fixed him with a predatory stare, but he paid no mind and began to speak in measured tones.
“We’ve come not to question your skill as a midwife, but to understand the feelings of a guardian grasping at any lifeline available.”
Allen’s eyes were already tracing the Pregnant Woman’s breathing pattern and complexion.
“You were here first and matters are proceeding well, so I won’t touch the delivery itself. As a physician, I’ll merely observe the patient’s pulse and uterine contractions—and if unforeseen danger arises, then I’ll intervene. You focus entirely on bringing the child into the world.”
Helen stared at Allen for a long moment, her anger seeming to ebb, before her lips curled into a thin, bitter smile.
“There won’t be any need for you to step in.”
“Then that would be fortunate indeed. I don’t wish for such a moment to come either.”
A snort escaped Helen’s nose.
She turned her body back toward the Pregnant Woman’s lower abdomen.
“Fair warning—this child is in Breech Presentation. If you came here thinking to meddle with half measures, abandon that notion now.”
At the sharp rebuke, Allen answered only with a brief nod of acknowledgment.
Then he leaned close to William beside him and spoke in a low voice.
“I’ll take the mother’s vitals. If anything goes wrong, I’ll need you to perform a Forceps Delivery.”
But William’s face had already drained of color.
“Sir… The truth is, I’ve never performed a Forceps Delivery in Breech Presentation.”
……
Allen’s pupils shook.
While he possessed broad knowledge of obstetrics, his skill with Forceps was scarcely more than a child’s level.
After all, in Dreamland, Forceps were merely “artifacts of a fading past.”
“…We can only hope it ends without incident.”
Allen genuinely prayed for Helen’s success.
It would be best for everyone.
Shortly after, a maidservant entered and placed a Brazier with a Small Pot upon it.
While William separated the blades of the Forceps and sterilized them in boiling water, Allen placed his fingers on the Pregnant Woman’s wrist to check her pulse.
“Eighty-five beats per minute. Regular. Breathing is deep and stable.”
Allen spoke in a low, clinical tone, and Helen’s eyes flicked toward him briefly.
The corners of her mouth curved into an enigmatic arc.
Just then, as a maidservant moved to draw a curtain to shield the lower body, Helen barked out a command.
“No need. The external area won’t be visible from over there anyway. Just hang it low enough so they can only see my arms and face.”
It was a declaration that she would share the clinical view in real time as a medical professional.
Allen felt a quiet admiration stir in him, and an unexpected sense of kinship.
Though their beginning had been confrontation, before a patient balanced between life and death, they walked the same path as colleagues.
“Nnnngh……!”
The Pregnant Woman’s moan marked the onset of true labor pains.
“Push hard and long, as if trying to expel my hand,” Allen instructed gently.
He pressed softly on the Uterine Fundus, guiding the direction of the contractions.
Beyond the curtain, Helen’s shoulders bent forward deeply.
The child was being pushed downward, buttocks first.
In that moment, Helen’s elbows moved with sharp precision.
“The child’s keeping its legs straight,” she muttered.
Helen grumbled as she worked.
“Though I doubt you’ll understand what that means!”
Of course, Allen understood.
Extended Breech.
A difficult position—legs stretched toward the face with knees unbent.
And he could guess what Helen would attempt next.
Pinard’s Maneuver.
Helen’s hand pushed deep into the uterus, pressing against the child’s inner knee.
As her knees bent naturally, she extracted one leg after the other with practiced efficiency.
Allen seized the interval between contractions to press gently on the pregnant woman’s abdomen, opening more space.
Helen’s eyes, locked in struggle below, widened with shock.
‘This man?’
His ability to read the rhythm of delivery perfectly and move in concert with it was extraordinary.
Helen found herself forced to withdraw the judgment she’d made earlier—that he was an ignorant surgeon who knew nothing but instruments.
The infant’s abdomen emerged shortly after.
Helen quickly located the umbilical cord, confirmed its pulse, then carefully formed a loop with enough slack that the cord wouldn’t be drawn tight.
Allen monitored the pregnant woman’s condition in rhythm with Helen’s movements, wetting her parched lips with a wet cloth.
“Doctor, the forceps are sterilized and ready. I’ve laid them out on the linen,” William whispered as he approached.
Allen nodded silently at his words.
“Let us hope there is no need for them.”
The pregnant woman caught Allen’s eye as he brought the wet cloth to her forehead again, offering a small nod of thanks.
“Thank you.”
Allen assured her with a smile.
“You’re holding up remarkably well.”
It was not an easy situation.
Yet the pregnant woman was managing splendidly.
But as the infant’s shoulder blades began to emerge, an alarm descended on the delivery room.
The baby’s arms had folded back over its head and caught against the pelvis—a nuchal arm entrapment.
To make matters worse, the pregnant woman’s pulse climbed past 110, and her breathing grew ragged.
The situation deteriorated in an instant.
“My hands… my hands are numb. I can’t breathe…”
The pregnant woman’s complexion drained of color in moments, and her consciousness began to slip.
‘Hyperventilation syndrome!’
The carbon dioxide in her blood was plummeting dangerously, paralyzing her limbs—a critical emergency.
As the pregnant woman’s body convulsed, Helen’s cry tore through from beyond the drape.
“If she keeps moving, I can’t free the arm! Hold her still!”
Allen pinned the pregnant woman’s shoulders and shouted toward William.
“William! Fetch the leather pouch, now!”
William rushed forward and thrust the leather pouch into Allen’s hands—the one that had held the forceps.
Allen fitted it over the pregnant woman’s mouth and nose, crying out urgently.
“Breathe deeply! Don’t hold your breath—exhale slowly into the pouch! Helen, now! Turn her!”
As Allen pressed hard along the pregnant woman’s abdomen diagonally to open space, Helen seized the fetus’s pelvis and wrenched it sharply through a 180-degree rotation.
It was Lovset’s maneuver.
Then another 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
After a harrowing twist where the pregnant woman’s cries and Helen’s shout of effort tangled together, the infant’s arms finally slipped free one after the other.
After a few moments of deep breathing into the pouch, the pregnant woman’s stability returned.
Allen wiped his sweat-damp forehead and exhaled in relief.
‘That was close to catastrophe.’
The immediate crisis had been contained.
“Ahhhh…”
The pregnant woman moaned weakly.
Allen dried her perspiration and whispered to her.
“You’re doing wonderfully. Just a little more—you can do this.”
The delivery was entering its final stage.
With the arms already freed, only the head remained.
William, who had been piecing together the situation from sound alone, seemed to release his tension with a short exhale. “Phew.”
He had thought the forceps would not be needed.
But Allen did not miss the sudden darkening of Helen’s expression.
Something was going wrong below.
‘Surely not head entrapment.’
The nightmare scenario where the remaining head lodged firmly in the birth canal and would not emerge.
Allen urged the pregnant woman to summon her last reserves of strength.
That was when it happened.
“I… I’m too exhausted…”
The pregnant woman murmured as though groaning, and her uterus, which had hardened momentarily like stone, suddenly went slack and flaccid.
Allen felt a chill run down his spine.
‘Uterine atony!’

Without proper medicine on hand, if the uterus stopped contracting, there was no way for the child to come out.
Allen pressed his hand firmly above the mother’s pubic bone.
“This is it! One final push, please! William! Pull her to the foot of the bed! Get her hips over the edge!”

There was no longer time to worry about propriety or curtains.
As William pulled the pregnant woman’s lower body to the bed’s edge and lifted her legs, the fetus’s body slumped downward with gravity.
Helen didn’t miss the moment—she cradled the infant on her arm, then hooked her fingers inside the baby’s mouth and pulled the chin down.
It was Mauriceau’s Maneuver.
Allen watched in silent admiration.
‘So the stories of her experience were true. She knows exactly what to do in any crisis, never loses her composure.’
The theories that Dreamland’s finest minds had refined over centuries, this old woman had mastered completely through instinct and experience alone.
She was too talented to be confined to a backwater like Dunford.
But admiration was short-lived. The situation deteriorated to catastrophe.
Helen’s face flushed crimson, the tendons in her wrists bulging like rope.
Allen pressed from above while Helen worked from within, both exerting every ounce of strength, yet the fetal head remained lodged behind the pubic bone without moving a single inch.
The mother had already lost consciousness and could push no further.
At last, a groan of despair escaped Helen’s lips.
“…It won’t work. It’s wedged tight in the pelvic inlet. There’s just no room.”
Allen clenched his teeth.
If this continued, the child would die of hypoxia.
The umbilical cord was strangling it.
He turned urgently to William.
His face too had hardened into stone.
“William.”
“Yes… yes?”
“Can you do it? Can you manage with the forceps?”
“I… I’m not sure.”
William’s manner made clear he wanted nothing more than to escape the situation.
Allen gripped his shoulder hard.
“You’re the only one who can.”

“We have to attempt the forceps.”
“But if I fail?”
William turned to Allen with wavering eyes.
“If I intervene wrongly here…”
“The Dührssen Incision and Symphysiotomy remain as last resorts.”

William’s eyes widened.
“Master Allen, can you perform those?”
“To be honest, I cannot. I only know what must be done. But if you cannot do this, I will attempt it immediately. It’s preferable to losing both mother and child.”

“I’m asking you, William.”
The Dührssen Incision that tears the cervix by force, and the Symphysiotomy that severs the pubic symphysis.
He understood the methods.
But in unskilled hands, they could cause urinary incontinence, massive hemorrhage, and permanent mobility impairment.
Allen could not vouch for his own competence.
At last, William nodded.
“I will do it.”
“Good.”
Allen then turned immediately to Helen.
“We’ll attempt this together.”

Helen bit her lip hard.
Yet her judgment was swift.
This was no time for pride.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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