by Kate Hewitt
Most of all I know how much Milly has wanted a baby, what a great mum she would be, and if this news is really bad, I know how devastated she will feel.
I also know how much I will need to be there for her, as I always have been, as I always will be, because Milly is my best friend and she’s been there for me time and time again, starting when I showed up to the first day of secondary school looking as overwhelmed and lost as I felt, and Milly marched right up to me and declared that we were going to be friends. I stared into her small, determined face, and felt a wave of relief break over me. It was going to be okay now, I thought. Finally something in my life was going to be okay. And it was.
* * *
That evening, I weave through the tables in Harveys Cellars, the underground wine bar in Bristol’s old city that Milly and I have always used as our regular. I find her in the back, legs wound around a high stool, sipping a large glass of red wine. Her expression is closed and shadowed, her wild, dark hair tamed into a neat ponytail. When she looks up at me, I see a terrible depth of grief in her eyes, and wordlessly I pull her into a quick hug.
She returns it tightly, burrowing into me for a second, before she pulls away, dabbing at her eyes. ‘I don’t want to fall apart completely,’ she explains in a shaky voice, and I ache for her.
‘What are you drinking?’ I ask.
She shrugs. ‘The house red, whatever it is. I wasn’t too bothered.’
Matt’s the foodie of the two of them, insisting on pairing a proper wine with whatever meal they’re having. I’ve eaten enough happy suppers at their kitchen table to know how he likes to talk about bouquets and hidden notes and all the rest of it. ‘All right,’ I say, trying to pitch my tone somewhere between cheerful and sympathetic. ‘I’ll get one, and a refill for you.’
Milly shakes her head. ‘No, I’m driving. I can’t get drunk, as much as I want to.’
When I return to the table with a glass of wine, Milly has nearly finished hers already, and she sits with her chin in her hands, her expression resigned yet determined. She almost looks angry.
‘So the news wasn’t good?’ I knew she’d gone in for a discussion about the scan she’d had a week ago, along with a battery of other tests. Milly had been buoyant, determined to get some answers and finally be able to deal with the situation, but I’d felt more cautious. I always do. Milly can get carried away on a tide of resolute optimism, while I tend to hang back. Wait. Observe. I think that’s why we’ve worked as friends; we balance each other out.
‘No, it was just about the worst news I could get.’ She glugs the last of her wine and then looks up, her face bleak. ‘I can’t get pregnant, Anna. There isn’t even the smallest chance.’
‘What?’ In shock, I listen as Milly tells me all the details – even I, in my cautious, over-worrying way, hadn’t thought it would be as bad as that. ‘Milly, I’m so, so sorry.’
‘I feel selfish, being so sad about this,’ she says as she rotates her wine glass between her palms, her gaze lowered. ‘I mean, this is a first-world problem, you know? So I can’t get pregnant; there are other solutions, and having a baby isn’t everything. I know that. I do.’
‘But it’s still your problem. Your grief.’
‘Yes.’ She presses her lips together. ‘It’s just… it’s so hard to let go of that dream, you know? A baby that’s like me and Matt. Someone who is actually related to me. It’s never going to happen now.’ She sighs, a shuddering sound. ‘But I’ll get over it. I have to.’
She straightens her shoulders, determined, as always, to be brave. I reach over and squeeze her hand, and she gives me a quick, trembling smile.
‘So what are you going to do?’ I ask after a few minutes of heavy silence. ‘Have you thought ahead yet?’ Milly is a determined planner, marching towards some shining destination or other – a promotion, a bigger house, an exotic holiday, a marathon. Whatever it is, she has always gone after it with resolute optimism, taking Matt along with her, and often me. When I would have just wavered or wobbled or simply stood still, Milly has pulled me along. I don’t think I would have survived secondary school without her. I almost didn’t.
‘I don’t know. Dr Finlay mentioned some options, but I can barely get my head around them.’
‘Adoption?’ I suggest, and her expression tenses a little.
‘I don’t want to adopt.’ For someone who is adopted herself, she sounds surprisingly firm. She holds up one hand as if to forestall any protests I might make, although I wouldn’t. ‘Look, I’m very glad I was adopted, of course I am, and my parents are wonderful. I love them to pieces. But it still has its complications, you know?’
‘Yes, it must,’ I say after a moment. Milly’s adoption has not been something we’ve discussed very much in our two and a half decades of friendship. She told me quite matter-of-factly that she was adopted that first day of year seven, and that seemed to have been both the beginning and end of the subject, a fact that had to be got out of the way before we could move on to other, better things.
‘It’s just…’ Milly blows out a breath. ‘Mum and Dad never wanted me to look up my birth mother, and so I never did.’
‘Did you want to?’
‘Yes, when I was a teenager, I became curious, but I could see that it would devastate them.’ She purses her lips. ‘And it’s not just about that. It’s always been such a thing. I can’t explain it exactly, but I’ve always felt this… this weight. The fact of my adoption always has to be trotted out at various events, in schools, with friends. “These are my parents but I’m adopted.” It’s the hashtag to my life.’
‘I didn’t realise.’ I’m surprised Milly has never told me this before; she has always acted as if her adoption didn’t matter, and I genuinely believed it didn’t. I love Milly’s parents. They practically became my own in my turbulent teenager years, when my parents were constantly battling each other and then me. They’re low-key and loving, warm without being effusive. Her mum sends me a birthday card every year, and always hugs me when she sees me, a real hug, the kind where you know the person means it. The kind I never got from my own parents.
‘I don’t talk about it that much because I feel guilty for feeling that way, even just a little. And it is only a little, really.’ Milly lets out a sigh. ‘My parents have never been anything but completely loving and generous to me, and I know that if I did adopt…’ She pauses, her forehead furrowing, her voice catching. ‘It’s just, I really wanted to feel that connection. My child kicking inside me… knowing they were and always will be a part of me.’ She swipes at her eyes, the gesture impatient. ‘If we adopt, I’ll never have that. I won’t have it anyway. I can’t now.’ Her voice breaks and she covers her face with her hands. ‘Sorry,’ she gulps between her fingers. ‘I really didn’t want to fall apart. I’m trying not to. It just keeps hitting me, over and over, a shock every time.’
‘You don’t have to be strong all the time,’ I tell her gently, and Milly does not reply. I reach over and touch her arm. I want to make this better for her; I want to solve it, the way Milly does so often with me. How many times has she brainstormed with me, found solutions? You want to meet more people? Let’s join the gym. You don’t like your boss? Let’s look into changing jobs. The gym worked out, the job change didn’t, but Milly is always about answers. Without her, I’d just stay in stasis. ‘There must be some way forward,’ I tell her, injecting a Milly-like note of determined optimism into my voice. ‘Some kind of IVF… there are so many fertility treatments these days…’
Milly shrugs, dropping her hands from her face. ‘Dr Finlay mentioned the possibility of IVF with an egg donor, but that seems a bit weird, you know? I just place my order for an egg, from someone I’ll never even know? Besides, the waiting list is something like two years minimum, and it’s incredibly expensive if you do it privately.’
I try to dredge up everything I know about egg donation, which is very little. ‘Still, you’d get to carry your own child.’
‘Someone else’s child,’ Milly interjects, and I shake my head.
‘It would feel like yours. You’d be the one growing a baby, giving birth. Really, donating an egg? It’s practically like giving blood.’
Milly gives a small smile. ‘Not really, Anna. It’s quite invasive, from what Meghan said. I can’t imagine doing it myself, knowing there was a child out there that looked like me, that was mine in some way… not that it’s a possibility now. Obviously.’
‘Still, I don’t think it’s like that.’ I’m not sure why I’m being so stubborn. I don’t know the first thing about egg donation.
‘Perhaps not, but with the waiting list and the expense… I’m not sure it’s really viable for us.’ Milly shrugs, and I sip my wine.
An idea is forming in my head, taking shape like an elegant sculpture emerging from the mess of damp, wet clay, but I know I need to think about it. I certainly shouldn’t blab it out to Milly right now, when she’s feeling so raw and I don’t have all the facts.
But this is Milly, my best friend, the one person in the world who has been there for me, time and again. I picture her in year seven, shouting at some mean girls poised to bully me. I remember her in year nine, when someone wrote something rude about me in the boys’ toilet – completely unwarranted at the time – and she marched in there and covered it with Tippex. And then I recall how she found me at my absolutely lowest point, how she rescued me from the depths of my own despair, and never asked any questions, because I couldn’t bear to give her the answers.
‘What if you didn’t have to go on the waiting list?’ I blurt, knowing I should think through this first, but unable to stop myself because this is Milly.
She stares at me blankly for a second, before her eyes narrow. ‘What do you mean?’
I hesitate, knowing I shouldn’t be suggesting such a thing so soon, without doing any research, without thinking about how it might affect me or Milly, but I feel in the depths of my being that this is the right thing to do. For Milly. And maybe even for me. ‘You said you can go privately with these things, right?’ A cautious shrug is her assent. I can tell she still doesn’t know where I am going with this, and I wonder if I do, really. And yet I keep talking, because for once I can make it right for Milly. For once I can be the one who rescues. ‘If you have someone who is willing to donate an egg, you don’t have to wait – or pay. Right?’
Milly stares at me for a long moment, and I know she is starting to realise what I am getting at. She is beginning to see the sculpture. ‘Right,’ she says slowly. ‘In theory.’
‘Well, that would be something, wouldn’t it? I mean, if you wanted to go that route…?’
Milly leans forward, a new urgency lighting her eyes. ‘What exactly are you suggesting, Anna?’
‘I could give you… an egg.’ It makes me sound ridiculous, like a chicken. ‘If you wanted.’
Milly stares at me hard, her expression almost fierce. ‘Do you really mean that?’
Do I? I’m not even sure what it might entail, how I would feel, and yet… ‘Yes. Of course I do, Milly.’
‘But…’ She shakes her head slowly. ‘It’s an invasive procedure, Anna – weeks of hormone injections, monitoring, all sorts. I understood that much from what Dr Finlay said.’
‘I can manage that.’ I feel as if I’ve just catapulted myself into the deep end, the water closing in over my head, but I don’t regret it.
Milly’s eyes fill with tears and she shakes her head again. ‘That’s so, so kind of you, Anna. I mean it. But it’s not something we should decide right this second. I’d be asking a lot of you, and I don’t mean the injections. It’s such a big thing, for both of us. A really big thing. Bigger even than, I don’t know, a kidney or something.’
‘Technically,’ I joke, ‘a kidney is bigger than an egg by quite a bit.’
‘Yes, but… you know what I mean. DNA. A baby.’ She bites her lip. ‘That’s big. It would have… repercussions. Emotionally, I mean. It’s not something to jump into.’
A baby. The words reverberate through me and I have to look away. Yes, that’s big. I know that more than Milly will ever realise, and it’s another reason to say yes. One that Milly will never understand, and I will never explain it to her.
So I just smile and squeeze her hand. ‘You’re right, of course. We should both think about it, do some research. Know what we’re getting into. But the offer is there. I’d be honoured to do this for you, Milly.’
She smiles back at me, tremulously, and I push away any niggling doubts as I realise I mean every word. I want this. For Milly… and for me.
Three
Milly
My mind is racing as I drive home from being with Anna, and I feel a surprising rush of something close to elation, so unexpected after the despair and grief of earlier.
I hadn’t got my head around the various options yet; I hadn’t even begun to think of a way forward for our wanted family… and now, when everything had felt closed off and impossible, Anna has just thrown open a door. All I need to do is walk through it. It can be that simple… can’t it?
Matt is sprawled on the sofa, watching something mindless on Channel Four, when I come in, dropping my bag by the door. I still have some lesson planning to do for tomorrow, but I push it aside for now. This can’t wait, although part of me knows that it probably should, at least until I’ve done some research, thought about it a little. But I am buoyant with hope, alive with possibility, and I need to share that with Matt.
He glances up as I come into the sitting room. ‘How was Anna?’
‘Good.’ Although we didn’t actually talk about anything in her life. A pinprick of guilt needles me; I should have asked her about her job. I usually do, and Anna offers up a few details with some reluctance; she has always been an intensely private person. But tonight it was all about me.
‘And how are you?’ Matt asks, his voice gentling as he gives me a look of sympathy.
‘I’m doing okay, Matt.’ I sit on the edge of the sofa, tense and expectant. After nine years of marriage, I’m used to this dynamic: I race ahead with the plans, and sometimes I forget to bring Matt along with me, emotionally as well as physically. I’ve had to learn how to ease him in gently to my ideas – buying this house, putting himself forward for a promotion at work, trying for a baby. It takes him a little while, but Matt usually goes along with me in the end. And when he doesn’t, I try to slow down and rethink my plans, because I know I can be a bit impulsive, a little too recklessly determined. Matt tones me down and I liven him up; we complement each other. What we have works. And, in any case, this was Anna’s idea, not mine. I can at least float it by him.
‘Good. I’m glad you’re okay.’ He reaches for my hand, but they are pressed between my knees and so he ends up just resting his hand on my thigh. I smile, and he raises his eyebrows. ‘What, Milly?’ he asks, because he knows me so well.
‘So, I told Anna everything about, you know, today, and she came up with an idea.’ The words feel clumsy, the possibility too overwhelming to explain it in a simple sentence. I can barely take it in myself. Anna’s egg. My baby.
‘An idea?’ Matt prompts, his eyebrows still raised.
‘Do you remember what Dr Finlay – Meghan – said about using an egg donor, and IVF?’
‘A bit…’ He looks cautious, a little confused.
‘Anna’s offered to be our donor. It means we can skip the waiting lists, the expense of going privately. I could be pregnant in a couple of months, maybe even less.’ I am practically gabbling in my excitement.
Matt leans back against the sofa, his hand sliding off my leg. ‘That’s a big decision, Mills. And one I don’t think we should jump into.’
I fight a sense of deflation, even anger, at Matt’s understandable caution. Couldn’t he be the littlest bit excited? ‘I know that,’ I say steadily, ‘and I said the same thing to Anna. But the offer is there.’
‘Had she even thought about it, before she offe
red?’
‘Yes…’ Although I’m not sure she did. How could she have?
‘For a couple of minutes?’ He sounds so sceptical, and can I even blame him? Yet the more I think and talk about it, the more right it seems. Fitting, because Anna and I are best friends, almost like sisters.
‘Obviously she hasn’t thought about it in extensive detail,’ I say. ‘And we’re not going to make any decisions right now, Matt. But I wanted you to know. It’s a possibility. That’s all.’
‘Still, I don’t even know the first thing about egg donation or IVF. I can’t agree to something I don’t even understand.’
‘Why don’t we look it up?’
‘Right now?’ He looks startled.
‘Why not?’ Matt seems reluctant, and I feel a flicker of impatience, even hurt. ‘Look, it’s what it sounds like. We get Anna’s egg and it’s inseminated.’ Although I’m not sure if that’s the right terminology. Inseminated? Fertilised? ‘They make a baby in a test tube,’ I clarify, ‘and then they implant the embryo in me.’
And then I will be pregnant. The words feel magical now, a shimmering promise I can almost touch with my fingertips. Maybe it won’t be my DNA, but it will still be my baby. I will nurture him or her inside me; I will give birth. I will be a mother to my child. It’s the shining, silver lining to this otherwise towering cloud.
‘Okay,’ Matt says after a long moment. ‘I understand that. But how does Anna feel about it? Has she even thought about what it would mean?’
‘Not all the repercussions, not yet, and neither have I. We’re starting to think about it, Matt. That’s the point.’
Slowly he shakes his head, like the pendulum of a clock, back and forth. ‘I’m not sure I want to put Anna in this position.’
I prickle at that; he makes it sound as if I pushed her into it. ‘She offered, Matt. And what position are you implying, exactly?’
