‘Thank you for coming. I know it’s a long way.’ I paused, sad to be saying goodbye. ‘I guess I’ll see you both at the twelve-week scan?’
‘Definitely, we can’t wait,’ Justin said. ‘Oh, but you’ve got the seven-week scan next week, don’t you?’
‘Yep, so I’ll call you as soon as I’m done. It’s booked in for next Wednesday. It’s a shame you’ll miss it.’
From the front lawn, I waved until the silver hatch veered around the corner out of sight. I knew the boys couldn’t make it to every appointment, yet it felt odd that I’d experience the first glimpse of their baby without them. I’d see the bundle of fleshy cells clinging to my uterine wall, looking more like a kidney bean than a baby. I’d see the technician moving the transducer over my belly, measuring and calculating, the heartbeat flickering on the screen, and hear the thump, thump, thump. Jon and Justin would experience through my words the first signs of life – the life of their child. It would be that way for the duration of the pregnancy: day-to-day accounts, month-to-month advances, all my encounters relayed. I stood alone for a moment, hugging my stomach. Responsibility as huge as the sky rested upon me. I would be the bearer of good or bad news for the remainder of the pregnancy, the keeper of their child – I was accountable.
I can do this, I can, I said to myself, setting back my shoulders as I walked to the door.
Hunched over the bath on the last night of our holiday, I clutched the side of the vanity. My eyes watered as I vomited up remnants of my lunch. I twisted the tap on, white-knuckled, to wash it away. I coughed and blinked, tears spilling from my eyes. Everyone else sat in the dining room, chomping on spring rolls, spooning up mouthfuls of fried rice and Mongolian lamb. The sensation had come over me within seconds, and I’d run from the couch, panicked.
‘Are you all right?’ Racho whispered as I shuffled back into the lounge room.
‘I think so. I shouldn’t have waited so long between meals. I should’ve known better.’
‘Well, there’s a big plate of Chinese on the table for you when you’re ready.’
‘Thank you,’ I said weakly. Andrew guided me to sit down beside him on the couch, tossing cushions aside, rubbing my back. He smelled of frying oil and garlic.
‘Are you sick, Mummy?’ Keira tottered over, flaky remnants of spring rolls on her lips, eyebrows knitted together, an oily little hand resting on my knee.
‘Yes, honey. Sometimes when a lady grows a baby in her tummy, it can make her feel a bit sick.’
Keira wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, the corners turned down in a frown. ‘Poor Mummy, Baby JJ made you sick.’
I closed my eyes, let a smile soften my features, her words washing over me, a current of warmth.
Baby JJ made you sick.
Yes. There in my womb, making me sick, Baby JJ, no longer a possibility.
Baby JJ was a reality.
15
A kidney bean and a heartbeat
It annoyed me that I had to guzzle a litre of water in one go before a pelvic ultrasound. I understood why it was necessary, but it still annoyed me. My apparently pea-sized bladder combined with my desire to be healthy – drinking more than two litres of water a day – means I’m always off to the toilet. I have to plan for it. I know where every toilet is along the Pacific Highway from home to the Gold Coast – I’ve used them all on the numerous journeys over the years to visit my nanna Agnes. When I was a child, my father would roll his eyes, tsk at me and refuse to pull over the car during the eleven-hour drive to Bathurst to see his family. I’d hold on as long as I could before it became so uncomfortable that I’d beg him to pull over.
The transfer had been bad enough and here I was again reluctantly filling up on a litre of water before the seven-week scan. A belly full of water and terrible nausea is not a good combination.
Apprehensive about taking the first glimpse of a baby that wasn’t mine, I had asked Andrew to come with me to the ultrasound appointment and hold my hand. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel when the stark reality hit me – a baby growing in my belly, its tiny heart thudding, relying on me to survive. I sat in the waiting room, trepidation sloshing around inside me. Jaxon had come too, but luckily Keira was at day care, so we didn’t have to worry about her three-year-old self bumbling around the consultation room, pulling on cords, nattering and antagonising her brother.
‘Jaxon, can you believe we’re going to see Baby JJ today?’ I said, gripping my knees together as the urge to pee swelled through me like a king tide.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But will it look like a tiny baby?’
‘Actually, it won’t, it’s too early for that. Baby JJ will look a bit like a kidney bean, but we’ll be able to hear the heartbeat. Won’t that be amazing?’
Jaxon nodded as a man with a mop of wiry white hair stepped into the waiting area and called my name. I gathered up my bag, holding out my hand for Jaxon to link his fingers with mine.
Moments later I lay on a bed, the room dim, my shirt lifted, belly exposed. I wriggled my toes, busting, nervous. I drew in deep breaths, felt my hands fidget. Andrew settled Jaxon on a swivel chair next to the bed, pointing at the screen that would broadcast the wonderment of Baby JJ into the room.
I had never wanted to hear a heartbeat more. Of course I had yearned to hear my own babies’ heartbeats at their scans, but right now the pressure was enormous. I’m so sorry, but there was no heartbeat. It’s over. I couldn’t bear having to ring Jon and Justin after the appointment to say such a thing, enter such a nightmare. I felt crushed under the weight of that thought. Thud, thud, thud, that was all I wanted to hear, not the chitchat between my husband and the ultrasound technician, Tom; not Jaxon swirling in circles on the chair, singing a song; not my silly thoughts, whispering that maybe the baby I carried no longer lived.
‘Okay, let’s find this heartbeat,’ Tom said, running the transducer over my stomach.
I ceased to breathe, my gaze locked onto the mash of black and white images pulsing on the screen.
Then: thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. There it was, like the sound a miniature pony’s hooves would make as it ran on the bare earth. Strong, steady, the beat soothed me, making way for a flood of happiness.
‘That’s good . . . isn’t it?’ I asked, my gaze fixed on the kidney-bean shape.
‘A hundred and forty-four beats per minute, that’s perfect. Everything looks the way it should. Congratulations.’ Tom smiled, busy entering figures into the computer.
I glanced at Andrew then Jaxon, eyes welling with joyous tears. ‘Look, Jaxon, it’s Baby JJ.’
Andrew placed his hand on my leg, offering a squeeze. Everything looked good, advancing as it should. We could relax in the knowledge that, for now, Baby JJ was healthy and growing. Surely nothing could go wrong . . .
‘Is this your second child?’ Tom asked.
‘No, it’s my third pregnancy. I have two kids of my own, but this time around I’m a surrogate and the parents couldn’t be here today, so I’ll be relaying the news. They’re in Sydney.’
‘Oh, well then . . .’ Tom hesitated. ‘I haven’t come across this situation in my career before.’
I could sense that he wanted to question me further but his professionalism superseded his curiosity. ‘Right, from the bub’s measurements the expected due date is the third of December,’ said Tom.
I nodded, pondering the thirty-three weeks that lay ahead. Right now the due date seemed years away, but in reality – and from past experience – I knew it was just around the corner.
Tom wiped the gel off my stomach, and Jaxon slid down from his chair. He placed his hand on my shin, shaking it back and forth. ‘Is it over, Mum?’
‘Yes, honey. We’ve finished now.’
‘But the baby didn’t even do anything.’
I chuckled and shot a look at Andrew, lifting my hand to my son’s face, caressing his cheek with my thumb. ‘No, darling, the baby’s too small at the moment. It has lots of growing to do bef
ore it’s moving around.’ I studied Jaxon’s boyish features, the confusion in his eyes – at the age of four, it was hard to work out.
He was young but in time I hoped he’d come to understand so many things – that he and his sister would always be my world, one I’d orbit like the moon, their pull, magnetic – and later in life he’d understand why Mummy chose to do such a thing as carry a child for another couple, and I hoped he’d come to appreciate the utmost importance of love and kindness.
I moved through the next few weeks fuzzy in the head, hollow in the stomach and constantly sleepy. Each morning when I woke I’d sit up in bed and assess the situation in my body. Often I’d rush into the bathroom and vomit into the hand basin. I just couldn’t bring myself to vomit into the toilet – my head deep in the bowl, clutching the toilet seat.
Andrew would moan from our bed, ‘Are you okay?’
I’d moan back, cry and whimper as I wiped my lips with a tissue, holding my hands over my stomach, shaking. Sometimes I’d stare at myself in the mirror, breathing heavily, red-rimmed eyes looking back at me. I’d prop myself up on the vanity, arms locked straight as my shoulders sagged, desperate for rest. Keira would toddle into the room, screwing up her nose at the smell yet gazing at me with such compassion it brought me to tears. I had no control over what my body did to me and at times I felt hopeless, a puppet pulled one way then another.
In public I tried to appear fit, healthy, with a zest for life, but at home I crumbled, falling asleep mid-afternoon after a carb feeding frenzy I called my second lunch. I wanted everyone to think that I was coping with the decision I’d made. I didn’t want it thrown back in my face, people telling me I’d asked for it. The nausea was always a possibility – I’d been through it before to varying degrees – but in the lead-up to the transfer I had told myself it was a small price to pay. Now, though, in the thick fog of early pregnancy, it was hard to see the end goal.
Day in, day out, I lived with the nausea. I analysed everything I ate and drank, hoping that something would put a stop to the sinking feeling in my stomach. I consumed bags of organic corn chips and popcorn, rye bread with honey, bananas, apples, nuts and plates of hot chips – my Paleo diet coming to an end. I had a daily craving for baked potatoes smeared with butter and garlic and covered with sour cream, grated carrot and cheese. It was all I could think about, and it gave me a couple of hours’ reprieve from the sickness. Jon and Justin paid for some seasickness pressure-point bands to wear on my wrists in the hope that they would help but unfortunately nothing seemed to dim the urge.
At night I’d sit at the dining table, pushing my carrots around the plate with a fork, head resting heavily on my hand. I’d close my eyes, drifting off amid the chatter: Jaxon discussing his day at preschool, Keira complaining about having to eat her broccoli, Andrew asking how I was feeling. At the end of each day I felt as though I’d run a marathon. I’d have to push myself to wash up, brush their teeth, read the kids a story and sing them a song. Most nights I’d fall asleep on their beds as I mumbled the words to ‘Hush Little Baby’ or ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’.
I continued to visit Kim weekly for acupuncture. She did her best to boost my energy levels and diminish the nausea, but it was something I had to live with, at least until I was fourteen weeks pregnant, the point at which relief had come with my previous pregnancies. Several times I fell asleep on the treatment table, snorting as I came to. Kim stood by the bed, fresh-faced, waiting for me to compose myself. She’d distract me with stories of her life. She’d studied acupuncture in London while working at a bookshop in the London University, doing her research at the British Museum Library. I enjoyed hearing of her adventures in the UK; it reminded me of my time there with Andrew after we were married, riding the Tube, raising pints in pubs, and travelling to exotic destinations like the Maldives, Spain, Turkey and Egypt.
‘You’ve got this, Shannon. Just take each day as it comes. If it’s anything like your previous pregnancies, you’ll be free of the nausea in a month or so.’
‘I was never this sick with Jaxon, only Keira. Maybe it’s a girl,’ I said, lifting my eyebrows, smiling.
‘Perhaps it is. Only time will tell,’ Kim said softly, resting her hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ll leave you to rest for a while.’
Every few days Jon and Justin would text, asking how I was. I thought it best to speak lightly of my nausea and tiredness, inform them I was well, coping. I didn’t want to make them feel guilty, and I presumed they’d never truly understand. Could a man comprehend the changes a woman’s body underwent during pregnancy, all that the female anatomy had to go through? In response, their sympathy and gratitude shone through. It wasn’t easy, they knew that, and I’d prepared them before the transfer that the first trimester could be hard.
On 21 April I received a message that Karen had given birth to a healthy baby boy, so Tenille and I rushed down to the hospital to congratulate her and Mark.
Karen sat up in bed, surrounded by flowers, cards and balloons, her cheeks rosy, exhaustion overrun by bliss. As she held her son in the secure comfort of her arms, staring down at his button nose, faint eyebrows and parted lips, I began to cry. Tenille wiped at her eyes too, and I dug through my bag for a packet of tissues, handing her one, bundling up another in my palm.
‘Karen, you did it. He’s here.’ I leaned in and kissed her cheek, savouring that subtle baby smell.
‘I did. He’s finally here with us.’ Karen tore her gaze from her son, eyes big with wonder, achievement – the air a new mother proudly exudes when she holds her little one, both of them wrapped in a new love, a whole love.
As Tenille chatted to Karen and Mark, I focused on the life inside me, marvelling in the knowledge that the kidney bean I saw on a screen weeks earlier would grow to look just like Karen’s son, a perfect baby.
I blotted the tissue to my eyes, let out a chuckle through my tears. Karen glanced up at me, smiling.
The words I was about to say were for Karen and Mark, but I knew that in a few months’ time I’d say them again, to the two men I’d grown to love, Jon and Justin. ‘I’m just so happy for you both.’
16
Stick with me
There’s nothing like the sight of blood in pregnancy to get your own blood pumping. It’s terrifying. On 10 May I had my first glimpse into the terror of a possible miscarriage – a spiralling panic that rids you of control, brings you to your knees.
Now ten weeks pregnant, I woke early, groggy, and shuffled to the toilet, surprised that I didn’t have the urge to vomit. I sat down, rubbing my eyes, half asleep – an affliction that would stay with me for the remainder of the day. I looked down to check the toilet paper, my automatic ritual since the first day I returned a positive pregnancy test. Each time it had been clear and I’d been happy in the knowledge that everything was all right, Baby JJ was staying put. But today panic seared through me when I saw the blood-soaked toilet paper. My heart hammering, I scrabbled for more paper, wiping again. More blood, bright red blood. I swallowed the dread that balled in my throat, and squeezed my eyes shut.
‘Babe, I’m bleeding.’ My voice shook. ‘What should I do?’
Andrew got out of bed, walked towards me with hands on hips, eyes half closed. ‘Ring the hospital.’
Panicking, I nodded again and again. ‘Yep, that’s what I should do. I’ll ring them now.’ I stood up, flustered, and opened the drawer in the vanity, grabbing a sanitary pad. I found my phone, fumbling over the icons, and clicked on Google to search for the number of the local hospital.
I dialled, hands trembling. As the phone rang, I thought of the boys, wondered if I should have called them first. Did they need to know before I spoke with a midwife? Was it fair to cause panic for nothing? But what if it wasn’t nothing?
Confused, I moved the phone away from my lips and whispered to Andrew, ‘Should I call the boys?’
He shook his head. ‘No, find out what the hospital says first. Then go from there,’ he mout
hed.
‘Hello, Maternity, Donna speaking.’
‘Oh, hello, my name is Shannon. Ah, I’m calling because I’m ten weeks pregnant and I’ve started bleeding this morning.’
‘Okay, are you experiencing any cramps, any pain?’
I froze, evaluating my body, searching for twinges, a pinch of pain. ‘No . . . not at the moment.’
‘Is the blood red or brownish? Watery?’ Donna asked.
‘It’s blood red. Should I come in?’ My heartbeat peaked on the word blood.
‘Unfortunately, if you’re experiencing a miscarriage there’s nothing we can do about it, so there’s no point coming into the hospital. I suggest you lie in bed, rest and let nature take its course.’
My stomach flipped. Let nature take its course. What course? I couldn’t lose the baby, not after ten weeks, after months and months of preparation. It wasn’t my baby to lose. I tried to speak, my gaze darting between Andrew and the floor. I wanted to yell at her, Help me! I don’t know what to do!
‘If you have cramping and pain, more bleeding, I’d say you’re losing the pregnancy, Shannon,’ said Donna, her voice tinged with regret.
No. No way. I can’t lose this child. Jon and Justin can’t lose their baby. I clung to the fact that I hadn’t experienced any cramping or pain. Perhaps it was an unexplained bleed that would just go away?
After saying goodbye to Donna I hung up the phone. I felt as though I’d been sent off to war, bracing myself for impact, for a death.
Andrew cleared his throat, his voice meek. ‘You do remember I’m supposed to go to Byron Bay today?’ He winced, sheepish.
Through my swirling thoughts I barely registered what he said. ‘Huh?’
‘I’m going to Byron to see that band, with the boys.’
I placed my hand on the small swell of my belly, cradling life, encouraging. I reached for the bed, sat down as if I was burdened with the body of a ninety-year-old. ‘But you can’t. What about the kids? The midwife said I need to rest.’
Labour of Love Page 13
