The Baby Trail

by Sinéad Moriarty

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you need to start immediately. Acupuncture is known to help fertility. Now, I go to a great girl called Sheila who treats me for my hay-fever. Here’s her number. Call her and tell her you’re a friend of mine. She’s a miracle-worker and it’ll help you unwind from all those other tests.’

  ‘Thanks, Amanda,’ I said weepily. ‘Thanks for being so nice.’

  ‘Come on now, blow your nose and make me look beautiful. Only this time try not to injure me in the process.’

  I booked an appointment with Sheila on day eleven. I arrived feeling very sorry for myself. I had just been for another ultrasound, and as usual no big blobs had appeared on the screen. Sheila answered the door in a floor-length turquoise kaftan. She had long red hair tied back in a big plait and she smelt of incense. ‘Hello, Emma, come on in,’ she said, beaming at me.

  I followed her into a room at the front of her house. It was painted a pale shade of lilac and smelt of lavender. Sheila sat me down and gently talked me through the last year and a half of my life. It was like therapy. I felt I could tell her anything. I talked and talked, and she nodded sympathetically and took notes, lots of notes, pages and pages of notes – I had a lot to say. We discussed my digestion, lifestyle, stress levels, eating habits, drinking habits, sleep patterns … my whole medical history as well as my family’s.

  I wanted to move in with Sheila and spend the rest of my life in this calm, lavender-scented room. She was totally sympathetic and said all the symptoms I was feeling were normal and a lot of her patients were having the same treatment I was and finding it equally stressful. She explained that acupuncture had been practised in China for many thousands of years but had only become known in the West fairly recently. She said that the success rate of acupuncture in aiding fertility was extremely high, especially when done in conjunction with hormone treatment. She added that every individual was treated uniquely as the exact combination of causes of imbalance within the body is different for everyone.

  ‘A number of factors have to be taken into consideration, and that’s why I had to ask you about any treatment you’ve had, your family’s medical history and your current emotional state. Now I’m going to ask you to lie back while I do a pulse reading to determine the flow of energy in your body and I’ll also check your tongue.’

  ‘My tongue?’ Shit, I hadn’t washed my teeth before coming – what if my breath smelt?

  ‘Yes, we can learn a lot from the tongue. Its texture and coating will indicate your general state of health.’

  ‘OK, but what about the needles? I’m not very good with needles. Does it hurt?’

  ‘You will feel only the tiniest pinprick, I promise.’

  Normally – particularly in light of the recent lies I’d been spun about tests not being painful – I wouldn’t have believed her. But something about Sheila made me trust her. Besides, she was a woman and women don’t lie to each other about pain.

  I lay back on the bed in the middle of the room and tried to breathe deeply as instructed. Sheila looked at my tongue and didn’t recoil, so my breath mustn’t have been too bad, and then she felt my pulse. She told me that my qi – which was my vital energy and is made up of yin and yang – did not feel balanced. My energy was not flowing freely and evenly. My flow of qi was blocked due to the emotional and physical stress I was under.

  She didn’t need to look at my tongue to figure that one out. One look at my blotchy face was a dead give-away. I tried to slow down my breathing and relax.

  Then Sheila took out her needles and began inserting them into my arms, hands, feet, ankles, tummy and head. The only time I winced was when she came at me with a needle that she wanted to insert into my face – between my eyebrows. I thought she was going to stab me in the eye. My arm jerked up to stop her. The needle ended up impaled in the palm of my hand which – judging by the look of horror on Sheila’s face – was not one of the energy points she was targeting. She extracted it and reminded me of the importance of remaining calm. Then, wedging the offending hand down with her leg, she inserted the needle in my forehead.

  She turned down the lights and told me to relax. Within five minutes, despite the fact that I was half-naked, with needles sticking out of all corners of my body, I fell asleep. Twenty minutes later Sheila had to wake me up. I felt wonderful, as if I was floating. I felt relaxed and at peace. It was fantastic. I loved Sheila. I loved acupuncture. I felt positive for the first time in ages. It was going to work. Now that my qi was unblocked, my blobs would get bigger.

  26

  It was a miracle. Two days after the acupuncture, when I went for my next internal ultrasound, I saw a big black blob on the screen. Tom measured it and smiled. ‘It looks good, Emma. It’s significantly bigger than the others. Come back in two days and we should know for sure.’

  I was elated. I was going to live in China for ever. Acupuncture was the way forward. Sheila had performed a miracle.

  Two days later and the blob was huge. I was ovulating. Alleluia. I raced home and rang James. ‘I’m ovulating. Come on, quick, come home, we need to have sex now.’

  ‘I’m in the middle of a meeting. I’ll call you back when I’m finished.’

  ‘No. I need you to come home now, James.’

  What was he doing? It was vital that we had sex now. Right now, while I was ovulating.

  ‘I’ll call you later.’

  ‘No, James, come—’

  He’d hung up. I flung the phone across the room. It had taken four and a half months to get to this stage and now he was going to ruin it by coming home late and the egg would be gone, or shrunk or whatever. We needed to have sex now. I was hyperventilating as I paced the room. The hot flushes were coming fast and furious. I was damned if I was going to wait another minute. I grabbed my car keys and drove like a lunatic to the rugby club. Grannies dived into bushes for cover as I rammed the car up on the pavement to overtake slow drivers. I was bright red and sweaty by the time I got there. I stomped up the stairs to James’s office.

  I could hear voices, but nothing was going to stand in my way. I was a woman with a mission. I flung open the door. James and two older men in suits turned to stare at me.

  ‘Hi, sorry to disturb you but I need to speak to James urgently,’ I said, glaring at James, who was glaring back.

  ‘Sorry, gentlemen, will you excuse me, please?’ said James, coming over to me and frogmarching me out of the room. ‘What the hell are you doing, Emma? I’m in a very important meeting. I told you I’d call you back later.’

  ‘I don’t give a toss about your stupid meeting. I’ve spent the last four and a half months taking hormones and undergoing the humiliation of having my legs constantly in stirrups. I’ve just been told that I’m ovulating so we need to have sex now. Not later on, not in an hour — now.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ said James, dragging me further away from his office. ‘I’m in the middle of a meeting with my boss. We’re discussing the revamp of the clubhouse. I can’t leave the meeting so will you please just go home. I’ll talk to you later.’

  ‘I don’t care about your stupid boss. We have to have sex now. Come on, stop talking and come into the loo with me. It’ll only take a minute,’ I said, dragging him towards the ladies.

  ‘EMMA,’ said James, now as red in the face as I was. ‘Go home and calm down. An hour or two will make no difference.’

  ‘That’s the whole bloody point. It does make a difference. Come on, just come in here for a quickie.’

  I grabbed his shirt and began to tug. James pulled away and we began a tug of war, until I heard a rip and fell backwards on to the ground with half of James’s shirt in my hand. Buttons flew everywhere. James looked down at his now exposed chest.

  ‘Well, that’s just fantastic. Thanks, Emma. You’ve managed to make a complete fool of me. I have to go back into that meeting with a ripped shirt,’ said James, trying to tuck the shreds of his shirt back into his trousers.

  ‘
I’m sorry, but—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it. Just go home,’ snapped my fed-up husband, as he stomped off holding his shirt closed with both hands.

  I went and sat in the car and cried. I knew I was turning into a nutter but we did need to have sex as soon as possible. What was the point of going through the treatment if we weren’t going to follow it up with the sex? Part of me was annoyed with James for not understanding how important it was to get our timing exactly right. But I knew I’d have to make it up with him if there was any hope of having sex that day so I bought him a new shirt and when he came home I was wearing just the shirt and a pair of high heels. He walked straight by me – ripped shirt flapping – and went upstairs to have a shower. He was obviously still raging. I waited for him to come out and contemplated whether to bring out the Rampant Rabbit to surprise him, but decided against it. James wasn’t a sex-toy type of guy – at least, I didn’t think he was. As I tried to picture him in leather chaps brandishing a whip, the real James came into the room wrapped in a towel.

  ‘Sorry about earlier. I got you a new shirt. D’you like it?’

  James had his ‘serious chat’ face on.

  ‘Emma, this has got to stop. I understand that the drugs are making you moody, but storming into my office and ripping my shirt off in front of my boss is just not on. You have got to calm down.’

  ‘I know I went too far today but I can’t help it, James. I’m pumped full of hormones. Do you have any idea what that’s like for me? I think half the time I’m going insane. I’m either sweating like a racehorse or crying or wanting to murder someone for looking at me sideways. I don’t know if I’m coming or going. It’s like I have no control over my emotions. I’m sorry about today, but what’s the point of putting myself through this hell if we don’t have the sex?’

  ‘We will, just not in the middle of a meeting. A couple of hours isn’t going to make any difference. You’ve got to get that into your head. And getting yourself into a state about it isn’t going to help either. Larry said his wife went through IVF and the most important thing of all is to be relaxed and positive.’

  ‘Larry?’

  ‘The architect who was in my office today with my boss.’

  ‘You discussed our private business with a complete stranger?’ I said – turning into my mother.

  ‘It was hardly private after you stormed into my meeting and ripped my shirt off. I had to explain why I was half-naked when I went back in. Thankfully, Larry had been through something similar so he understood because Eddie just looked shocked.’

  ‘Fuck Eddie and Larry and his stupid relaxed wife,’ I snapped, hormones taking over again.

  ‘Eddie’s my boss, Emma.’

  ‘I don’t care, I—’ I stopped. I realized that if we had another argument, we wouldn’t have sex, and sex was more important than me trying to ram the point home that the hormones were making me crazy. Let’s face it, he could see that.

  ‘So do you like the shirt?’ I purred, as I began to unbutton it.

  ‘What?’ said James, taken aback by the sudden U-turn in the conversation.

  The phone rang.

  ‘Leave it,’ I said, as James picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hi … No. No plans … Yeah, sounds good … See you there.’

  By the time he hung up I was having a savage hot flush and the shirt was stuck to my back. I was furious at the interruption. ‘Who was it?’ I snapped.

  ‘Donal. We’re going to meet him and Lucy for drinks now so you’d better hop into the shower.’

  ‘But we can’t, James, we—’

  ‘Emma,’ said James, firmly, ‘we’re going to go and have a few drinks, relax and enjoy ourselves, and when we come back we’ll have sex. Now, go and get dressed.’

  I looked at my watch. It was now five hours since the test and by the time we got home it would be eight or nine hours. Still, it was better to have relaxed sex than fighting sex. I didn’t want an angry baby. It would be nice to see Lucy. I hadn’t seen much of her lately as she’d been travelling a lot with work and spending her spare time with Donal. They seemed to be getting on well. It would be the first time the four of us had been out together so it would be fun, I thought, trying to jolt myself into a good mood.

  Half an hour later we were sitting in the pub beside a cosy fire and I was feeling better. Lucy looked happy and comfortable with Donal. It was weird at first, seeing them together as a couple. They were in the honeymoon phase where nothing the other person did annoyed you. All the little idiosyncrasies – that would later drive them round the twist – were still ‘cute’. It was like when I first met James and I thought the way he chewed each bite of food thirty times before swallowing it was sweet and now it drove me insane. I always finished my meal at least half an hour before James. He laboured over every bite as if it was his last. Lately – no doubt due to the hormones – I had been tempted to put my hand into his mouth and shove the food down unchewed. At least I had managed to control that particular urge.

  Donal was telling the story of Lucy meeting his niece Annie the week before, and how well they had got on and how Annie thought Lucy was beautiful and cool and glamorous … I looked at Lucy as he was telling the story – she was positively glowing. It was nice to see her so happy. She looked at me and I beamed at her. She beamed back. I was thrilled for her: she so deserved to meet someone who thought the world of her. I nodded towards the loo and we both got up and went in for a chat.

  ‘Oh, my God, Lucy, he’s besotted with you. It’s great,’ I said, hugging her.

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Of course I do. The way he looks at you and talks about you – he’s smitten.’

  ‘I really like him, Emma. I can’t believe it because at first I thought he was such an oaf. But underneath it all he’s lovely – all manly and protective. We still fight, but I’m definitely falling for him. Big-time.’

  ‘I’m so glad. You deserve to be happy. It’s as if you’ve been going out for years. You’re so yourself with him, it’s great.’

  ‘It’s the first time I can remember feeling totally relaxed with someone. I’m not constantly worried about holding my stomach in or wondering if my makeup is perfect or if I’m wearing the right clothes. I actually don’t care because he doesn’t care about that stuff. We’ve only been seeing each other properly since we went coursing and that’s four months ago, but I feel as if I’ve known him for years … and the sex is fantastic’

  ‘Four months? My God, Lucy, I can’t believe we haven’t seen each other in so long. It’s crazy.’

  ‘I know, and chatting on the phone isn’t the same as meeting up. It’s just been really hectic with work and Donal.’

  ‘Look, you’ve been busy and so have I. I seem to spend all my spare time in hospital, these days. We’ll have to make a deal to meet up once a month for dinner. I want to know everything about you and Donal. He’s obviously really serious about you – the fact that he introduced you to Annie is a huge sign.’

  ‘I was really pleased about that, and thank God she liked me.’

  ‘And why wouldn’t she? You’re fantastic. It’s great, Lucy, it really is. You deserve every bit of it,’ I said, getting all tearful.

  ‘Stop, you’ll start me off,’ said Lucy, her eyes welling as she gave me a hug. ‘Now, enough about me, how are things with you? Are you OK?’

  I didn’t want to moan. It wasn’t fair for her to have to console me when she was so happy. ‘Fine, thanks. The hormones seem to be working at last, so fingers crossed.’

  ‘Good. I know it’ll all work out for you, Emma. It will, honestly. You’ll be a mum in no time.’

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and we went back in.

  Two drinks later and I felt really drunk. I was totally light-headed and slurring my words like George Best on a bad day. After three glasses of red wine it was a bit odd that I was so smashed. The others thought it was funny and laughed about what a cheap date I was, bu
t I knew it was the drugs because I never normally got drunk so quickly. James decided he’d better bring me home, so we were back in our house at ten o’clock. Him, very slightly merry. Me, very drunk.

  I stumbled upstairs, got undressed, put on the new shirt I’d bought him and the high heels, and fished the Rampant Rabbit out of the wardrobe. I went downstairs, jumped on top of James, who was lying on the couch and stuck the vibrating Rabbit ears up his nose. The look of shock on his face set me off and I fell off the couch laughing, the Rabbit still shaking in my hand.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘It’s the … ha-ha … it’s the … ha-ha … best-selling sex toy in the world. Look, it has different speeds,’ I said, howling as I increased the vibration.

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Babs ordered it on the Internet to spice up our sex life.’

  ‘Why does she think it needs spicing up?’ said James, looking a bit put out.

  ‘Dunno. ’Cos I’m not pregnant, I guess,’ I said, giggling at the jellyfish thing vibrating.

  ‘I see. All right, then, up you come,’ said James, lifting me over his shoulder like a fireman, legs buckling under the weight. ‘Bring the Rabbit – I’ve always quite fancied a threesome.’

  27

  I spent the next two weeks constantly poking my boobs, to see if they were tender, and feeling nauseous – although I didn’t know if that was because of the drugs, stress or the longed-for pregnancy. As those weeks went by I felt different. I felt a change in my body. I was tired, my breasts were tender and I was convinced I had that funny metal taste in my mouth that pregnant women talk about – although it might have been my fillings. I had never been more sure of anything in my life: I was pregnant. So, when my period was late, I charged out to buy two pregnancy tests.