She's Having Her Baby

by Lauren Sams

  ‘Oh my god, I can’t wait to do all that stuff with her! God, isn’t it great that you have a girl? This is going to be so much fun. You can take her to high tea and go shopping and get her ears pierced and take her to the ballet and read her Eloise. But you also have to make sure she plays soccer, and plays with toy cars and watches movies without princesses, too. That stuff is really important, George …’

  ‘Nina?’ She stopped in the middle of her daydreaming and looked up at me.

  ‘Mmm?’ she asked, her voice distant and hazy.

  ‘We can do this together, you know.’

  Nina nodded half-heartedly, biting down on her lip to keep from crying. She stared down at her jeans.

  ‘I mean it, Neen. Will you help me? This baby’s going to need someone who knows to check the bath temperature and buy baby Panadol and when to start reading it Spanish … And I’m going to be shit at those things.’

  She looked up at me again. ‘No, you won’t. You’ll learn,’ she said softly.

  ‘Will you do it with me?’ I felt Pippa’s tiny little heart beat away, fast as a racehorse, against my chest.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Live with us. You could move into my new place with us. Be Pippa’s second –’

  Nina shook her head, cutting me off. Her eyes widened and pulled her chin back a little, surprised. I’d gone too far; it was the hormones. Stupid, predictable hormones. ‘No, just her First and Best Aunty.’

  ‘Right.’

  I sank back against the bed and willed myself not to say anything else. It was clear that my brain was still recovering from all that concentrating on pushing a human out of my body.

  Pippa moved with me and for a brief moment I thought, maybe I can do this by myself. I had just moved an inch and Pippa had moved with me. We were in sync, essentially the same person.

  But then I realised these are exactly the sort of ludicrous jumps your mind makes when you are brimming with post-partum oestrogen.

  ‘Do you really want me to move in?’ Nina asked, and I thought I heard a note of hope I hadn’t heard in her voice in a long time. ‘What if I meet someone new? What if we end up hating each other? What if you turn into Ellie? What if I turn into Ellie?’

  I laughed. ‘We’ll make a deal. You tell me if I’m heading for an El-down, and I’ll tell you. Deal?’

  When I’d been at Jolie, I’d hated stories iwht happy endings. When the writers turned in stories that were too neat, too perfectly wrapped up, I asked for more. Life isn’t like that, I’d argued. Nobody ever got cancer then fell in love with their oncologist and had a baby and bought the pink house they’d always dreamed of and started a cupcake business and had things turn out happily ever after. There had to be more to the story. If the story was too ‘nice’, I didn’t believe it. Where was the drama, the twist, the realness of it all?

  But now I wanted the neatness. I wanted things to be wrapped up in a lovely red bow. I didn’t want it for myself. Well, not entirely for myself, anyway. I wanted it for Nina, and for Pippa, too. What was so wrong with a happy ending, anyway?

  ‘Um …’ Nina’s voice wavered.

  Pippa stirred on my chest, her eyes fluttering before they fell back to her face, content with sleep.

  I looked at Nina. She was looking down; I could tell she was upset. Fuck. Hormones again. I’d pushed her too far, too soon.

  ‘Sorry, Neen. It’s too soon. I just got a bit carried away.’ I rolled my eyes, embarrassed.

  So much for the happy fucking ending. Like I’d always argued, life was better than that.

  ‘No, no, it’s … it’s a deal.’ Nina looked up, her face shiny with wet tears. She reached across to hold my hand. ‘It’s a deal.’

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, to Kelly Fagan: thank you. This never would have happened without you. To Jeanne Ryckmans: you are my publishing fairy godmother, the most stylish woman I know, and the woman I would like to be some day. Thank you for everything.

  To my mum, Rochelle Franks, who babysat tirelessly to allow me to write: thank you for being you and importantly, for not being Georgie’s mum (except for the Kate Middleton-loving bit). It’s one thing for a parent to encourage their kids to chase their dreams as kids, but you’re allowing me to chase mine as an adult, and that is really something special (and has not gone unnoticed).

  Thank you also to my gorgeous parents-in-law, Maryann and Robert Sams, for all your help, love and support.

  To Kirstie Innes-Will, thank you for your brilliant edits. You are so clever and this book is better for having your input.

  To everyone at Black Inc. and Nero – Sophy Williams, Caitlin Yates, Imogen Kandel, Anna Lensky and Elisabeth Young – thank you for taking a chance on me.

  To everyone who taught me to write, in particular Maryanne Grosvenor, Adrian Wels and Jessica Parry, thank you. It is one of the chief joys of my life.

  To everyone who shared their infertility stories with me, thank you. Nina’s struggle is not unique – not at all – which was the sad impetus for writing this book in the first place. I hope that you find what you’re looking for.

  To the hilarious, intelligent, dedicated women who make up the Cosmo crew – thank you. I am honoured to work with you every day.

  To Rachel Kunde at Surrogacy Australia, thank you for your technical advice.

  To my Nan, Sonya Franks, who gave me Pippa’s name, thank you. I miss you constantly.

  To Laura Collins, who came up with the name Jolie, thank you. You practically wrote this whole book.

  To Amy Edwards, thank you for knowing how to make a website (and then doing it for me). You are amazing.

  And finally, to my amazing husband, David, and to my inimitable daughter, Annie, thank you. You have changed my whole world and I am so, so grateful to have you. Annie, I promise not to be like Ellie. Much.

  READING GROUP QUESTIONS FOR

  She’s Having Her Baby

  1. With Georgie deciding to go ahead and have the baby she has never wanted, does this novel put the case that, deep down, all women want to have kids? Do you think that every woman wants to have kids, even if they say they don’t?

  2. What do you think about surrogacy? Could you do it for someone? What do you think motivates people to become surrogates?

  3. Why do you think Georgie agrees to have Nina’s baby? Does she think her decision through well enough? Or is it the kind of decision you can’t be rational about?

  4. Ellie describes Georgie and Nina as ‘closer than best friends’ (page 109). Is Georgie and Nina’s relationship unusually close for a female friendship? Is it an equal friendship?

  5. Is Ellie a good friend to Georgie? Can she be excused for not coming to Nina’s birthday parties? Whose side do you take in the argument between Ellie and Georgie on pages 251 to 260? Have you had any friendships change when one of you had a baby and the other didn’t? How did the friendship change?

  6. Is the character of Ellie realistic? Or is she a parody like the baby book that she gets Georgie to read? What about the other mums in the playground? Are they exaggerated or true to life?

  7. Do you think Georgie will become like Ellie when she has her baby? Will Nina become like Ellie? Does one parent need to be like Ellie?

  8. If you are a mum, how has your mothering turned out differently to what you’d expected or planned? Are there things you swore you’d never do that you NOW find yourself doing? Have the changes been superficial or central to your identity? If you aren’t a mum but plan to be one eventually, how do you think you’ll change?

  9. We’ve all heard the cliché that mothering is the hardest job in the world. Is it?

  10. Georgie is worried about her identity if she has a baby: ‘Who would I be if I had a baby?’ (page 151), she wonders. Work is important to her, and when she leaves Jolie she says something similar: ‘I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t at work. I didn’t make any sense without something to do’ (page 205). Do you think work will be as important to her after
she has the baby? Did your attitude to work change after you had kids, or do you think it will? How do you balance your work and home life?

  11. Georgie is passionate about Jolie, seeing printed magazines as better than websites. What do you think about glossy magazines? Do you agree with Georgie, or with people who think they are ‘silly and unimportant, that all they do is advertise lipsticks’ (page 165)? Has your reading moved to the online space?

  12. How do you think Nina’s mum dying has affected her? And how has it affected Georgie? What about Georgie’s relationship with her own mum? Georgie doesn’t want to end up like her mum when she becomes a mother (page 154), but does she come to appreciate her in the end?

  13. Are women better at friendship than men, as Georgie’s old classmate Adam thinks?

  14. The mother who accosts Georgie in the supermarket queue says that pregnancy is all about ‘realising that everything you’ve done up to that point has been worthless’ (page 2). Do you agree?

  15. ‘Why did married people always assume that once you were couple up your life suddenly looked like a Julie Andrews movie?’ (page 7). Have you encountered this attitude? Have you been guilty of this attitude? Can Georgie be happy and single? Or are you still holding out hope for a romance with Colin?

  16. How do you think Georgie and Nina will go looking after Georgie’s baby together?

  17. Did you expect a fairytale ending for Georgie and Jase? If you were Georgie, would you have refused Jase’s offer of marriage? Would you say the book has a fairytale ending anyway?

  To download reading notes for She’s Having Her Baby, visit www.nerobooks.com

  COMING SOON FROM NERO

  Successful hubbie? Tick. Facebook-worthy baby? Tick. Bikini-body six weeks after giving birth? Um … not so much.

  Fashion PR exec Ally Bloom got her happy ending. Okay, her marriage might be showing the odd crack, her battleaxe mother-in-law might have come to stay, and she might not be the yummy mummy she’d imagined, but it’s nothing a decent night’s sleep and a firm commitment to a no-carb diet won’t fix.

  But when Ally returns to work and finds she’ll be reporting to a 22-year-old airhead, she decides to turn her back on life as a professional fashionista and embrace her inner earth mama instead.

  So it’s out with the Louboutins and champagne and in with the sensible flats and coffee mornings with the Mummy Mafia. From attending her first grown-up dinner party only to discover that placenta is top of the menu to controlling her monster crush on local playgroup hottie Cameron, Ally must find her feet in the brave new world of the stay-at-home mum.

  SNEAK PEEK FROM

  CONFESSIONS OF A ONCE FASHIONABLE MUM

  1

  #FashMum #playgrouphell

  #remindmewhyI’mhereagain?

  Nine forty-five, Tuesday morning. In normal life I’d be:

  a. knocking back my second grande soy latte of the day, courtesy of the work-experience girl who’s now sulking in the samples cupboard because coffee runs really aren’t part of her job description

  b. busy convincing some puffed-up fashion editor that fluoro-print parachute pants really are about to make a comeback, even though in truth none of us would be caught dead in them

  c. sending out a press release that would literally change the face of fashion as we know it.

  In short, as Senior PR of the prestigious fashion label Moda, I’d be a very important person doing very important things.

  Instead, I was here. At Happy Mummies Time. In a dirty school hall, surrounded by twenty badly dressed mums and their snotty-nosed kids, as we all pretended to be having the time of our lives. Oh, hang on, that was just me: everyone else, it seemed, really was having the time of their lives.

  ‘And now for the Sing Song!’ announced our self-appointed leader, Nikki, a brusque Mama Superior type in no-nonsense hiking sandals and a dog-hair-covered fleece.

  A cacophony of delighted yelps and whoops filled the air, and before I knew it they were all plonking themselves down cross-legged on the floor with the fluid ease of lifelong yogis.

  I hesitated. Being forced into close contact with the questionable hygiene of an assembly-hall floor was a bitter childhood memory I’d managed to suppress until now. And this time the lack of hygiene wasn’t even in question: only moments before, we’d all seen little Crystabella demonstrate how she could yank up her dressing-up frock, pull off her dirty nappy and slide butt-naked across the floor. And the real kicker? Her mother had found the whole thing so completely adorable, she’d made her do it all over again so she could catch it on her iPhone.

  If God could have granted me superpowers beyond surviving on three hours sleep I’d have rewound eighteen months and shown my flat-bellied, pre-baby self a snapshot of this. So this is what you want to swap your fancy job and your gorgeous clothes and your monthly magazine allowance for? Really? Is it?!

  For a second I thought about grabbing Coco and making a run for it. But then I looked down at my excited baby girl, covered eyebrow-to-chin with the remnants of Mama Superior’s 100 per cent free-range, sugar-free chocolate crackle, and realised that one of us was very happy indeed.

  Sing Song, here we come.

  I eased myself down awkwardly onto the floor in my still-two-sizes-too-small Sass & Bide jeans, and artfully positioned Coco on my lap so that no-one would be forced to see my gut spilling out of my pants if they suddenly gave out.

  ‘How would our new mummy like to lead the Sing Song?’ asked Smug Mummy, Mama Superior’s eagle-eyed wingman and another fan of the Velcro-strapped hiking sandal.

  I glanced around the circle to see who this clever Sing Song–singing new mummy was.

  Oh shit, she was looking at me.

  I thought about her question for a moment. Hmmm, let’s see. In terms of desired activities, leading Sing Song would sit somewhere between stabbing hot forks into my eyeballs and reliving the second stage of labour. In slow motion.

  ‘Sure,’ I beamed. ‘I’d love to!’

  ‘Great. Shall we start with ‘Fruit Salad’? We’ve got props!’ Mama Superior pulled a hemp bag labelled ‘Fun Time’ from the jaws of one of the drippy-nosed twins, and presented the room with an armload of musty-smelling old junk that might once, a very long time ago and by an extremely generous stretch of the imagination, have resembled apples and bananas.

  As Snotty Twin One wailed and the assembled mothers oohed and aahed as though they’d just been presented with the secret to everlasting youth, it occurred to me that there must be an app out there for calculating how long it would take – in seconds – until Coco turned eighteen and I would finally, mercifully, be free of all this.

  ‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘Now, remind me how it goes.’

  Cue much laughter and tut-tutting from around the circle.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ asked Smug Mummy. ‘It’s a Wiggles song. Surely you know The Wiggles?’

  ‘Of course I know The Wiggles. As a matter of fact I’ve met the Wiggles. The original line-up.’ I let that sink in, looking around to see who was impressed. Not a sausage. ‘Coco and I just, you know, prefer our music a little more current.’

  ‘Do you have a suggestion?’ asked Mama Superior, pointedly stuffing the knitted fruit back in its hempy hideaway.

  ‘What about that Nicki Minaj song?’

  ‘Nicki Minaj,’ she repeated, throwing me a hefty dose of side eye.

  ‘Yes, Nicki Minaj. You do know Nicki Minaj, right? ‘Anaconda’ is actually an incredibly empowering song. Which you’d all know, if you weren’t so busy listening to “Fruit Bloody Salad”.’

  Silence. They all looked at me aghast, as if I were some foul-mouthed bogan crack whore who’d taken a wrong turn off the Parramatta Road and accidentally landed in their hallowed midst.

  Ugh. Where’s a grande soy latte when you need one? This was going to be a long morning.

  *

  So why, you might ask, were we even there? For the answer, we’ll need to backtrack a couple of weeks
to an early morning appointment with my GP, Dr Krudnic.

  I’d only gone in to grab a repeat for my eczema cream (burning, scaly skin of the sort most commonly seen on a blue-tongued skink being yet another unfortunate side effect of the stress and interminable boredom of child-rearing that nobody bothers to warn you about). But once I got there, she’d started peppering me with all sorts of questions about how I was finding motherhood and whether Matt and I were still having sex.

  ‘Oh, it’s great,’ I said, bouncing Coco maniacally up and down on my knee, as if I’d suddenly developed Tourette’s. ‘Having Coco has given me a deeper understanding of what love really is. Just looking at her fills my heart with joy, and I thank Matt every day for the precious gift we’ve created together.’ I couldn’t remember the exact words Drew Barrymore had used in her People magazine interview about the birth of her second child, but I figured it was something along those lines.

  Twenty seconds later, Dr Krudnic was holding the baby and I was a blubbering mess, literally sprawled across her examination room floor.

  ‘Have you considered the possibility you might be depressed?’ she said.

  I stared up at her, dumbfounded. No offence to anyone suffering from mental health problems, but in my family’s vernacular ‘depression’ was just a polite way of saying ‘complete and utter loser’. Perfectly fine in other people, of course, but we Humphries were supposed to be above such things. In this regard, my family was a little bit like the Royal Family. It didn’t matter how crap you felt about all the horsey-looking ex-girlfriends your husband had secretly tucked away on his country estate, or how many times your wife was photographed sucking on other people’s toes; keeping that stiff upper lip firmly in place was all that really counted.

  ‘I’m not depressed,’ I said. ‘I’m just fat and bored, and the thought that I’ve got to do this for, like, forever makes me want to slit my wrists.’

  She gave me one of those heavy, pensive looks doctors do so well, while Coco gently gnawed away at the stethoscope around her neck. Hmm, how do I deal with one so stubborn? I could see her thinking.