by Jo Bartlett
‘Great, see you then.’ Somehow Jess had managed to pull off sounding casual, as if this sort of praise was what she’d expected all along. It was just a good job Dexter hadn’t noticed how much her legs were shaking.
Opening the door of her car and sinking into her seat, she looked around, checking Dexter wasn’t still standing close by before she allowed herself a little whoop of celebration. Maybe there really was a chance she could do this after all and take her life full circle. For the first time in a long time there just might be something to look forward to.
9
Anna looked at the clock in the staffroom for the hundredth time, as a wave of nausea threatened to take hold of her. She had the afternoon off to go to the private clinic where she and Brae had chosen to have their fertility tests, to get the results. Going to the GP in Port Agnes had felt strangely invasive. She didn’t want anyone who knew her personally to find out the test results before she and Brae did, and over the years of heading up the midwifery unit she’d got to know most of the GPs in the area. Even having them refer her and Brae for tests would have felt like a hotline to the Port Agnes grapevine, Hippocratic Oath or not.
The last half an hour at work had passed achingly slowly, because all she wanted was to be with Brae; he was the only one who really understood just how much was going on inside her head. There was a flip side though; every time the second hand on the clock made its way back up to twelve, she was closer to being told something she might wish she’d never heard. She just wanted a chance, that was all. Surely it wasn’t asking too much?
‘Are you all right, my love? You look a bit peaky.’ Gwen bustled into the staffroom, setting down her handbag on the desk, a waft of the perfume she was wearing making Anna cough. ‘Sorry, I’ve just given myself a couple of squirts of my new perfume and I think I was a bit overenthusiastic!’
‘What is it?’ Anna could taste the bitterness on her tongue, almost as if Gwen had sprayed the perfume straight on it.
‘It’s Aphrodisiac from Ann Summers. I bought it when I was in there getting some new underwear.’ Gwen grinned and Anna couldn’t help laughing. She’d been dreading how Gwen might finish that sentence and frankly nothing would have surprised her.
‘It’s very distinctive.’ Anna glanced at the clock again, the smile slipping off her face. It was almost time.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s up? Or I should I just mind my own bloody business, like my Barry’s always saying?’
‘I’m going for the results of some tests this afternoon.’ The words were out before Anna could stop them. Gwen wasn’t exactly known for her discretion, but there was something about her physically that reminded Anna so much of her mother. If the other woman had offered her a cuddle she wouldn’t have hesitated, even if there was a distinct possibility of being suffocated by a cloud of Ann Summers perfume.
‘Oh darling, it’s not… You know, the big C, is it?’
‘Oh God no, nothing like that!’ Guilt pricked Anna’s skin. There were people out there right now, far too many of them, waiting to get the results of tests far more terrifying that she was about to get. In an instant, and without even knowing it, Gwen had somehow given her more perspective than she’d had in months. ‘It’s fertility tests, to see why we aren’t having any luck.’
‘I’ll be keeping everything crossed you get the results you want, even my legs, and I usually only cross those when I laugh or sneeze!’ Gwen winked. ‘And if the worst happens, and you need a reason to look on the bright side, losing control of your bladder is a lot less likely to happen if you haven’t had kids! And there are other benefits too.’
‘Such as?’ Anna was genuinely curious, knowing how much Gwen adored her children and grandchildren.
‘You can go wherever you want to at the drop of a hat, without having to pack a million bags or organise a babysitter. You’ll be much better off financially and you can take up wild hobbies or extreme sports without worrying about your kids, plus you’ll get to lie-in. But best of all you get to keep that lovely fiancé of yours all to yourself and, let me tell you, I’d douse myself in Aphrodisiac if I had the chance of a few hours on my own with someone like Brae, never mind a lifetime!’ Gwen laughed and Anna had to agree – there would definitely be some upsides to having Brae all to herself, if it had to come to that.
‘Oh and then there’s the sex.’ Gwen was deadpan as she looked in Anna’s direction again. ‘When my Andrew was born he had the biggest head I’ve ever seen on a baby; he looked like a lollipop bless him and I was worried the weight of it might mean he’d never stand up! Thank God he grew into it pretty quickly, but for the first year after I had him, Barry said it was like chucking a chipolata down the lifeboat station slipway whenever we had some alone time. And, to be honest, I couldn’t disagree.’
Anna was still laughing to herself when Brae picked her up from the car park outside the unit. She wouldn’t tell him the story yet, just in case they needed something to cheer them up later.
Anna was frantically trying to read the doctor’s expression as he sat in front of them with the file that contained their destiny. He was a fertility specialist, though, who probably gave out good and bad news on a daily basis, so he’d no doubt become an expert at wearing a mask of impassivity.
‘Well the good news is that neither of you have chlamydia.’ For a moment Anna thought it was the doctor’s idea of a joke, but he was nodding reassuringly. ‘That means there’s unlikely to be any damage to the fallopian tubes, which I know you were worried about, and the scans and X-rays bear that out.’
It had been a particular concern of Anna’s, given that it was the reason for Jess’s infertility and meant there was zero chance of her falling pregnant without IVF. Brae had only needed two tests, one for chlamydia and one for his sperm count. Anna’s list had been far longer, involving the scans and X-rays the doctor had mentioned, injecting dyes and taking blood. If they could rule out Brae’s only other test, if there was a problem, it was definitely down to her.
‘What about the sperm count?’ Anna looked at the doctor as she spoke, knowing what he was going to say before he even said it.
‘It’s excellent.’ He turned towards Brae. ‘Well above average for a man of your age. In fact the number, shape and motility are all excellent.’
Brae just nodded, but for a second or two Anna wondered if the doctor was going to hand him a certificate. Something he could hang on the wall to prove he was a so-called ‘real man’, and an above-average one at that. Anna already knew that, though. Brae was way above average in every way. Swallowing hard, she cleared her throat.
‘And the rest of my tests?’
‘As I said, there are no issues with the fallopian tubes, the lining of the womb, or the womb itself, all of that is functioning exactly as it should.’ The doctor pressed his lips together as he paused. ‘The issue really comes down to what your FSH levels tell us about your ovarian reserve.’
‘What does that mean?’ Brae asked the question that Anna already knew the answer to. She’d spent far more hours reading it all online than she wanted to admit.
‘Women are born with all the eggs they’re ever going to have and, naturally, as a woman gets older, her egg reserves diminish. The tests show that Anna’s are lower than we’d expect, even for a woman of her age.’ The doctor turned back towards Anna again. ‘I’m afraid they’re closer to the levels we’d expect in a woman in at least her mid-forties.’
‘So I won’t be able to get pregnant?’ Anna held her breath. She needed to hear him say it out loud, before she had any chance of moving on, and she gripped Brae’s hand all the tighter.
‘It’s highly unlikely. I’m sorry.’ To his credit, the doctor genuinely looked like he meant it. ‘You could try a drug like Clomid to stimulate release of your remaining eggs. It’s far from a guarantee of success, but it’ll give you the best chance there is of a pregnancy, although I’m afraid it’s still pretty slim. It’s an option we could talk about once
you’ve had the chance to process everything I’ve told you, to see if you think it’s worth trying. I can give you some information on all your options to read through together.’
‘What about IVF?’ Brae suddenly sounded like the desperate one, clutching on to the last bit of hope there might be.
‘Using your own eggs?’ The doctor sighed. ‘I could sit here and encourage you to give it a go, tell you that it happens. But the truth is, you’d almost certainly be throwing your money away and putting immense stress on yourselves for a tiny chance of success. If you want to go down the IVF route, then the best shot you’ve got, which has pretty good odds, would be to use donor eggs.’
‘From a much younger woman.’ Anna said the words, not needing anyone to acknowledge them. So that was it, she was obsolete on the baby-making front. Like an old iPhone that no longer ran the apps everyone wanted to use. It might be kept on the bedside table and used as an alarm clock, but it was no good any more for the purpose it was designed for and neither was she.
Brae handed the menus back to the waiter after he’d taken their orders. He’d insisted on coming out for a meal to celebrate the fact that their tests had suggested there was still a chance of Anna getting pregnant, even if she didn’t see it that way. The doctor had said ‘highly unlikely’, but in her head it had translated as ‘never going to happen’ and she had to be the realist if she was going to be able to come to terms with it and consider their other options, instead of holding on to what she saw as false hope. She could have assumed it was easy for Brae to celebrate – after all, he was probably capable of repopulating an entire country, should the need ever arise – but it wasn’t. She could see in his face that he’d much rather have been the one ‘at fault’. She had to keep those words in, though. For the first time ever, she was having to run through in her head what she said to Brae, before the words came out. She couldn’t give even a hint that she regarded herself to be to blame, or he’d be hurting even more than he already was. It was brave faces all round.
‘There are loads of articles online about women in their late forties getting pregnant.’ Brae held up his phone. ‘I found some when you were on the phone to Ella.’
‘You know why those pregnancies made it into news articles, don’t you? Because it isn’t the norm. There’s about a three per cent chance of me falling pregnant with the FSH levels I’ve got without any treatment and it’s still a real long shot even with the fertility drugs.’ Anna squeezed his hand. She didn’t want him holding on to hope that was no longer there. When Ella had rung to ask for some advice about a patient, Anna hadn’t wanted to tell her the results over the phone. She needed to work out in her own head, and with Brae, where they went from here. ‘The worst thing about this is that there won’t be another you running around.’
‘One of me is more than enough.’
‘There could never be too many for me.’ Looking across at him she meant every word. Her journey to having a family had started off from a desire to replicate what she’d had with her parents, but now it was about Brae more than anything else. ‘I bet you were the cutest kid.’
‘You’ve seen some of the photos. Morwenna especially loves getting the ones out where I had to have a frosted lens on one side of my glasses, until my eyes corrected themselves. I’m not sure even a mother could call that cute!’
‘You were, though, like a red-headed version of the Milky Bar Kid.’ Anna smiled at the thought.
‘I always wanted to be a policeman rather than a cowboy. I had the uniform with a little high-vis jacket and everything. My absolute favourite thing was arresting Morwenna, although I have to say she always put up a really good fight, being a good bit older than me.’
‘Did you have a lot of holidays, or was the squabbling too much for your mum and dad to bear?’
‘Not really. Mum and Dad worked long hours in the shop, and Morwenna wouldn’t be seen dead with me in public once she got into her teens, so I spent a lot of time on my own, until Jasper came along.’ Brae still had photographs of his beloved dog up in the house. Jasper had been a black Labrador, with one dark brown eye and the other one bright blue. Apparently the breeders had offered him to Brae’s dad for half price and Jasper had found himself a home.
‘Have you ever thought about getting another dog?’ Anna knew better than anyone that you couldn’t just replace what you’d lost, but she could imagine how big a hole Jasper had left in Brae’s life when he’d finally had to say goodbye to his best friend.
‘We lost him just before I joined the Navy and there hasn’t been a right time since, but I still expect to see him whenever I go up to the flat above the shop.’ Brae’s cousin, Peter, lived there now, but it was where he’d grown up, with Jasper apparently sleeping on his bed for the entire ten years of the dog’s life. ‘I was eight when we first got him and we used to go off together on adventures that seemed huge to me back then. We’d head to the beach and I’d lift up the biggest rocks I could from the rock pools, and Jasper would stick his nose straight in. There was more than one occasion when he came off worst from a run-in with a crab, but he never let it put him off.’
‘I wish I could give you the chance to relive all those adventures through a little boy or girl of your own.’ Anna could picture it now, Brae like an excited kid himself, loving every minute of the chance to relive his childhood the way that only parents of young children could. She was trying desperately not to break her promise to Brae and blame herself, but it was really hard.
‘Let’s not rule anything out for now, but let’s not rule anything in either.’ Brae looked straight at her. ‘Whatever happens we’ve got each other and, okay, so we might not choose to go rock pooling, but we can make a million memories that are just for us. It’s going to be okay, Anna, I promise. In fact, it’s going to be bloody brilliant.’
‘I know, and you’re not the first person to point out that there could be some upsides to staying child-free. In fact, Gwen had her usual unique take on it.’ It was the perfect moment to pass on Gwen’s pearls of wisdom to Brae. He was right, rushing into any definite decisions would be stupid and she could finally begin to see a road ahead for just the two of them, if that’s what they eventually decided. Trusting one person to be her everything, with the risk of losing that, was almost as terrifying as being relied upon to be another person’s everything. But Brae made her believe it was possible and she wouldn’t swap what she had with him for an alternative life with anyone else. It was finally time to start looking forward and one thing she knew for certain was that she couldn’t wait to be his wife.
10
‘Welcome to the first annual bumps and buggies May Day treasure hunt, in aid of the fund to save Port Agnes Lifeboat Station.’ Public speaking always made the butterflies in Ella’s stomach take flight, and usually the groups she addressed were no bigger than an antenatal class of around ten or twelve. But the turnout for the treasure hunt had exceeded her wildest expectations. She’d already dispatched Dan and Brae to buy some more sweets and little gifts to fill the woven paper May Day baskets that would be given out to the children by the Green Man at the end of the treasure hunt. Even though there was a grand prize for one lucky winner to discover, none of the children would be going away empty-handed. Every family taking part was paying an entrance fee, and the May Day baskets and most of their contents, as well as the grand prize, had been donated by local businesses.
‘Thank you all so much for supporting this event and it’s brilliant to see just how many people value the work of the lifeboat station enough to try and save it. A special thanks to my colleagues at the midwifery unit for helping organise the event and spread the word. Lastly, thanks to all the local businesses who have supported us. There’s a list of all the contributors on the back of your entry pack.’ Ella was aware that her words were coming out faster and faster. She was as anxious to get on with the treasure hunt as her audience, and there were already a few children pulling hard on their parents’ hands to get going
.
‘You’ll also find the first clue in your pack, which you can collect from the stand.’ Ella smiled at her friends standing behind the trestle tables ready to hand out the information. Anna had been only too keen to volunteer, despite how busy she was with plans for the wedding. Ella had also roped in Toni and Jess. Most of the others had been involved in pulling the event together in less than a week. Frankie, one of the midwifery assistants, had been particularly tenacious at persuading businesses to donate, but she’d headed off to New Zealand the day before, to spend the next month with her daughter and her family. Frankie would have been more than happy to stand in front of the crowd, but it was up to Ella now.
‘Okay, I’m going to read out the first clue, but you’ll find some extra hints in your pack. Here we go… Get to the Green Man clue by clue, how fast you go is up to you. Where the beach huts stand – row by row – is now the place you need to go. Find the spring wreath on the door and for the second clue you’ll search no more.’
As soon as she’d finished, there was a flurry of activity and a surge towards the trestle tables. The event had initially been aimed at the antenatal and postnatal patients of the unit – hence the ‘bumps and buggies’ treasure hunt – but word had obviously got out, and there were children up to the age of at least eight excitedly ripping open the entry packs in anticipation of winning a prize. Some of the families had made a great effort to get into the spirit of Beltane too, with outfits ranging from toddlers dressed as fairies, to one very heavily pregnant lady in a full morris dancer’s outfit.
‘I can’t believe how many people are here.’ Anna squeezed her waist, as she came over with Toni and Jess once all the treasure hunters had set off towards the beach huts.
