Charlotte
It ’ s OK. It ’ s nothing. It ’ s going to be fine.
Oh God, I’m having a miscarriage fuck fuck fuck fuck no no no no fuck fuck fuck.
But I’m not. It’s alright. It has to be. It must.
I’ve been locked in the toilet for quite some time, reading every single article I can after googling a number of key phrases.
Bleeding six weeks pregnant.
Implantation bleeding or miscarriage?
Signs of chemical pregnancy
Why won’t the world let me have a fucking baby fuck fuck fuck this fuck my fucking life
The last search term, admittedly, didn’t yield the most helpful of results, though I did find a lot of ‘emotional support’ articles. But I don’t need emotional support because this isn’t a miscarriage. It isn’t. I refuse it to be one. Plus, there’s only a 21.3 per cent chance it is one. If I was given a 79.7 per cent chance of surviving cancer or something, I’d be delighted. Not worried in the slightest. OK, maybe I’d be slightly concerned and want the dodgy mole to be removed or whatever, but I wouldn’t think I would die. So, this baby won’t die. It’s fine. It’s just nestling in and dislodging some bleedy cells in the process. That scientific description hasn’t come up in my frantic toilet research, but I’m sure that’s what’s happening.
I should probably call the doctor though, just to check. Google tells me I need to go and get a scan to see if there’s a heartbeat, and if there is a heartbeat, that means there’s a 90 per cent chance of the pregnancy being viable. That would be amazing, wouldn’t it? Usually, you have to wait twelve weeks before the first scan. I’ve already booked a ‘reassurance scan’ for seven weeks through Seth’s BUPA, but, with this happening, I can be reassured even quicker. By the end of today, even. Wow, I’m going to hear my baby’s heartbeat today. That’s so magical. How lucky is that? It’s actually good this bleeding is happening. Not ideal timing, obviously, but it’s clearly a test from the universe. I need to continue making this the best baby shower ever, to show the world I’m at peace with my endless fucking totally unjustified and inexplicable fucking infertility fucking universe, and then I’ll be rewarded by hearing my baby’s heartbeat.
That’s science. I’m certain of it. I’m calm. I’m serene. I’m at peace with the world and everyone in it.
I want to stay in the bathroom and repeat my affirmations in the mirror, but some idiot keeps fucking knocking. I stuff my knickers with quilted toilet paper and look at myself in the mirror. My hair’s wilting quite spectacularly in this heat and I’m glad I’ve got some good photos in.
‘You’re not having a miscarriage,’ I tell myself and my wilting hair. ‘You are pregnant. This is just the universe testing you, but you have never had a test you didn’t get an A in.’
There’s more knocking. ‘Sorry but I really am desperate,’ some fucking impatient cunt bitch calls through the door.
‘It’s OK. Just coming.’
Honestly, I TOLD Nicki’s mum we should let people use the upstairs bathroom, but did she listen? No. Too worried it wasn’t clean enough, but 25 women sipping mocktails and only one toilet is just a disaster waiting to happen.
I breeze out, apologising to the knocking woman – that girl from Nicki’s job with the freckles and strange haircut – and return to making the present opening run smoothly. I feel blood drip into the toilet roll, but it’s alright, it’s quilted, it will hold until I’ve logged the gifts. I retrieve the printed-out spreadsheet I folded into my handbag alongside my special fluffy pen I bought especially for today. Nicki won’t be able to keep tabs on who gave her what, not with baby brain, so I’m jotting it all down for her. Part of my gift is a big pile of thank-you cards with envelopes already addressed and stamped, to cut down Nicki’s post-baby-shower admin. I read this idea online. Total genius. Honestly, how did anyone cope before Pinterest?
I take in Nicki’s aura as we all settle around her and she’s truly glowing. Her body is swollen with baby and blessing – her face almost distorted with the bloat of everything coming her way. I wonder if my own face will swell when this not-miscarriage turns into my most longed-for baby? I almost want to reach over and touch her, to get her essence on me to give me luck. She’s unwrapping some home-knitted booties, squealing and exclaiming she can’t believe how tiny they are. She holds them up to the bulge of her stomach and it’s so perfect it hurts my teeth when I smile. I want this. I want this for myself so badly. It can’t go wrong and it won’t go wrong, even as I feel the loo roll dampen in my knickers.
I start asking the universe for signs as to when it wants me to leave. After the presents? If I wait til then will I pass this test? Then I remember the gender reveal. I’ve still got at least another hour. I can’t duck out before then, I’m the only one who knows how to coordinate the surprise. A cool panic settles on my skin but this spreadsheet isn’t going to fill itself, so I concentrate on inputting Nicki’s presents with my best handwriting.
Present number two. Home-knitted booties from Nicki’s mum’s friend, Jill. I must get her address before she leaves. A lovely sentiment, but rather neglects the obvious which is we’re living through the worst heatwave on record and this baby is likely going to be naked until September if the long-term weather reports are anything to go by. Still, I’m sure Nicki will keep them for sentimental value. She’ll need to get a photo of the baby in them to send onto Jill as a thank you. I put a tick in the relevant column of the spreadsheet for presents that require a photo of the baby wearing an item. The giver gets pissed off otherwise.
‘I can’t believe their tiny feet will fit into these tiny things,’ Nicki says, holding them at arm’s length. She’s taking longer to open this present than I thought she would. I budgeted one minute per present, and this has already strayed into two. If she takes this long with each, it’s really going to throw off Matt’s arrival. Usually, he could just wait outside in the air-conned car, but he’s arriving in a taxi now because of the other universe test I’ve been set.
Thankfully she moves onto the next gift-wrapped box and dives inside the baby duck wrapping paper. My hope is, as the novelty of the present unwrapping wears off, she’ll go faster and we can make up time. Nicki must think of her guests too. It’s rude to make people watch you receive presents for too long. You need to balance the time of thank yous and exclamations so each gift-giver feels appreciated so you don’t need to rush the end, leaving the last gift-givers feeling under-appreciated. I wonder how many seconds precisely . . . I ’ m miscarrying, aren ’ t I? No, shh. There must be a golden ratio of maximising appreciation demonstrated by a gift by time saved opening it and—
‘Oh, these little dungarees! I love them! Thank you. They’re so cute.’
Who sent these? Oh, Jeanie, her school friend with the toddler. She’s chatting Nicki through her choices. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I’ve gone a size up or two,’ she explains, ‘as I thought you’d be getting loads of newborn stuff and bigger sizes might be more useful.’
‘That’s genius!’ Nicki squeaks, holding up a onesie. She’s now taken one minute twenty seconds with this gift. ‘Isn’t that genius, everybody?’
They nod and coo and I pretend to nod and coo, but I’m actually really frustrated at Jeanie’s huge mistake. She’s right – giving baby clothes in larger sizes is very helpful to expecting parents. In fact, if she read the same article that I did online, it’s six to nine months and nine to twelve months that are the most useful. That’s when the presents dry up, and, also when the baby starts weaning so you need more outfit changes from all the mess. However, Jeanie has fallen at the final hurdle and not accounted for the change in seasons. These dungarees and sleep suit are both summery and lightweight. They’ll be useless, sadly, in December, when the baby fits them. Poor Nicki. Two weather inappropriate choices in a row. What a waste. People always talk about what a drain babies are on natural resources, but then they go and buy a pair of yellow dungaree shorts in July in size six to nine months! What’s wrong with everyone? Why are they all so fucking stupid? I almost write fucking stupid in the spreadsheet with my fluffy pen but I stop myself and realise I might, in fact, not be coping very well with this definitely-not-a-miscarriage.
Next present is a Sophie the Giraffe. Standard. Of course, there’s no way they would’ve bought one if they’d watched the videos I have, of mums cutting into them with scissors and finding all the black mould inside. I make a note in the column marked ‘ Need to warn Nicki about this present ’, just so she’s aware of the mould risk. It should be fine if she dab-washes it with a damp cloth, rather than immersing it in water. However, my writing’s coming out all wobbly on the paper, the letters slipping out of their allocated boxes. Now I come to think about it, I’m not breathing very . . . efficiently. It’s so hot in here, isn’t it? I feel more blood leave my body. It feels like a period, only it can’t be a period because I’ve had a positive pregnancy test. If this blood becomes a period it will be a miscarriage after a ‘chemical pregnancy’ which is essentially just a Google term for people who are so desperate to know if they’re pregnant they take tests too early and get a positive result which becomes a miscarriage that most women wouldn’t even notice because their cycle isn’t regular, or they’re so smug they don’t take a test right away because their fertility hasn’t been the most painful agonising part of their entire lives . . . and I should really ground myself in this room, shouldn’t I? I’m spiralling.
I look around at all the women straining in Nicki’s direction. Lauren’s chatting quietly to someone on her left, her baby monitor in her lap. She laughs and finally seems to be having a good time. Steffi, however, is curled up on a chair in the corner, face lost in her phone screen, scowling. Anger gnaws my stomach. Oh, lucky Steffi, who never wants kids. Her biggest worry in life is people judging her for that, when I wish she’d realise being child-free isn’t this glorious feminist whateverthefuck choice for every woman. Some of us have it forced upon us. I stare back at Nicki’s stomach, at how it strains through the fabric of her dungarees. The only time I’ve come close to my stomach looking that bulbous and fertile was on the day of my egg retrieval. Day after day, Seth had injected me with hormones that made me even more manic than usual. My skin got so bruised that Seth ran out of sites to puncture that weren’t already marbled with purple. And, not long after, as my follicles bloated me like proving dough, it got even harder to pierce through my skin with our delusional hope.
‘I almost look pregnant,’ I’d said, taking multiple selfies in my hospital gown just before they put me under. I’d documented every inch of my IVF journey to merge into a multimedia set-piece to upload when I’m finally pregnant. It’s part of my manifestation. I’ve even edited all the footage up until now.
Seth had stood behind me in the private hospital room, and gently lifted my gown to show off my bloated abdomen. He kissed the top of my head.
‘And soon you will be pregnant,’ he’d said. ‘This is going to work, . It is.’
But he must not have actually believed it because the first round of IVF didn’t work, and Seth’s lack of genuine manifestation was something we argued about when we didn’t yield anything. Like nothing yields in my inexplicably barren body.
That’s my official diagnosis, by the way.
Unexplained infertility.
A uterus that just shrugs.
A question mark where my Sophie the Giraffe mould should be.
It breaks my brain. Everything in life can be explained, surely? That’s why Google exists. And I’ve been manifesting my family since I was a child myself. There was no present I’d want for Hanukkah that wasn’t a doll. I even picked my degree, and career choices, around what suits being a mother. I didn’t even sleep around before I met Seth as I was so scared I’d catch chlamydia and it would damage my fertility. Even then, when I slept with boyfriends, they’d have to do two STD tests, at two different sites, before I’d sleep with them, and even then they’d have to still use condoms. Honestly, it’s amazing what boys are willing to put themselves through in order to get laid. Steffi always asked if I worried I asked for ‘too much’ from my boyfriends when I was blue-ballsing them before the results came in. But, if anything, she asks for too little. I know she thinks it’s her child-free stuff that stops men committing to her, but it’s not. She doesn’t truly value herself and they smell it. Steffi acts like she values herself, with her amazing body and amazing career and life and friends and have you seen this thing at the theatre that is impossible to get tickets for. She’s so seemingly happily independent, but the smell is there. Even through my phone screen. She doesn’t doesn’t know her True Worth. She doesn’t believe in it. And men sense it and therefore treat her like shit. I’m only five-foot tall, very ‘high maintenance’ and make men do multiple STI tests before they sleep with me. Do they mind? Never. Because I know my worth and that makes you magnetic. Not that finding a glorious husband has helped me become a parent.
It’s still amazing to me how cocky I was about becoming a mother. When Seth and I first started trying, I was even deluded enough to make us wait until December to conceive so our baby would be born in September. I had to balance the lifelong benefit of them being the eldest in their school year against the fact maternity wards are their busiest then, and I would therefore more likely have a negative birth experience, which impacts maternal mental health and therefore the long-term outlook for a baby. Also, I factored in the additional year of childcare to our costings but still found, ultimately, the benefits of a September birth were worth it.
‘This baby is so lucky,’ Seth said, after I’d shown him my spreadsheet and costings. ‘What an amazing mother you already are.’
I was in my element initially. Fertility tracking was like crack to me. So much to read up on! Fertile windows and predicting ovulation and taking my basal temperature and monitoring my cervical mucus. It seemed insane that some couples just stopped using contraception and assumed they’d get pregnant. When you’re only fertile for five days each cycle. And then the egg you release has to be good enough quality. And then the sperm has to meet that egg, and that sperm needs to be good enough quality too. Seth and I went teetotal for three months before trying. I set up a chemistry lab in our en-suite, peeing on ovulation sticks the day my period started, sometimes three times a day. When the first strip confirmed I was ovulating, I was almost too excited to have sex. I kept dancing around in my knickers, waving the strip about, telling Seth about how great my mucus was. ‘It has an egg-white consistency,’ I told him. ‘It’s perfect! And look how dark this line was.’
In two weeks’ time, I just knew I’d be seeing another two dark lines, this time signalling my pregnancy. Manifestation was such an important part of the conception process. I’d read that your body and mind needs to be ready to conceive. If you’re in too much of a fight-or-flight state then your body senses the stress hormones and doesn’t fertilise you.
We did everything right. We had sex at the right time, multiple times, over the important days. I ensured Seth used my bullet vibrator on me afterwards so I could orgasm, because the shockwaves actively draw sperm further into your vagina. I was already taking folic acid – of course – and following a diet rich in fertility foods.
‘We just made a baby,’ I whispered, the first time Seth and I had unprotected sex. ‘I just know we’ve made a baby. I just know it.’
Seth kissed my fingertips. ‘I feel it too.’
He tried to kiss me on the mouth but I shimmied around to put my legs up against the wall. This isn’t a clinically proven method to help conception, but sometimes you need to use common sense, and gravity is as powerful as manifestation. I lay upside-down for half an hour, eyes closed, not letting Seth talk to me while I did my visualisations. But Isaac Newton and The Secret failed me, two weeks later.
‘This is clearly an error,’ I said, when the test told me I wasn’t pregnant. It was written in actual words because we still used Clear Blue tests back then. Seth’s a hedge fund manager, but soon, I was taking two pregnancy tests a day, for at least seven days, every cycle, and the cost quickly added up. As things got more desperate, we downgraded from Clear Blue with word results, to Clear Blue with a two-line display. Then we slid down to Boots own-brand tests, until, eventually, I was bulk-buying pregnancy tests in the pound shop. I researched it online and discovered they’re just as effective.
You don ’ t worry for at least a year of trying, I knew this. I’d read this a million times. It could take a couple of cycles. Totally normal. Nothing to panic about.
‘Our baby is going to born around Christmas if we get pregnant now,’ I’d told Seth, on our fourth attempt. ‘Nobody likes to have their birthday around Christmas. It will be a headache for buying presents, and party date clashes. Shall we hold off a month?’
And, stupidly, Seth agreed, and we wasted a precious month not trying.
A year later, with not one positive test, and not one late period, I couldn’t believe my previous arrogance. I’d take a baby born on August 31 and just hire it a tutor. Sex was no longer something enjoyable we shared because we love each other – but a desperate chore. Doing it every day, for five days in a row, every month, because we knew we had to, really lost something for us. Seth is very well trained in sexual emotional aftercare, but he’d started getting up to shower afterwards while I used my vibrator to come, rather than trying to share the experience with him. I wouldn’t even mind, I was trying so hard to orgasm. Sometimes I’d be there for fifteen minutes, my bullet on its highest setting, but unable to climax because I knew how important it was and I was already picturing another blank pregnancy test. I initially resisted getting us fertility tested as I wanted to trust the process. I couldn’t comprehend that something might be wrong. Not when I was supposed to be a mother more than I was supposed to be literally anything else.
‘Now, ,’ Seth had told me, the day I finally agreed to go to Harley Street, his large hands wrapped around mine like scarves. ‘These aren’t tests like in school. They’re just exploratory things about our biology, things we can’t change about ourselves – that aren’t our fault. They’re not something to pass or fail or get a good mark on.’
I’d laughed. I was excited by the tests now. They would find a simple issue with a simple solution. By the end of this day, I’d know why we couldn’t conceive and what would definitely solve it. I had my fingers crossed for a non-cancerous ovarian cyst. A simple operation would flick it out and there you’d have it. ‘You don’t know me at all,’ I’d joked.
‘I saw you cry after an eye test once.’
‘That was only out of frustration. They ask you to read all these letters and then they won’t tell you if you’re right or wrong. It’s maddening.’
He kissed my forehead. Seth kissed my forehead a lot those days rather than on the lips. Anything remotely sexual felt like a chore. ‘Come on my lovely little Type A. Let’s scan the shit out of ourselves.’
Blood tests. For everything. The nurse just kept swapping vials as it poured out of me. A full sexual health debrief with the expert doctor, who nodded approvingly at my strict condom use. A pelvic ultrasound which was basically like a dildo with a camera on the end.
‘Any cysts?’ I’d asked the technician, even though they weren’t supposed to tell you the answers in the room.
‘Nothing yet.’
‘A polyp? Is that thing a polyp?’ I pointed at the screen, heart racing with excitement when I saw a dark patch.
‘No, that’s your ovary.’
‘And, does it have a cyst on it?’
‘Doesn’t seem to . . .’
‘Well, let’s check the other one. Fingers crossed.’
He gave me a weird look and proceeded to find nothing wrong with my other ovary either.
It’s strange, the things you get jealous over when you can’t conceive. Ovarian cysts, polyps . . . things that would usually be a painful cause of concern are covetable because at least they’re an explanation. A week later, our results were read out to us. The results were that there were no results. There were no obvious reasons why we couldn’t conceive. When I cried about it to Lauren down the phone one night, she said I was ‘lucky’ at least that we had Seth’s private health insurance to run these tests. That it was a ‘ privilege ’ to afford to know there was nothing clinically wrong with either of us. A ‘ privilege ’ we were able to go down the IVF route privately rather than wait on the NHS list.
I guess I was so lucky that we could afford three rounds of IVF before giving up. Three times I was lucky enough to ride the insane hormonal rollercoaster that it made my previous PMS look like I was frolicking in a field of wheat. I was blessed to do an ￡8000 wee on a pregnancy test following each implantation only for only one line to show up. What I’ve learned since this infertility nightmare is that luck and privilege are such a messy scrawl of concerns, with no logic to them. In my darkest moments, I’d believed women who had miscarriages were lucky because at least they knew they could get pregnant. Women who had fertility issues that could be explained by science were lucky because at least science could likely mend them. And yet, I was lucky, because I could afford to pay for tests that told me nothing was seemingly wrong. I was lucky, some might argue, that there’s nothing wrong, and therefore I can hope my barrenness is just a statistical quirk – sperm and egg just missing each other in my uterus, like the two leads in a rom-com, that you just know will find one another by the end of the movie. I’m lucky I’m straight. At least I got to try the traditional way. I’m lucky I’m not a gay man, where the only uterus available is via surrogate, and, only then, usually the lucky gay men who can afford to pay for a surrogate abroad. Some women on the infertility chat rooms were devastated they couldn’t get pregnant with their second child, but I consider them lucky they’re able to have one at all. After Lauren fell pregnant, bless her, we all went out for dinner, and, when I came back from the toilet, I overheard her telling Nicki and Steffi that she hadn’t expected to fall pregnant straight away. I loitered behind a pillar as she bit her lip and confided that she felt shocked and a little bit freaked out at how quickly they’d conceived.
‘ We were told it would take months ,’ she’d complained, not eating her food because the lucky cow had pregnancy nausea. ‘ You’re told your whole late twenties that your eggs are combusting into cobwebs after the age of thirt y.’ She’d sighed. ‘ I know I should feel lucky, especially with what poor is going through, but I feel blindsided. Of course I can ’ t share any of this with her . . . ’ She’d then spotted me and I’d pretended to have only just arrived. Chirpy and saying we should definitely get a selfie in the toilets because the mirrors are really cool. When, inside, I sort of wanted to scream.
Nicki rips into another present. As predicted, she’s speeding up a bit as she realises how many she needs to get through. I’ve stopped taking pictures. I really should start taking more. She won’t want anything missed. But, as I feel more blood trickle into my makeshift pad, dread freezes me to my chair.
How could I ever have been jealous of this? This panic? This insurmountable loss if the worst really is happening?
I was awful to think that about miscarriage. I know this now. I knew it at the time too, as I was thinking it, but that experience of seeing those two lines, of knowing there’s a baby inside me, knowing its due date . . . the realness of it. The thought I might lose it now . . . No. It can’t be happening. No. Please. I’m sorry. I take it all back.
Nicki holds out a light-yellow duck towel with a beak hood and everyone coos appropriately. I need to strategise. If I start bleeding more heavily, I’ll need to leave early. If I start to bleed heavily, making today perfect clearly hasn’t worked on the universe anyway. I bite my lip and weigh up whether to call Seth and panic him by telling him. Not yet. No. I can hold on. It’s nothing. It’s going to be nothing. It’s going to be alright. But I need a backup plan, just in case.
To my left, I see that Lauren and that Phoebe woman who knocked on the bathroom door have got up together and made their way over to the punch bowl. I jot down the duck towel and make a bolt for it.
I catch them as they’re sipping their drinks. Lauren’s thrown her head back laughing and seems transformed from before Woody’s nap.
‘Hey lovely ladies,’ I say, wondering why I sound like a caricature of myself. ‘Can I have a seccy?’
Intrigued, they lower their punch glasses and I steer them further into the kitchen, away from Nicki’s eye-line.
‘Is everything OK?’ Lauren asks.
‘The peonies aren’t wilting, are they?’ Phoebe says. ‘That would be a disaster!’
I know she’s taking the piss out of me but it really would be a disaster, actually, as we have another load of photos to take in front of them when this baby shower turns into the gender reveal. The fact they’ve not died is a) a miracle, and b) because I’ve been spritzing them with a water bottle whenever I have the chance.
I ignore what she’s said and launch into it. ‘It’s not a big deal. But I may have to dash off as something’s come up. I’ve got this surprise planned and I need someone to step in to help with it if I do have to go.’
Lauren puts a hand on my shoulder and tilts her head. ‘Is everything alright?’ She knows something’s significantly off if I’m bailing on today. I feel a deep twinge of love that she knows me so well.
‘It’s fine, it’s just something with my grandma,’ I lie, now worrying I’m accidentally manifesting my nana’s untimely death. ‘I’m waiting to hear. She’s not going to die,’ I added, just to let the universe know I’m not willing to throw Nana under the bus of fate for the sake of a small lie. ‘But . . . there’s a bit more to today than meets the eye.’
‘A stripper! I knew it!’ Phoebe says, clapping, and I resist this strong urge to stamp on this rude woman’s toe.
‘Actually, Matt is turning up as a surprise,’ I inform her. Phoebe’s smirk vanishes but I don’t have time to analyse this now.
‘Wow, OK . . .’
I give them the details as quickly as I can. ‘You know how Nicki says she didn’t want to know the gender of the baby?’
‘The sex of the baby,’ Phoebe interrupts. ‘We don’t know what gender it will be yet. The child gets to decide that.’
‘Yes, whatever.’ I shake my head. ‘Anyway, it turns out Nicki was just trying to be cool. She’s desperate to know. So, Matt and I rang the hospital for the results from the twenty-week scan. We’ll go outside for the pinata and then Matt will appear, all ta-da! And then I’ve got the gender reveal firework thing lodged in the decking to go off. Isn’t that great?’
I quickly run through the timings. I explain he’s on his way in a taxi and we’re currently running over schedule. I point out the window. ‘All I need one of you to do is . . . when he comes . . . the firework is there. I’ve taken the top off the smoke grenade and wedged it into the decking, with the ring pull poking up. Literally all you need to do is yank it and it will go off and the smoke will come out. There’s a bucket of water right next to it. When it stops burning, please put it in there because it’s obviously a million degrees outside.’ I take a breath. ‘But you probably don’t need to know any of this because my nana is going to be fine. Fine. ’ I add. I give them a giant smile as they digest their new roles. Roles they totally won’t need to fulfil because it’s all going to be alright.
Evidence recovered from Vista Cottage
Evidence item no. 24
A thoroughly charred ‘Windee’ was recovered from the ashes of Vista Cottage. The device, which we’re assuming was a gift, acts like a reverse accordion to remove gas from an infant’s anal cavity.
Evidence item no. 27
Burned wire sculpture of what appears to be a human vagina. Witnesses say it was hanging above the smoke grenade which caused the fire.
Evidence item no. 32
A burned extendable ‘selfie stick’, likely used to take the group photo of the main suspects.