Chapter Forty-Eight Netta
Chapter Forty-Eight
NETTA
Netta turned away from the reception desk and looked around the waiting room.
Seats lined the walls, filled with expectant mothers at varying levels of about-to-popness, and the air buzzed with their collective nerves and anticipation, hope and fear.
She’d only had to wait a few days for this scan but that had been more than enough time for her imagination to cook up intricate fantasies of how it would play out.
But in her imagination, it hadn’t been anything like this.
She’d anticipated pure elation and excitement, but instead the overwhelming feeling wrapping itself around her as she waited for her name to be called was one of powerlessness.
This dream of hers, which she’d spent months of her life meticulously planning for, now seemed so far out of her control.
She had no idea what was happening inside her, and the realisation that she was at the mercy of luck was a sobering companion to her excitement.
Freya squeezed her hand and pointed to two spare chairs near the door. ‘So, Pete’s definitely not coming, then?’
‘No,’ Netta said, recalling her last conversation with her ex. Her hand found its protective spot on her still-flat belly as they sat. ‘He’s still sulking.’
Pete had been almost unresponsive when she’d called him to tell him she was pregnant.
He’d even accused her of trying to pin Mo’s baby on him—he’d seen the photos of them online; everybody had, apparently.
She’d had to catch herself when she’d started empathising with him, conceding that having his friends see photos of her kissing Mo would’ve been deeply humiliating for him.
But she wasn’t the one who’d cheated. Later that night, Pete had turned up drunk on her doorstep, begging to get back together.
Saying that if it really was his baby, then it deserved committed parents, which seemed a little rich, given he’d divorced Heather when their kids were barely in primary school.
Netta hadn’t felt any need or desire to consider his proposition.
They were done. So done. The baby would be better off with a happy single mother than with paired-up parents who didn’t trust each other.
Pete could be as involved as he wanted to be, but only with the baby.
Freya shook her head in disbelief. ‘Never mind him. How excited are you out of ten?’
‘Twenty.’ Netta grinned. ‘I’m also pretty nervous.
And I’ve never needed to pee so badly in my life.
’ She tapped a rhythm on her thighs to distract herself from the pressure.
The receptionist who’d made the appointment for her had told her to arrive for her scan with a full bladder and she’d taken her instructions very seriously, possibly to the point of overkill—her back teeth were screaming for lifejackets.
‘I think I need to see the baby for it to feel like it’s actually real, because my body doesn’t feel any different yet. Is that normal?’
‘Count yourself lucky,’ said Freya. ‘All of my pregnancies have been non-stop puking for the first ten weeks.’
‘Netta Phillips?’
Netta’s head swivelled at the sound of her name and she hastily stood and crossed the room, her heart suddenly feeling as though it needed far more room in her chest.
‘Hi, Netta, I’m Teresa,’ the woman said, clutching a clipboard. ‘I’ll be doing your dating scan today. Follow me.’ Teresa’s sensible shoes made quiet squooshing noises with every step as they walked up the carpet-tiled hall. ‘We’re just in here.’
Netta followed her into a small, pin drop–quiet room with a collection of screens, a paper-covered vinyl bed at its centre and the sort of cool, manufactured lighting that would be hellishly unflattering in a swimwear shop change room but that always seemed weirdly reassuring in a medical setting.
The walls were painted the exact shade of creamy nothing as the desk in the corner and a pale blue privacy curtain hung from a track in the ceiling, ready to screen the bed from the small, desperately uncomfortable-looking couch that sat under the frosted window.
To Netta, it seemed far too bland and clinical to be a place where something as magical as seeing her baby for the first time could be about to happen.
Some fairy lights and a water feature wouldn’t go astray.
‘Okay then, let’s get you up onto the bed, shall we?’ said Teresa.
Netta took a slow breath to steady her thundering heartbeat and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, passing her handbag to Freya, who had perched herself on the couch.
The paper slipped and squeaked against the vinyl as Netta spun herself to lie down, the pillow releasing a puff of air under the weight of her head.
‘Okay, so by dates, we’re thinking you’re around eight weeks pregnant, is that correct?’
Netta nodded. ‘Ish,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know until a couple of days ago that I was pregnant.’
‘And this is your first pregnancy?’
‘It is.’
‘Right, let’s have a look.’ Teresa instructed Netta to lift her top and wriggle her pants down until they just covered her pubic bone.
She briskly tucked a paper towel into the waistband.
‘This stuff can get a little messy,’ she said in explanation, holding a bottle of gel up for Netta to see.
‘I’m going to squirt some of this onto your lower belly—it can feel a little chilly—and then we’ll have a look with this. ’ She showed Netta the ultrasound wand.
Teresa spread the gel with the probe and then got to work, pressing and pushing, this way and that, trying to get a good view of the embryo that would become Netta’s longed-for baby.
The screen gave Netta nothing, just a mass of black and white static, morphing every time Teresa moved the wand into a new position.
A crease settled between Teresa’s eyebrows as she worked.
‘I’m having a bit of trouble finding your little one,’ Teresa announced in an even, emotionless voice. ‘They can be very good at hiding when they’re this little. I’d like to try an internal ultrasound with your permission. They can give a clearer picture.’
Netta’s racing heart slowed to a limp. She nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘It involves inserting a transvaginal probe,’ Teresa continued. ‘It shouldn’t hurt but it can be a little uncomfortable.’
‘Whatever you need to do,’ said Netta.
‘Alright then.’ Teresa passed Netta a wad of paper towel. ‘Wipe the gel off, and I’ll need you to go and empty your bladder. Toilets are three doors down to the left.’
After the longest wee of her life, Netta returned, her jaw set, her body holding her breath in every cell, as though it might somehow safeguard her baby.
Teresa closed a privacy curtain around the bed.
‘Take everything off from the waist down,’ she said.
‘And then make yourself comfy. I’ll be back shortly. ’
‘You okay, hon?’ Freya’s voice floated over the curtain as Netta stripped her jeans and knickers off.
‘Yeah.’ Netta hesitated. ‘Actually, no,’ she said.
‘I don’t know. I just want to know if everything’s okay.
’ She bundled up her clothes, set them on a stool next to the bed, and lay down, pulling the coarse hospital-style blanket Teresa had left for her up to her waist. Her breath snagged as she heard the sonographer re-enter the room.
‘Are you ready, Netta?’
‘Yep.’
Teresa whizzed the curtain back just enough to step through and snapped it shut again behind her. Netta watched as Teresa prepared the probe, covering it with a thin latex sheath and smearing it with lubricant.
‘Okay, bend your knees and tip them out to the sides. Try to relax,’ Teresa said. ‘I know it’s easier said than done.’
Netta closed her eyes and took a couple of slow, deliberate breaths. ‘I’m ready.’
Teresa inserted the probe and turned her attention to the screen. ‘There we are,’ she said, indicating a tiny blob on the screen. ‘Hello, little one.’
A wave of relief flooded Netta’s body. ‘Is it okay?’
‘I’m just going to do some measurements and then I’ll check the heartbeat.’
Teresa’s poker face gave nothing away as she criss-crossed Netta’s precious baby with thin lines on the screen, click-clacking her findings onto the keyboard with lightning-fast fingers.
‘Okay,’ Teresa said. ‘I’m going to measure the heart rate now. We don’t listen in this early on, so you won’t be able to hear it, I’m afraid.’
Teresa adjusted the position of the probe, the crease between her brows deepening.
‘Alright,’ said Teresa after a few moments.
‘I’m going to remove the probe now and you can get dressed.
The results will be with your GP by tomorrow if you’d like to go and have a chat about it—they’ll be able to discuss them with you in detail, but I think we might schedule another scan for a couple of weeks or so.
The baby’s measurements and heart rate aren’t quite aligning with the dates you’ve given, so we’ll have another go in a fortnight and see how things are progressing. ’
‘Okay, thanks.’ Netta’s voice was dwarfed by something in Teresa’s tone that, despite her perfectly vanilla delivery, felt ominous.
‘I’ll leave you to get dressed, and I’ll see you then,’ said Teresa. ‘The girls at the front desk will be able to set something up for you.’
Teresa swished the curtain aside to leave and Netta quickly dressed, a fear she’d never felt before budding deep within her.
‘You okay?’ said Freya as Netta emerged. ‘Those probes are pretty average.’
Netta searched her friend’s face desperately for reassurance. ‘Do you think there’s something wrong with the baby?’
‘I’m sure it’s all fine. Sometimes things just aren’t one hundred per cent clear on the scan when it’s this early in the pregnancy, I guess.’
Netta forced a smile and nodded, trying to keep her grip on her positivity and excitement about the baby, and not get swept away by a terrible maybe.
‘You’ll know more when you see the doctor,’ said Freya. ‘Until then, I’m prescribing comfort food and trash television and lots of both. Stat.’
As Netta left the clinic, she once again had the feeling of being held within a bubble—separated from the world by the thinnest of membranes—just as she had with Mo at the cottage. Except this one already felt far more fragile.