Positively Yours

by Amanda Hearty

  But even when she got back to her desk, opened her emails and started returning clients’ phone calls, all she could think about was being pregnant, labour and babies. And she didn’t know if it was due to these thoughts or her glands, but she felt sick for the whole afternoon.

  15

  BETH STOOD IN a queue in O’Neill’s late-night pharmacy. She pulled her baseball cap down over her face as she approached the till and asked for the small box. Her hands shook as she counted out the money. She paid as quickly as possible, and, after stuffing the purchase into her pocket, almost ran to her nearby parked car. As she drove through the quiet Dublin streets she felt sick. She would know within minutes whether her life had changed.

  She walked back into her apartment, but it looked different now. She felt like a stranger in her own home as she made her way to the bathroom. She sat down on the toilet as if she had never sat down on one before. As she pulled the box from her pocket she checked the bathroom door was locked. She felt as if someone might burst in and discover her secret.

  Beth began unwrapping the plastic from the box and stared at the stick. The box claimed it contained the most accurate pregnancy test in the world. She read the instructions for the tenth time before finally using it. As she sat and gazed at the red-painted walls of her bathroom Beth felt her head spin. What will I do if this is positive? she thought. I just can’t be pregnant! She tried to convince herself, but there was a niggling voice in her head telling her that she could. Beth had spent the past few weeks feeling nauseated, tired and sore. But nothing felt as bad as this new worry in the pit of her stomach. The worry that she could be pregnant. The thought alone made her feel like vomiting.

  As she looked down at the diamond-encrusted bracelet that Tom had given her she cursed herself for not being more cautious that night. Beth had always been sensible, but now one night of passion might have changed everything.

  She said a quick prayer as she checked her watch to make sure she had allowed the correct amount of time to pass. There was nothing wrong with having children, but, for Beth, getting pregnant now was not part of her plan, and she knew it would definitely not be part of Tom’s, either.

  Then she took a deep breath and looked at the stick. There was a very distinctive dark pink line.

  It was positive. She was positive. She was pregnant.

  16

  BETH STARED AT a report from an internal buy-side analyst and tried to sift through the relevant information, but she felt as if everything was happening in slow motion. It was like some out-of-body experience.

  Ever since she had done the pregnancy test, Beth had been going through the motions of everyday life but not actually experiencing it. She had driven to work each morning, had turned on her computer and downloaded her emails, but she read them as if they were news from outer space, they meant nothing to her. She sat and watched TV every night, but she couldn’t tell you what was happening in her favourite shows, because she couldn’t concentrate. To the outside world she looked the same, but inside she felt like an impostor in her own body. This can’t be real, she thought every morning when she woke. But she had done other pregnancy tests and they had read positive, too. Beth’s bathroom was scattered with every brand and type. They might all look different, but they all said the same thing: Beth was expecting.

  Just then she got a call from Tom, asking her to come into his office.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked as Beth sat down and helped herself to a glass of cold water. She gulped it back while Tom watched.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she eventually replied, terrified he would work out her big secret.

  ‘You haven’t returned my calls all week, and you’re quiet as a mouse in meetings. What’s wrong?’ Tom asked.

  For a split second Beth felt like confessing, and telling Tom he was now the father of her unborn child. But as she watched him sitting there, strumming his fingers against his desk, impatient for an answer, she knew now was not the time for honesty.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m just a little run-down this week. A bit wrecked.’

  Tom didn’t look very sympathetic.

  ‘I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, but we have two big meetings this week. I need you to be on top form. Can I rely on you or not?’

  Beth knew how important being professional and strong was to him. She sat up, and put on a big smile.

  ‘I’ll be fine, boss. I swear.’

  Tom relaxed.

  ‘OK, good to hear. Now, why don’t we go somewhere quiet for lunch? I haven’t talked to you properly in weeks. And I was thinking it’s high time we went away for the weekend – somewhere nice, my treat. We can talk about it over lunch.’

  Beth would have loved nothing more than a nice big lunch with the man she loved, but she had something important to do and couldn’t delay it any further.

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t today. I’ve got plans,’ she said, feeling awful for lying to Tom.

  Tom looked a little put out, but then made Beth promise they would catch up at the weekend instead. As she walked out of his office she felt sick, thinking of the secret she was withholding from him.

  Beth had been avoiding her family and friends all week. Ever since she had done her first pregnancy test she just hadn’t been able to face talking and lying to those who were closest to her, and so she had switched her phone off, hadn’t replied to any personal emails, and had ignored any messages from her dad. It felt as if her life were on hold, and the longer she avoided telling anyone her secret the longer she could avoid facing reality. There were times she did feel excitement at becoming a mum, even if it was unplanned. But then she would think of the reality of it: she was unmarried, in a relationship with a man who didn’t want kids, and it was not the ideal situation. And so she had put off telling anyone for another week.

  But today she knew she couldn’t avoid what had to be done. She had an important phone call to make, and it was to the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street. Beth had been born there, and after discussion with her own GP it was where she knew she wanted to book herself in. Going to her own doctor to get confirmation of her pregnancy had been an uncomfortable experience. As her GP had congratulated Beth and handed her some leaflets on pregnancy she’d felt like admitting that she didn’t really want to be pregnant. But instead she had taken down the names of vitamins and a list of foods to avoid, and promised her doctor she would book into a maternity hospital asap, as apparently they got booked up quite quickly. That had been three days ago now, and Beth knew she finally had to make the call.

  As soon as she could leave the office Beth grabbed her woollen coat and headed over to St Stephen’s Green. She found a quiet park bench and dialled the number. Her voice shook as she asked to be put through to the first gynaecologist her doctor had recommended.

  ‘Hi. Is that Dr McWilliams’s secretary? My name is Beth Prendergast and I would like to book in with the doctor. I’m pregnant.’ Beth almost whispered the last two words.

  ‘Oh, congratulations, when are you due?’ said the friendly secretary.

  ‘I’m not sure of my dates,’ Beth admitted. ‘But I think I’m due around the end of July.’

  There was a pause on the phone.

  ‘Oh,’ Beth said. ‘Am I too early to book in? I suppose July is miles away! I can ring back in a few weeks if you want.’

  ‘Too early?’ the secretary replied, almost laughing. ‘Darling, you are way too late. I’m afraid Dr McWilliams is all booked up. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Booked up already?’ Beth said surprised. ‘How is that possible? I’ve only just found out I am pregnant. How could I have rung any earlier? This doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I’m sorry, pet, but you should have rung weeks ago. We are all booked up until the end of August.’

  ‘But if I’m only a few weeks pregnant, and I’m due at the end of July, how could other people possibly know already that they’re having a baby at the end of August? This is madness.’ Beth’s pulse
raced, and her blood pressure rose.

  ‘That’s just the way it is nowadays,’ the secretary said, matter-of-factly. ‘Everyone knows they have to book early. I suppose with all those new pregnancy tests you can now find out you are pregnant days after conception. So we’re all booked up.’

  Beth was shocked. She was only about six weeks pregnant, and yet she was too late to book in with her preferred consultant. She hung up, and looked at the list her GP had written out for her. She was sure one of the other doctors would be free. But the names meant nothing to her. How was she supposed to know which doctor was the best? She had no mum or sister to ask, and it was too early to admit her problem to her friends. Beth looked at the list and randomly dialled one of the doctors’ numbers.

  Half an hour later she was fuming. She had rung five doctors and all were booked up. How is this possible? she asked herself again and again. Earlier on she had dreaded making a call to the doctor. She had felt booking in with a gynaecologist in a maternity hospital would make the pregnancy all too real, but now all she wanted was for everything to be settled. She dialled another number. This time the secretary, a lady called Karen, at least seemed to sympathize with her.

  ‘It is madness, I know! We’re all booked up, too. But we do get girls who book in very early, in the hope they will be pregnant that month. Now some of them do unfortunately have to cancel when they find out they aren’t, so I could take your number and ring you back if we get any cancellations. But I should tell you, it’s highly unlikely there will be.’

  Beth felt gutted.

  ‘To be honest,’ Karen added. ‘Your best bet is to ring me back later. We’ll pretend we’ve never talked, and you can just lie about your dates. Pretend you are not due until August and I should have some availability for you. OK?’

  Beth didn’t know what to say. It was her only hope, but she didn’t feel comfortable lying.

  ‘No, I can’t do that. I had hoped to attend Holles Street, but I guess at this stage I’ll have to go elsewhere,’ said Beth, deflated.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ replied the secretary.

  Beth didn’t bother replying.

  ‘Listen, just give me your number, and let me see what I can do,’ said Karen suddenly.

  Beth gave her the number and hung up.

  There was not one doctor in Holles Street available. It suddenly occurred to Beth that she might have to have the baby at home. A home birth! She began to laugh, imagining her perfectly tidy apartment suddenly covered in towels and blood. What the hell am I going to do? she wondered. Who were all these lunatic women who booked up all the maternity hospitals months in advance? It was so unfair. And as Karen had admitted, a lot of the time they weren’t even pregnant; they were just taking up bookings in the hope that they might be in the future. It was total madness. Beth suddenly remembered her friend Susan telling her how it was impossible to get a band to play at her wedding, as they were all booked up years in advance. So, thought Beth, there must be this one group of highly organized and annoying women who went around ruining everyone’s weddings, and then a few months later booked up all the maternity hospitals. What psychos! she thought, getting more and more annoyed.

  Suddenly her stomach rumbled and she remembered her lunch. She took a sandwich out from her handbag and began to eat, but as she did she felt sick. Beth felt queasy the whole time and was finding it hard to keep anything down. Being pregnant sucks, she thought, and a home birth is going to make it a whole lot worse.

  She managed to stomach a few bites of her sandwich before binning it and heading back to work. Just as she entered the doors of Burlington Stockbrokers her phone rang.

  ‘Is that Beth Prendergast? This is Karen, Dr O’Connor’s secretary.’

  ‘Yes, this is Beth.’

  ‘You’re in luck. I’ve managed to squeeze you in. Dr O’Connor will take you on.’

  Beth suddenly felt such huge relief. No home birth, thank God.

  ‘Great. Thank you so much,’ she replied.

  Karen took Beth’s details and booked her in for an appointment.

  ‘Good luck, Beth. And I will see you and your partner in seven weeks’ time.’

  Partner? Even hearing the word made Beth feel ill. She had no idea how she was ever going to tell Tom, and she just could not picture him in Holles Street. Beth and Tom weren’t a very public couple, they preferred being alone together, but now she was going to have to ask him to hold her hand as they went for months of hospital visits, scans, classes and of course the labour itself. God, this is all moving so fast! worried Beth, as she got the lift up to her office.

  Beth sat down in her chair and was about to sip on the extra large coffee she had bought on her way back from the park when she put it down. She suddenly remembered her GP mentioning something about watching her caffeine intake. She had been avoiding looking up pregnancy websites until now. But suddenly she felt an overwhelming urge to find out if coffee could hurt the baby. Beth worked in a pod of four people, with their desks all facing each other. It was hard to hide what you were looking at from your team, and it was at times like this when Beth wished she had her own office, instead of working in an open-plan space. And so, while pretending to be studying a spreadsheet that had just been emailed to her, she tilted her computer screen so no one could see, and then opened the internet. Two hours later she was hooked: there was website after website full of information on being pregnant, having a baby and how to cope with it all. There was plenty of factual information on being pregnant, like what food to avoid, and Beth was gutted to hear that shellfish was off the menu for the next eight months. But it was the fun things like how to choose a baby name, or old wives’ tales on how to tell if you were carrying a girl or a boy that made her smile! Beth wasn’t one to avoid work, because she thrived on it, but for once she felt OK pushing aside the growing pile of files on her desk and submerging herself in being pregnant. It was the first time in a week that she had felt happy and excited.

  As the office buzzed with the usual humdrum meetings, phone calls and office chat Beth lost herself in the sudden excitement of being pregnant. As she learned how her foetus was growing she became amazed at how quickly babies developed and became human. She immediately signed up to a website that promised to email her regularly with information on her baby’s week-by-week development. She checked her inbox a few minutes later and was delighted when the first email came through. She immediately learned that her foetus’s ears and eyes were formed, and that the heart had begun to pump blood. But it was its size that shocked her: ‘Your baby is now the size of a lower case “o”.’ She had to reread the sentence. Only the size of a lower case o? She looked at a file on her desk, and saw a word that contained an o. She stared at it in amazement. How could something so minuscule already make her feel so unwell and so different? Her life had been turned upside down by an o. She began to laugh. A little o.

  Beth eventually got back to work, but all afternoon long she couldn’t stop smiling every time she typed the letter o. It had a whole new meaning for her.

  17

  ERIN WALKED INTO the kitchen of her home in Blackrock and turned on the kettle. It was a cold winter morning and she needed a cup of hot water and lemon to get her going before a long day at work. Just then she saw a huge bunch of flowers sitting on the kitchen table. There was a note attached.

  ‘Happy Friday, Erin! Have a good day. See you later tonight. Love, John.’

  She sat down, read the note and smiled. Once again she was reminded how lucky she was to be married to John Delany, who really had a heart of gold. He worked hard every day in the bank, yet never complained about work. He always had time for Erin, his friends and sailing. John was full of energy, and while after a week of work she would happily spend a weekend relaxing and pottering around the house, John was always dragging her out for an afternoon of sailing, or for a pint in their local pub.

  She sent him a text to thank him for the flowers. She had to restrain herself from asking him to t
ake it easy with the beer when he was out with his friends tonight. She had managed to persuade him to give up smoking, but he still drank at the weekends, despite all the research she had shown him on alcohol and men’s fertility. She just wanted them both to be in the best health they could; it would make trying for a baby easier. But since she was due her period, she guessed one more night of alcohol wasn’t going to hurt their baby-making potential. Erin was tired, she always was when she was about to get her period. There was a time when she would take a pregnancy test the second she thought they might have conceived, but last month John had put his foot down about that.

  ‘I can’t wake up again to find you crying in the bathroom. No more early pre-test test kits. We have to let nature take its course.’

  ‘But, John—’ she started to say.

  ‘No buts. From now on we only do tests if you think you are late. OK?’

  Erin had to fight every urge in her body to agree, but she knew he was right. Over the last few months she had spent a fortune on buying every possible make and brand of pregnancy test. Unfortunately they all said the same thing – not pregnant – but that hadn’t stopped her rushing out to buy more. She knew John was right, she had to try to relax, but he just didn’t understand how much she wanted a little baby, a child.

  She looked around their home. It was an old red-brick four-bedroomed house, with a reasonable-sized garden, and was within walking distance of Blackrock Village. They had stretched themselves to buy the house in the affluent suburb, but it had been worth it. It was in a great location, not only near their friends and family, but near good schools, too. Of course John was just happy he was only minutes from Dun Laoghaire Harbour, and the yacht club. They both knew it was a beautiful home, and Erin had spent a lot of time, energy and money making it perfect. From top designer curtains to Egyptian cotton sheets, they had made sure their home looked immaculate. But as she ran her hand over the large brown leather couch in the living room, she was reminded how they had picked it because leather was the best option when you had kids. She knew John had agreed when getting their garden decked that it was worth paying extra for splinterless decking, as it would make it safer for children in the future. And she had insisted they kept the old bath in the master bathroom, because you needed to bathe children when they were young. But with no children on the horizon she wondered if she’d been too presumptuous. She’d never even considered that children might never live in the house; that there might never be a baby to bathe, or a toddler to crawl around on the decking. Erin shuddered at the thought. That future was unbearable. She finished her tea, locked up the house and headed into work.