Happily Ever After?

by Benison Anne O'Reilly

  Anyway, I had been working happily in this position for two years, and Lo-prez was gaining good market share, when I detected a new itch developing - the baby itch. Edward kept bringing all his kiddies into the office, now joined by a bonny, fat little fellow called Callum. Melanie had her own little rascals at preschool. Then it appeared that everyone I knew in the world started breeding: my brother and Amrita added a little girl, Eliza, to their brood and Mimi cleverly produced his and her twins. Tony’s friends started having babies, too. The circus had moved on from weddings to christenings and at each social gathering there would be a brand new baby to coo and gush about.

  Again I knew I’d have to be patient. I started dropping a few hints in Tony’s direction but he carefully deflected them away. It wasn’t that he didn’t want children - we had discussed this before marriage - but he was worried we wouldn’t be able to manage the mortgage on a single income. He was on a good but hardly spectacular wage at this time. The really big bucks only come with the captain’s stripes and we knew that with Qantas’s rigid seniority system promotion was still some years away.

  Although, as it turned out, Tony came around to the idea sooner than I expected. Two things happened to change his mind. First, my company announced a new paid maternity leave package and the establishment of more flexible work conditions, both measures designed to encourage females to return to work after having their baby rather than just resign. Secondly, some of Tony’s friend’s babies started getting bigger. Tony was never interested in newborns - he claimed they were boring and ugly and all looked the same - but when some of these kiddies turned into toddlers with real personalities he started to sit up and take notice.

  One Sunday afternoon when we returned from a picnic where Angus’ two year old son had been beetling about in a mini Wallabies jersey he said, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking you’re probably right. If we sit around waiting for the right time to have children we’ll never end up having them.’

  I have a strong suspicion that the baby Wallaby was the clincher.

  ‘What are you getting at?’ I asked.

  ‘That we should think about starting a family, of course.’

  ‘I agree but what do you mean by think about?’

  ‘I guess we could even start soon-ish. You could stop taking the pill at least. And I’d better cut my losses on the living room and start working on one of the other bedrooms. We wouldn’t want the baby sleeping somewhere half-finished. There might be lead in that old paint, too.’

  ‘Well at that rate you should start working right this minute. Pregnancy only takes nine months, after all.’

  Hooray! Finally, I thought. Ah, but easier said than done.

  I stopped taking those little pills, started my folic acid and toddled off to my GP for some advice about the best way to fall pregnant. And yes, I did know this meant having sex but when it comes to conception timing is everything. Unfortunately Tony was often away at the crucial time. We didn’t think it appropriate to request that his roster be scheduled round my ovulatory cycle either.

  Even when Tony was around things didn’t seem to be happening as planned and that was more of a worry. He got plenty of action around those crucial few days, I can tell you. Initially I was philosophical but after a few months I started getting twitchy when my period was due, imagining I felt ‘different’ until - monotonously on schedule - the bleeding arrived like an unwelcome visitor and all my hopes had to be put on hold for another twenty-eight days. Why was it so easy for everyone else? Mimi had confided that she conceived her twins at the very first attempt. I started worrying that there was something wrong with me, not helped by - you guessed it - my mother-in-law. Stupidly, Tony had confided in her our plans so as the months ticked away she started making comments.

  ‘You know, Douglas’ older sister Margaret could never conceive. It was terribly sad. No-one knows why. Some women are just not meant to be mothers I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t know that I have quite got to that stage,’ I said, mustering all my dwindling reserves of patience in an attempt to remain civil. ‘There is always IVF if worse comes to worst.’

  What I really wanted to say was: ‘Why assume it’s me, honey? It could be your son who has the problem.’

  There was something about Pamela that I’d always wondered about. She had Tony when she was only twenty-two but then Andrew was not born until eight years later. Was Tony the cause of a hushed-up ‘shotgun marriage’ or did she have a few of her own fertility problems? A caring person might have confided all this to her daughter-in-law, but this woman would have rather taken a full-time job in the Drive-Thru at McDonalds than reveal any vulnerabilities to me.

  My GP was more reassuring. ‘Look, Ellie, you are really quite young to be trying to have a baby in this day and age and you have years ahead of you,’ she said. ‘You just need to be a bit patient [that bloody word again]. However, I think it’s reasonable to start some investigations if nothing has happened after twelve months. So, if you’re still not pregnant by then, come back and I’ll arrange a referral to a fertility specialist.’

  Twelve months came and went, then thirteen. By this time my eyes had developed a maniacal gleam and I could think of little else. Every female at work except me seemed to be pregnant. Tony was also getting tense by this stage and we’d started getting snippy at one another. Our sex life had taken a big battering too: it had all become about conception, not enjoyment. The renovations on the ‘baby’s room’ were well and truly finished but I was beginning to wonder if we would ever produce an occupant. I’d returned to my GP, dumping on her desk a bulging folder containing all the latest IVF research, and we now had an appointment booked with the fertility specialist of our choice. Instead of anticipating a new babe in arms, my husband was looking forward to all the fun of a sperm count.

  Melanie’s birthday came around and a few of us headed out to the pub for a girls’ night out. Having already given up on the idea of conceiving naturally, I got absolutely wasted on champagne and Bacardi Breezers. The girls poured me into a taxi to get home. Tony was away and I don’t remember how I got in the front door but I must have, as I woke up the next morning in my bed, fully clothed and very much the worse for wear. I called in sick, thankful I had an understanding boss. And of course, that was the month it happened - after thirteen months of common sense and relative sobriety, it was the month I got completely pickled.

  Twenty-eight days, twenty-nine days, thirty days, thirty-one days ticked past. I really did feel different this time, faint and fluttery, but I waited till the next morning when I knew I could be absolutely sure, being much practised at the peeing in the bottle routine by this time. A pink line came up to indicate the test was positive and instead of the absolute elation I had expected, I felt a strange cocktail of emotions: numb, elated, relieved, sad and panicky all at the same time. Tony was away - again - so I placed that white stick in a box, wrapped it in coloured paper, tied it with a bow, and left it on his pillow for him to find when he got home that afternoon.

  5

  One sunny day in September

  We waited until I’d reached the twelve weeks’ mark before telling anyone the news; after all the struggles I’d had to get pregnant I didn’t want to tempt fate.

  My obstetrician was very reassuring after I confessed about my champagne/Bacardi Breezer bender at the time of conception.

  ‘Oh every second mum-to-be who comes in here has the same story. We do recommend you avoid alcohol during pregnancy but problems usually only occur when there’s repeated heavy drinking.’

  Phew! I had of course stopped all alcohol and caffeine from the day the pregnancy was confirmed. Being well versed in my substance abuse problems it didn’t take Melanie too long to figure out what was up but she swore to keep my secret.

  I was thrilled that I could keep everything under wraps at work because I didn’t put on much weight in those first
few months. My brother David’s wife, Amrita, is an Indian girl so beautiful she could have danced straight off a Bollywood set into medical school. She has huge brown eyes and straight black hair, fine-boned limbs and narrow, elegant hands and feet. During her two pregnancies she had remained as lean as ever except for a compact baby bump, but through some magical conjuring act had managed to produce amazingly large and robust babies after obscenely short labours. I decided that if I looked like Amrita did when she was pregnant I would happily go on to have fifty babies.

  I had a bad feeling that I would not be so blessed. Pregnancy is not generally kind to the Parkes women. I could remember what Mum looked like when she was pregnant with Emma and I can tell you it wasn’t pretty. Let’s just say that if there had been a competition to see which was larger at the end - her belly or her butt - they would have had to call for the video referee. I was determined not to suffer the same fate and despite the early fatigue kept up my usual exercise routine with only minor adjustments, with my obstetrician’s consent of course. This seemed to be paying off.

  Tony attended one of my early obstetrician’s appointments with me. At the end of the consultation the doctor asked if we had any further questions.

  That’s when my husband piped up, ‘Err, yes I have one…is it okay to continue having sex whilst Ellie is pregnant?’

  ‘All the husbands ask that one. Yes, it’s absolutely fine, just as long as there is no bleeding. In the unlikely event you do notice some spotting call me straight away and we’ll arrange a check up.’

  Greg, the obstetrician, was an old medical school buddy of David’s. I suspected we might have been getting favoured treatment as a consequence, but I wasn’t complaining. So being given the green light we resumed love making, but tentatively, as Tony was convinced he would hurt the baby if he thrust too hard. To be honest I could have happily done without it, my libido seeming to disappear down the toilet once the pregnancy was confirmed, but I wanted to appear obliging to the father-to-be.

  At eleven weeks Tony and I fronted up for an ultrasound to screen for Down syndrome. It was our first sighting of him or her and Tony shared a wide-eyed smile with me as the realisation he was going to be a daddy hit home. That was enough to set off my tears. All my earlier ambivalence went up in a puff of smoke when I saw that funny looking, big-headed, alien being on screen - so ugly, yet so adorable at the same time.

  At the twelve weeks’ mark we broke the news to our families and work. Mimi was ecstatic and Mum was delirious but probably no-one was quite so happy as Edward. Christina, a girl I had worked with in my former department, announced she was expecting at the same time so we began to compare notes and baby bumps. Even Pamela seemed genuinely pleased, although she quickly regained her composure and told me off for working and exercising too hard. ‘You need to rest more or you might hurt the baby. It should be your first priority now.’

  We decided we were not going to find out the sex of our baby - we wanted a surprise - but had already determined names: William for a boy, Isabel for a girl. Not only was I keeping fit, but I was feeling and looking brilliant. I had hardly any morning sickness and my skin and hair glowed. I loved feeling the tautness of my belly and Tony was delighting in that other consequence of pregnancy: bigger breasts.

  Baby Cooper was due in early February. I planned to finish work at Christmas time and have a good few weeks’ rest over the hottest summer months. I thought it fitting that the arrival of our first child would coincide almost exactly with our wedding anniversary. One lunch hour I even indulged myself by buying some size 000 singlets and tiny white socks, so heartbreakingly small that I thought I might just burst. Finally we were having a baby.

  September rolled around. It was the year 2000 - the year of the Sydney Olympics - and the big carnival was just around the corner. We’d splurged on tickets for an evening in the main stadium and Tony’s roster had been kind to us; he was going to be free to attend. The sun shone and the sky became bluer, hinting at a warm summer ahead. I started waking early to the squawk of parrots, as the rainbow lorikeets breakfasted on the newly-bloomed grevilleas on the nature strip at the front of our house. I always loved the fact these beautiful and exotic parrots chose to visit our determinedly urban environment. I just wished they’d kept more hospitable hours.

  It was no coincidence that the Sydney Organising Committee had chosen September as the month to host the biggest sporting event in town. It has the best weather of the year, warm but without the energy sapping humidity of summer, and is a bumper time for weddings and babies - some of them probably unplanned - falling exactly nine months after the Christmas/New Year holiday period.

  The eighteen-week ultrasound for our very planned baby was scheduled for early September, just before the Opening Ceremony. I was looking forward to seeing our little one on the screen again, looking, I hoped, a little more baby-like. I’d begun to feel little movements that I thought were kicks, but they were very faint so it was possibly just my imagination.

  The ultrasound was scheduled for a Tuesday so Tony could be there. It was a glorious day, warm and cloudless. I had an early morning work meeting which I couldn’t get out of so we arranged to meet outside the clinic at 11am. I’d drunk two large glasses of water, as advised, and my bladder was busting. In my excitement that morning I’d left my sunglasses at home, so I squinted in the sun’s glare as it reflected off the concrete pavement. Stupid me, I thought, I should have got Tony to bring them along. I watched him walk up the road to meet me and when he kissed me on the cheek I felt a pride of possession that had never left me - my gorgeous husband, the father of my baby.

  We caught the lift up and sat together until it was time to be called. I can’t really remember what we talked about. I think our minds were elsewhere. Eventually the technician, a scrubbed-faced, wholesome looking girl in her twenties, called for us and escorted us into a private room. I was advised to lie on the bed and expose my belly.

  ‘This might feel a bit cold,’ she explained as she spread a clear gel over my abdomen, although I already knew this after our earlier ultrasound.

  ‘I just have to locate the heartbeat,’ she said, as she moved the probe around.

  She started chatting. ‘Is this your first baby?’

  ‘Yes, our first - we’re very excited,’ Tony said.

  Our baby appeared in screen, much bigger now, and I smiled at Tony.

  But the technician wasn’t smiling. She stopped chatting and her brow furrowed slightly as she moved the probe around. ‘I’m just having a bit of trouble here,’ she said quietly. ‘Just hold on for a moment…I think I might have to go and get the doctor to have a look.’

  This didn’t seem right. I knew she was worried. Had she seen something bad on the screen, a problem with the heart or brain or something? Then she left us in limbo, Tony and me. I was trying not to cry.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Tony, looking at me.

  An older female doctor came in and also moved the probe around, but not for a very long time. Then she said, ‘I think it might be best to talk in my office.’

  I knew then something was very wrong. Just tell us, I thought.

  The gel was cleaned off and the doctor ushered us into her office. She sat us both down across the desk from her and offered to get us a drink. ‘No thanks,’ I said. My bladder was still full.

  ‘There is no easy way to tell you this,’ she said, ‘but we can’t detect a heartbeat for your baby.’

  ‘What?…But I heard it only the other day at my obstetrician’s appointment.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m afraid something must have happened between now and then.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Tony, his eyes darting between me and the doctor, seeking reassurance where there was none to be had.

  ‘It sometimes happens - not often - but sometimes. Something goes wrong at this late stage.’

  ‘Are you sure you’r
e not wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘No…I’m sorry.’

  You know how stupid I am? It took me several minutes - or at least it seemed that way - to register that a baby without a heartbeat is a baby that is not alive; it is in fact a dead baby. Sometime in the last few days my baby had died.

  ‘No, this can’t be happening,’ I whimpered. A tear dripped off my nose and splashed onto the doctor’s desk. ‘It took us a long time to fall pregnant.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she said, reaching over and gently stroking my hand. She handed me some tissues. Tony was completely silent; I don’t think either of us ever contemplated this possibility.

  The doctor was very kind. ‘You have a decision to make,’ she said. ‘You can either go home and wait for nature to take its course.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Tony asked.

  ‘She will miscarry.’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or we can arrange for you to be admitted to hospital straight away, and they will give you some drugs to induce labour so you can deliver the baby. You may want a while to think about this.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I want to be admitted as soon as possible.’ I didn’t want to walk around with a dead baby inside me for any longer than necessary. Tony was only home for a couple more days and I wanted him there with me. I couldn’t imagine going through this alone.

  ‘Okay, I’ll just go into the other room and phone your obstetrician. You’ll be admitted under him.’

  The next few hours were a blur. I must have gone home and got a few things and then returned to the hospital to be admitted. I asked Tony to call my mum and Edward, who was expecting me back at work. I was too upset to say the words - that was left to my poor husband.