She climbed up onto the bed with some effort, lay down, and stared up at the ceiling. For a moment, the thought crossed her mind that she shouldn’t be lying on her back. But then she remembered that no longer mattered. There was no further damage that she could do. She began to cry silently. Tom was still in the armchair, his head in his hands. At a time when she should have drawn comfort from the man she loved, she felt alone.
* * *
It was only an hour or two before Ali started to feel something like period pain tightening her abdomen. Was this it? The beginning of the end of her pregnancy? She didn’t say it out loud, because that would mean it was really happening, that the loss of their baby was almost complete.
She was in the bathroom when she remembered work. She hurriedly washed her hands, returned to the room and fished her phone out of her handbag.
‘What are you doing?’ Tom asked.
‘I need to let Alex know what’s happened.’
Tom stared at her incredulously. ‘Fuck work! Fuck Alex! None of that matters.’
‘Geoff’s giving a press conference with the premier tomorrow morning. I was supposed to be there. I can’t just not show up.’
‘Let me call him.’ Tom’s voice was pleading now. ‘You shouldn’t have to deal with this right now.’
But Ali was already dialling Alex’s number. ‘I need to tell him eventually, Tom. I’d rather do it now than later, when—’
‘Hey Al, what’s up?’ Her boss’s warm, self-assured tone was out of place in this cold, clinical room.
Ali gulped. ‘Hi Alex. I just… I just wanted to let you know that I’m not going to make the presser tomorrow.’ She hated how weak she sounded. Only people with no power used the word just. But now all her power was gone, she could neither do her job nor become a mother.
Alex’s sigh was audible. ‘Not more pregnancy woes? You’re putting me on the spot here.’
‘I… we… I’ve lost the baby,’ she finally managed to croak out.
Lost. As if she’d put the baby down somewhere and couldn’t remember where. If only it were that simple. If only it were just a matter of retracing her steps over the last few days, working out what had gone wrong and reversing it.
‘Oh shit, Al. Oh fuck. That’s awful. I’m so sorry.’ Alex sounded genuinely upset.
Ali drew a deep, shuddering breath, sensing the tsunami of grief that threatened to cascade over her, sweep her away. If she let go now, she knew she would cry until there was nothing left inside her, and then she would cease to exist, because how could she go on after this?
‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I don’t know when I’ll be back at work.’
‘Take as long as you need,’ Alex said. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘Thanks.’ Ali hung up before he could say anything else.
Her loss. She hadn’t thought beyond the birth, but now the reality of the future swarmed over her. She wouldn’t be going on maternity leave in two months’ time. They would have to return all the furniture they’d bought for the baby. All those little piles of tiny clothes she’d lovingly purchased or inherited from friends would sit in the neat white drawers they’d bought from Ikea, gathering dust until the day she bundled them into a garbage bag and shoved them in the bin outside the Salvos.
Her uterus tightened again, stronger now, more insistent.
‘Are you OK?’ Tom was by her side, trying to look into her eyes.
‘No, I’m not OK. I’m very fucking far from OK, Tom.’
He gathered her into his arms, his chest warm against her cheek, but she felt nothing except a deep, wide morass of pain.
* * *
There was a knock on the door and a different midwife entered the room. Ali raised her head from Tom’s shoulder.
‘How are you going, Alison?’ the midwife asked in a low voice. ‘I’m Sally. I’ll be looking after you tonight.’
‘I think the labour has started,’ Ali said.
Tom looked at her. She knew he was hurt that she hadn’t told him, but all she felt was an overwhelming inertia.
‘Good, good,’ Sally said. ‘You’re lucky it’s started so quickly. Sometimes it can take days.’
Lucky. Ali didn’t feel lucky.
‘Are you ready for your next lot of tablets?’ Sally asked.
Ten o’clock. It had already been dark by the time they’d arrived in the room, so she hadn’t noticed the time passing. This room had become her world, a cocoon that shielded her from reality. She was suddenly scared of what lay outside the door. She took the tablets from the midwife and threw them into her mouth. This time she had no trouble keeping them down.
‘You probably won’t need to have any more,’ Sally said. ‘Your labour should progress quite quickly now.’
She was right. Soon the pressure around Ali’s middle intensified as the contractions became more regular, gripping her body like an ever-tightening band of iron. Sally tried to encourage her to move around the room, but Ali couldn’t bring herself to get up from the bed. She lay motionless, clenching her jaw as the wave of each contraction built up to a crescendo then washed away. She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She bore each contraction in silence. Tom tried to hold her hand, but she couldn’t bear his touch. Her lip began to bleed from where she bit it.
‘Are you sure you don’t want pain relief, Alison?’ Sally asked when she next came to examine her.
‘I’m sure,’ Ali said.
‘Please, honey.’ Tom sounded desperate, as if he were the one having contractions. ‘You shouldn’t have to go through this.’
But Ali couldn’t answer and Tom said no more. Sally finished her examination and pulled off her latex gloves. ‘We’ll call your obstetrician again. It’s almost time.’
She disappeared and Ali began to cry. The fear that had been building inside her was about to overflow. She wasn’t ready. She was afraid of what came next. Afraid of what she’d see when the baby came out. Sally had questioned them gently about whether they wanted to hold the baby, assuring them that there was no wrong answer, but Ali already felt the pressure of expectation. What did other people do in this situation? She couldn’t bear the idea of touching her dead baby, but did that make her an unfeeling monster? Ali had never cared what others thought of her before, but now the weight of how to grieve appropriately bore down on her with all the other unthinkable decisions Sally had mentioned: official paperwork, options for burial or cremation, whether they wanted a funeral. Earlier, Belinda had told them about an organisation called Heartfelt, which sent professional photographers to take photos of stillborn babies and their families, but Ali shrank from the idea of documenting their loss in such a formal way.
The pain grew worse, but Ali embraced it. It built a wall around her, a safe bubble where no one else could get in. Once the physical pain stopped it would all be over. She would have given birth, but she wouldn’t be a mother. Not really.
Amelia, their obstetrician, arrived, her face creased in sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry, Alison, Tom.’
Ali was saved the effort of responding when she was hit by her most intense contraction yet. She cried out.
‘Do you need pain relief?’ Amelia asked.
Ali shook her head. She wished everyone would stop asking her that.
Amelia frowned. ‘I’d really recommend you have something. Has Sally told you all your options? It’s probably too late now for an epidural, but you could try the gas? It’ll take the edge off during the birth.’
‘I don’t want gas.’ Ali’s jaw relaxed as the contraction faded away. ‘I don’t want anything.’
Amelia held her gaze. Ali could tell she wanted to press further, but then Sally interrupted from the end of the bed. ‘It’s time to start pushing, Alison. When I give you the word, I want you to push as hard as you can.’
A white haze of fear descended on Ali. ‘No. I can’t do this. I want to go home. Tom.’ She grabbed Tom’s hand as another contraction racked her body.
‘I’m here. I’m here.’ Tom’s voice was soft, but his tone was laced with his own desperate fear. ‘You can do it, honey, I know you can.’
‘OK, Alison, I want you to push now.’
Ali tried to resist, tried to shut it down, but her body took over. She could feel the pressure building inside her until she let out a primal roar and pushed with all her strength.
‘That’s it, you’re doing an amazing job,’ Sally said. ‘One more push, then you can have a rest.’
Ali pushed again. A guttural scream swirled around the room, and it was a few moments before she realised it was coming from her.
‘Well done, Alison, I can see the baby’s head now,’ Amelia said. ‘Just wait for the next contraction.’
But Ali couldn’t wait; didn’t want to wait anymore. She pushed against the burning sensation and her body ripped open and the baby slithered out of her.
Silence. She collapsed against the pillow, too afraid to look at what was going on below. Tom had stood up when she’d started pushing, and now he inched tentatively down the bed, watching Sally and Amelia as they gently wrapped the tiny figure in a blanket. As if reading his cues, they handed the little bundle to him and he took it with such tenderness that Ali felt her heart would break. He began to move back towards her, and she had the urge to leap up from the bed, to run away, to escape from this moment she’d been dreading.
Tom gave her a little smile as he laid the baby on her chest. And at last Ali looked down. An overwhelming rush of love swept through her, swallowing her breath. She was beautiful. Her eyes were closed, just as if she were sleeping, and there was that perfect, straight nose from the ultrasound pictures. Her little lips were pursed. Her skin was pale. Her dark hair lay wet against her tiny head. Ali bent her head to kiss her. She was still warm.
The chair beside the bed scraped on the floor as Tom sat down again. He touched the baby’s head softly, with reverence. Tears poured down his face. Ali smiled at him through her own tears. ‘She has your nose.’
They both sobbed, taking it in turns to hold her and touch her and kiss her. Amelia and Sally finished cleaning up and discreetly left the room.
‘She’s so perfect.’ Tom kissed each of her tiny fingers.
For a short, exquisite time, they were a family, like all the other families in the hospital who had just been created. It seemed impossible that this moment would end, that they would have to let someone take their baby away from them forever. Ali wanted to remain in this warm, nourishing bubble, just the three of them. A family.
Before
Ali lay on the back lawn, her eyes closed against the soft afternoon sunlight. Her T-shirt was pulled up beneath her breasts, exposing the smooth bump of her belly. Tom lay beside her, reading aloud from Cloudstreet. It was his favourite book, and he was determined to read the whole thing to the baby before she was born.
‘I’m not sure the baby needs to be introduced to Dolly Pickles at such a tender age,’ Ali murmured.
‘I like Dolly,’ Tom said. ‘She reminds me of you.’
Ali opened one eye and swatted at him half-heartedly. ‘Thanks very much!’
Tom grinned at her, his dark eyes gleaming with mischief. She loved how his cheeks became swarthy with dark stubble every afternoon, no matter how carefully he’d shaved that morning. It was the one part of him that refused to be tamed by his prestigious job, by his sleek Zegna suits and crisp shirts.
‘No, really,’ he said. ‘Dolly is tough, just like you. She doesn’t take shit from anybody, and she doesn’t care what other people think of her.’
‘But she’s a shithouse mother.’
‘Damn sexy, though.’ Tom’s hand was on her knee, and then it was creeping up her leg.
‘She also can’t resist a really hot man.’ Ali’s head fell back and she watched the spots of sunlight dancing in the dappled shadows from the silver birch that towered overhead.
Tom
Tom stared at the perfect form of the baby in his wife’s arms, willing her to move, to defy the evidence, to prove the midwives and doctors wrong. He’d felt her kicking inside Ali only a few days ago, and now here she lay, on the outside but with no breath. He wanted to see her eyes, but he couldn’t bear to lift her eyelids, see them empty.
Sally reappeared and Ali glanced up at her before looking back to the baby. ‘Can she stay in here with us?’ Her voice was croaky with tears.
Sally hesitated. ‘Were you planning to have an autopsy?’
‘No,’ Tom said automatically.
‘Yes,’ Ali said at the same time.
They looked at each other.
‘I need to know,’ Ali said.
Tom wanted to argue. He didn’t want a pathologist making incisions on that flawless little body. Surely it would be better to put it down to a terrible tragedy than to find out that, at best, there was nothing they could have done to prevent it, or worse—that there had been something. Something they’d missed. But seeing the pain so acute in Ali’s eyes, he couldn’t deny her the possibility of closure.
‘OK,’ he said.
The midwife nodded. ‘In that case, I don’t recommend leaving her in here for too long at a time, as it might be a few days before the autopsy. There’s a little refrigerated container—a bit like an esky—in the next room that we can keep her in for the time being.’
Tom’s insides shrivelled at the idea. An esky, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t want her separated from them, cold and alone, but he couldn’t find the words to protest. He watched as Sally took the baby from Ali’s arms, gently, as if she were handling a fragile bird’s nest. Ali let out a low moan, and Tom took her hand.
‘Have you given her a name?’ Sally’s eyes were bright with tears.
‘Elizabeth.’
It was a shock to hear Ali speak the name they’d chosen a month ago, but it was right. It was her.
Sally smiled. ‘Beautiful. You can go next door to see Elizabeth whenever you like, but try to get some sleep now, if you can. You’ve both been through a lot tonight.’
Tom squeezed Ali’s hand as the midwife left with their baby. Neither of them spoke for a long while.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ Tom said eventually. ‘You were amazing.’
‘You should go home.’ Her voice was dull.
He stared at her. ‘I’m not going to leave you alone, Ali.’
At last she met his eyes. ‘I want to be alone. I’d rather you left.’
This blow, on top of everything else, almost floored Tom. He gave her hand a little shake. ‘No. I’m not going. Our daughter is here. You’re here.’
‘We’ll see her again in the morning. It’s only a few hours.’
‘If it’s only a few hours, I might as well stay here.’
‘Please go.’ She stared resolutely at her lap, her hand limp in his, like a dead thing.
Tom was almost in tears now. ‘Ali, don’t do this. I want to be with you.’
‘Go, Tom!’ Tears dripped into her lap.
Tom’s heart crumpled inside him. He dropped her hand and backed out of the room, watching her in case she changed her mind. At the last possible moment, he turned and strode away down the empty corridor.
Ali
After Tom had gone, the silence pressed in. Sally turned the light off so she could try to sleep, and the room, tucked away from all the happy new families, was dark and cold. Empty.
She needed to urinate. She needed to scream, to cry, to break something—anything to make her feel like she could wrest back some control.
But she didn’t move.
She lay on her back on the bed, her hands resting on her empty belly. The pelvic pain that had been her constant for the last eight weeks had vanished. How strange, to miss the presence of pain.
From deep in the bowels of the labour ward, a baby cried out once, then was silent. The sound tore through her.
Cold grey light from a moon Ali couldn’t see edged into the room past the blind that covered the window. The light inside
her was gone.
She was empty.
Tom
After getting lost in the maze of hallways, he finally found an exit at the side of the hospital and emerged from the hulking building. The cold air bit into him. He walked around the perimeter of the hospital until he reached the main entrance on Kermode Street. Even at this hour, a few smokers stood under the dim lights, the fog of their frozen breath mingling with the clouds of smoke.
He spotted the car where he had hurriedly parked it on the other side of the road, crooked and two feet from the kerb. As he drew closer, he saw the windscreen was littered with parking fines. Tom swore and kicked at the car in a sudden rage. He was about to march back into the hospital and abuse someone when he noticed the parking sign. It was a fifteen-minute zone. His rational lawyer’s mind kicked in and his outrage withered. The hospital wasn’t responsible for the fines, and even if it were, the law didn’t make exceptions for tragedy. The adrenalin that had kept him going since the previous afternoon drained away and he ripped the parking fines off the windscreen wiper and collapsed into the car, sending them tumbling onto the floor on the passenger side.
Tom felt encased in a bubble of unreality as he drove through the city, past the straggling line of drunk revellers waiting to get into the London Tavern, up East Terrace past the shadowy parklands, and along the quiet suburban streets towards home. A full moon hung heavy and low in the sky, casting silvery light over the wet roads. It was easy to imagine that the whole night had been a terrible dream, that his exhaustion was the result of a night on the town, that Ali would be waiting at home for him, annoyed but still pregnant. He tried not to think of her lying alone on that cold hospital bed.
When he got home, he didn’t turn the hallway light on as he walked in the front door. The green digital numbers on the microwave read 3.26am. The house was dark, frigid, quiet, but it felt somehow wrong to bring it to life. Moonlight poured through the windows and splashed across the living room’s walls and floor. He filled a glass of water from the tap, drained it in several gulps and poured another. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since he and Ali had come home from the baby store earlier that day.
Misconception Page 3