Valentines Day

Monday 14th February

I wake up before the alarm, this is not usual you must know but to be honest not much feels usual right now. My head has settled into a pragmatic place as I bathe and get myself ready for the hospital.Or maybe not maybe this wash of calm is something more like foolish hope. For some reason I feel like everything is going to be OK. I can feel you still there, inside of me, holding on.

There must be thirty or so Mother's in the waiting room of the early pregnancy clinic, from all walks of life. Most of the women with partners aside them, others looking alone. One girl, of maybe 16 or so looks so frightened, I expect her Mum to turn up or her boyfriend but no one comes. She sits peeling the cuffs of her jumper over her hands. I want to reach out to her. It doesn't seem the right place to be on your own. I count my blessings I have your Dad here, he's come into his own this past week, protective of me and you like I have never known. Ever so often a tear roles silently down a cheek but there's an air of gracious composure and dignity.

The initial appointment is brief but the nurse is warm and reassuring and funny. I have noticed women in "women's" wards tend to come in two distinct variety's. I am glad to avoid the other variety, coldly pragmatic with the insensitivity of a drunk wasp and the bedside manner of a roll mop herring.  She tells me the spotting and the persistent cramping is very usual. Then we are sent off again to kill some time out in the brilliant bright sunshine. There are wisps of snow white cloud in the otherwise clear blue sky. Then there's that smell and energy of spring. It doesn't seem like a day for losing you.

We arrive back and I am keen to get things over with now. The waiting has gone on for long enough now. The girl opposite me is eating crisps and I feel repulsed at the smell, a strong synthetic beef smell. Worse than that is the sound of her eating them. She is trying to be discreet but there's something about polite eating that makes it louder more noticeable, each bite elongated. Like having a slow leg wax.

Finally we go in for the scan. I slip my lower things off and climb onto the bed. The Sonographer places a paper towel over my legs to keep me discreet which I am grateful for. I hate internals at the best of times. In fact the week before I knew you were coming I had been prescribed Diazepan just to get through a routine smear. For some reason all my fear and repulsion has faded away, so desperate am I to know you are safe, to see your life beginning. She inserts not much more than the tip end of the long probe and I try and breathe through the gnawing pain and focus on thoughts of you.  Her face looks gravely serious as she twists and turns the instrument inside me searching in different directions. The screen faces away from me. Your Dad peers at it but I can't even look at him now for fear of seeing a look of disappointment or concern. Neither are giving anything away. My thoughts race in twisting tornadoes, perhaps I have lost you, perhaps you have never been there, then my thoughts jumped to cancer, perhaps I was riddled, and my baron womb would be removed, and I'd never know that feeling of having you inside.

Then she turns the screen towards me and I see you, I see both of you.