OMG Baby! (15 page)

I
sit
cross-legged on a sunlit wooden floor. My hands rest on my knees. Next to me Lucy sits in the same position, wearing expensive-looking grey leisurewear. Around the edge of the room, other women sit like us, all different sizes, colours and styles, all cross-legged. Music plays, a chant in Urdu. We breathe and we wait. I sneak a look across the room. You would think pregnancy would be a bit of a leveller in the attractiveness stakes, that we’d all have huge bellies and big bums, but no, those skinny girls who look good in everything – you know the ones who speak to you in changing rooms, who say, ‘That’s lovely,’ and look you up and down when you’re shoe-horned into something, while themselves sashaying around in hot-pants playsuits? – they look great pregnant as well. They have neat, cute little bumps, and their arms, legs and bums remain tiny, and they all hang out at antenatal yoga classes wearing cashmere hoodies in pastel shades with matching leg warmers.

A lovely little fairy with long grey hair arrives to teach us. She sits in the middle of the semi-circle of women in the quiet sitting position and begins to chant, and some of the women join in. Lucy’s lips move, mimicking the words as if she knows what she’s saying, so I do the same. The woman opens her eyes, presses her long fingers to her chest and says she’s Dita. She twirls her fingers a lot like ET as she welcomes us and asks us to introduce ourselves one by one, say where we are with our pregnancies, if it’s our first one and to share our experiences.

This is excruciating. I hate the ‘introduce round the circle’ thing. The pressure gets to me and trips some sort of alter-ego. I end up becoming someone else. Once, at a work training thing, I was surprised to find I had a lisp when I spoke. Another time, instead of introducing myself, I told a joke and laughed in a cackly way. I only half listen now: I’m paralysed with terror, nodding and smiling, while dreading my turn. One woman named Mary who’s quite mannish, with hair like a baby doll that’s been through the boil wash, tells us she’s twenty weeks pregnant and it’s her first baby.

‘Ah, Mary, well into your second trimester, and have you been massaging your perineum?’ asks Dita.

Christ on a bike! That’s a bit personal, isn’t it? I mean, surely what you choose to do with your own perineum is nobody else’s business. I look nervously over at Mary, thinking she might be too mortified to answer, but no, she’s waxing lyrical about it, going on and on about the type of oil she uses and how she sometimes puts some into her vagina and sometimes Colin does it for her. Colin? Who the fuck is Colin? Presumably her partner, who has nothing better to do, and not some ubiquitous service called Colin that we can all call on. ‘Call on Colin.’ Oh, a tongue-twister! Urgh, what will I say if Dita asks me about my perineum? She’s coming. She’s coming. Think, think!

‘Ladies, it’s vitally important to massage your perineum to keep it nice and stretchy and elastic so that you don’t tear,’ says Dita, nodding round the room. I inwardly clench.

Dita turns to the next woman, who has a history of pelvic-floor problems. I keep looking at Mary in amazement as she settles back into her quiet sitting pose. She feels my eyes, looks up and smiles.

Lucy is now talking about her birth plan and asking if Dita could recommend a doula to help with labour, and all the women are nodding and commenting. Lucy is a complete pro at this. Lucy is already thinking about labour? Lucy has a birth plan? Oh, now I feel very bad. She’s what – five or six weeks pregnant? I’m much more pregnant than her and I’m not sure I know what trimester I’m in. Trimester wasn’t a word I’d ever used until today, or perineum, or doula. Dr Savage didn’t prepare me for this! Nor did any midwife. Of course, I realise now that I’ve been a fool. If I’m going to have a baby, I need to know the correct technical language. I should know what to call my own equipment, shouldn’t I? Otherwise, what questions can I ask? ‘Dita, I’m concerned here. Are you telling me the baby is going to come out of my foo-foo?’

Argh, now it’s my turn. Dita is looking expectant. I feel myself blush to my hair roots.

‘Hi. I’m Vivienne Eliza Summers, BA hons,’ I say in a strange sing-songy American accent. ‘This is my first baby, I’m nearly twenty weeks, and I’ve been having a lot of discharge.’

‘Hmm, what colour was the discharge, Viv?’

Oh shit, I don’t know – I just made it up to have something shocking to say. Now what? Now what? Lucy is looking at me aghast.

‘Kind of whitey-blue?’ I whine without pronouncing the ‘t’.

‘And is there typically a lot of it?’

‘Oh, loads. Erm, not much,’ I say meekly in my own voice.

‘It may be reassuring for you to get checked over by your doctor.’ Dita smiles. Her teeth are beautiful.

‘Really? My doctor? Old Dr Savage! Honestly, he knows nothing about babies,’ I say, hoping others will relate, but no one makes eye contact.

‘Neither do you,’ hisses Lucy.

‘Wha—?’ I begin, but thankfully Dita has moved on to the lady beside me, who’s having twins. Now Mary is looking at
me
. She rolls her eyes. I stare her down. What does she know, anyway, with her great baggy perineum?

As we go through the class doing eagle and cow arms, nourishing the pelvis and lengthening the spine, I resolve to learn this pregnancy jargon. I’ll have books and information at my fingertips and specially designed Tupperware. I’ll get involved and become a pregnancy know-it-all. And I realise now it’s all Max’s fault that I know almost nothing. I’ve been going along with his lackadaisical attitude – him with his ‘Everything’s going to be all right’ and ‘Women have babies all the time . . . in war zones.’ Well, look where that’s got me. Humiliated in yoga. Not pregnant warrior, more pregnant loser.

L
ucy
and I try on maternity clothes later after class: it’s late-night shopping on Oxford Street. In Gap, they let us take as many items into the changing rooms as we like, which is good because who wants the hassle of trying on four things, calling for the changing-room assistant and getting no response, then having to get dressed in your own clothes again so you can try on more things? Not us. Also, there’s a whole maternity section.

I emerge from the changing room in a black jersey maxi-dress with wizard sleeves, and Lucy pops out in a striped rugby shirt. She scans me, a wrinkle appearing between her brows.

‘I’m getting this,’ I say, and swing the arm material.

‘When would you wear it?’

‘Anytime. It has “day to evening” written all over it. You just accessorise accordingly, don’t you?’

‘Do you?’ she asks, picking at the sleeve hem.

‘You’ll look great in this as well. You should vamp yourself up a bit,’ I say, remembering we’re sharing the maternity wardrobe.

She pulls a face. I use the curtain tie-back as a belt/necklace in an attempt to demonstrate versatility. ‘Evening,’ I say with it round my neck. ‘Daytime.’ I drop it.

‘Erm, no,’ she says.

‘Yes, Lucy, this is a really useful dress!’

‘If you go to a lot of Harry Potter dos,’ she laughs. ‘Dude, you look like a snake that swallowed an egg and got bat sleeves.’ Lucy has never got the hang of analogies.

‘Oh, ho, ho. That top is a no too, then,’ I say, and she looks at herself in the mirror.

‘I think it’s quite cute, for the weekend.’

‘Do not turn up that collar!’ I say. She does.

Thus we go through every maternity collection on the high street with the end result being two different sets of maternity clothes – her collection of bags is huge, mine not so huge. To be honest, we were deluded thinking we could have a shared wardrobe: I’m cool and edgy and not-trying-too-hard sexy, and she’s corporate Home Counties with a sickening leaning towards cutesy – she bought a top for herself in H&M that came with a matching sleepsuit for the baby.

Later, perched on high stools at a health-food eatery in Soho, we plan our children’s wedding. We think even if we both have girls or both have boys, our offspring could still be married, reasoning that this, in some ways, could be cooler than the traditional set-up.

I’m just swallowing a mouthful of beetroot and alfalfa California roll and pinning on a ‘Baby on board’ badge that Lucy helpfully acquired for each of us for when we are commuting when Lucy asks about my wedding.

‘Have you set a date? Because I want to know how pregnant I’ll be. Remember I’m due on 20 June, so it can’t be a month before or after that, otherwise I won’t be able to be your best woman.’

I have never asked her to be my best woman – she presumes a lot of things.

‘Oh, it won’t be in the summer. Um, maybe in September?’

‘Dude, are you trying to punish me for something?’

‘No.’

‘September? I won’t have had time to lose the baby weight, and I want to breastfeed for at least six months.’

‘Oh. Yeah. Well, we haven’t actually set a date. I’m not really thinking about weddings for a bit, not until after the baby.’

‘But you should book somewhere. Do you have a venue in mind?’

‘Nope. I’m planning it all after the baby.’

‘OK, but don’t come crying to me when your dream venue is booked up for the next two years.’

‘“Dream venue” is not a term I ever want to hear again,’ I tell her.

‘What about your birth plan?’

‘I . . . have a plan for the birth.’ I nod unconvincingly.

‘You don’t, do you?’ she laughs.

‘I’m . . . I’ll probably squat,’ I begin, raising my voice as she bursts out laughing, ‘and I’ll have some music, probably Bob Dylan.’

‘No clue,’ she says, and shakes her head. ‘Have you enrolled on any NCT classes?’

‘NCT classes. I’ll Google that. I will! I have some clue – I’ve been researching online.’

‘What, your Pinterest page? Dude, it’s full of babies dressed up as bees!’

So begins a lecture from Lucy about all the things I should have done by now. Quite a lot, it seems, and she goes on to tell me about her cure for morning sickness, which is to eat a lot of Orange Maid ice lollies.

‘I’ve been to midwife appointments!’

‘And were you listening?’

‘Yes. I’m booked in. I have leaflets.’

‘Dude, have you even read one leaflet?’

‘And I have a twenty-week scan next week, and I plan to ask a lot of questions at that.’ She opens her mouth to speak and I talk over the top of her. ‘A lot of questions. More questions than answers,’ I repeat until she’s quiet. Then I feel sorry for quashing her enthusiasm. ‘Anyway, let’s hear your birth plan so I can copy,’ I say. She’s pleased and tells me in detail about her natural water birth using HypnoBirthing techniques, and how she’s keeping an open mind in case medical intervention is required because there’s this one girl she knows at work who laboured too long at home, had some sort of prolapse and now has to wear her fanny in a sling. I wonder about a transition cracker for that situation.

Lucy goes off to the toilet and I check my phone. A text from Max:

T
his is
the kind of text that could be incriminating later if Rainey gets nabbed by drug barons and we can’t explain her whereabouts. I delete the text, tutting to myself, and when Lucy returns, I say I’m tired and we leave.

I take the bus home, staring out of the window and thinking hard about a solution to the fiancé-hates-mother puzzle. I haven’t found a way to explain to Max that Rainey is staying for a while longer. Last night wasn’t the right moment, and this morning he was rushing out and so was I, but the more time that goes by without telling him, the more I feel like I’m actually lying to him. I’ll tell him tonight. I know he’ll be pissed off, but I also know he loves me so he’ll understand. Of course he will.

The Crown is a huge, sprawling pub with pool tables and large flat-screens showing round-the-clock sport, and it’s also our local. I spot Max at a little table near the window. He’s wearing a red woolly scarf of mine knotted twice, a Minnie Mouse T-shirt and grey trousers. He’s halfway down a pint. I decide not to get a drink, thinking after I tell him about Rainey we’ll be leaving pretty quickly. He stands when he sees me and holds out an arm. I hug him.

‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘I’m tired. I’ll just wait for you to finish yours.’

‘Like your badge,’ he says.

I flick it and smile, pulling up a stool opposite him.

‘You OK? How was yoga?’

‘Uh, you’re supposed to massage my perineum.’

‘Anytime,’ he nods.

‘Very accommodating.’

‘I’m in a good mood. I sold a landscape,’ he says, and waves his clasped hands.

‘Ah, that’s brilliant.’ I feel a surge of relief. ‘Which one?’

‘A little one. Only a thousand, but at least . . .’

‘We can eat.’

‘Yeah.’ He holds my hand.

I take a deep breath. What I’m going to do is look him in the face and say something like, ‘I’ve agreed to let Rainey stay for a few months. Don’t ask me why, because I can’t explain, but if you love me, you must understand. I need your support on this matter. Thank you for listening.’

I take another deep breath and say, ‘You killed Rainey, then?’

‘Ah, I only dream of it,’ he snorts.