The Appointment
Anthony was more excited and nervous than I was. We took a taxi to the hospital and worked our way around the maze of departments before finding the antenatal unit. I was walking slowly. The appointment letter had said to drink a litre of water because there would be a scan and it worked best on a full bladder. I drank two for good measure. My bladder was at full capacity and any cough or sneeze was likely to bring on a TENA Lady moment.
I squeezed Anthony’s hand as we waited, hoping they’d call my name quickly as I wasn’t sure how long I could last.
‘I can’t sit still,’ I whispered to Anthony.
‘Nervous?’ he whispered back.
‘No, I need to go … badly.’
In an angry whisper he said, ‘I told you not to drink that extra litre.’
‘I just wanted to make sure they could see the scan.’
‘Of course they can see the scan. The equipment is made specially for that. You always go over the top.’
‘I just wanted to be on the safe side,’ I whispered like a wimp.
He didn’t whisper back.
‘And I bet none of these women drank a full litre,’ I whispered to Anthony behind my hand. ‘They all look so calm.’
Then someone called my name. A nurse, four foot high with boobs the size of a small planet.
‘Magenta Bright?’
‘Here,’ I said leaping up and remembering in time I had two litres of water to keep in place.
‘This way, please,’ she said.
Anthony and I followed the nurse down a corridor off the main waiting room. A midwife talked medical history to us for ages and worked out the due date.
‘But the dating scan will confirm the due date,’ the midwife said.
‘When will the scan be?’ I asked. My leg was crossed over my thigh and my foot was jiggling so hard to help me keep bladder control it was tapping the table like Morse code.
‘Nothing to be nervous about,’ she said looking at my fidgeting leg. Anthony put his hand on it.
Next was a series of form filling, blood pressure, and temperature checks and still no one had done a scan. I was on the verge of tears. I couldn’t hold out much longer. The midwife talked about healthy eating, pelvic floor exercises, and asked if I would be attending antenatal classes. She said I should consider my birth plan, too.
‘And here,’ she said, handing me a plastic carrier bag with a Pampers advertisement on the front. ‘This is your pregnancy greeting pack. It’s full of freebies, fliers, and coupons for most of the baby bits and bobs you’ll be spending your hard-earned on.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. I took the bag, put it beside me, and crossed my leg. My foot start jiggling against the table again. Anthony placed a hand on my thigh again, too.
‘I wonder if I could go to the loo,’ I asked the nurse who had just taken blood from me.
‘If you’re desperate, yes, but try to hold back as much as you can.’
‘Thank you so much.’
I bowed as I ran out of the room, Anthony shaking his head at me as I left.
On my return, bladder returned to a reasonable size, it was time for the scan.
‘I warmed the gel up as best I could,’ said the sonographer, ‘but it might still be a bit on the cool side.’
I climbed onto the bed in the dimmed light of the sonographer’s small room. I lay back and looked at the black screen to my right. The sonographer tucked scratchy blue paper into the top of my knickers before rubbing gel onto my tummy and began tapping on the keyboard below the screen. It seemed to come to life and I could see a series of blurred lines and dots. Anthony held my hand as the sonographer rolled the probe over my tummy. There was nothing to see for ages until a series of white clouds appeared against the black screen and I got ready to look at this tadpole-shaped baby doing terrific things in my uterus.
The sonographer rolled the probe over my tummy for a while longer, a puzzled look on her face.
‘This your first?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, cautiously.
‘Are you sure about your dates?’
‘Completely. Why?’
‘Not sure, it’s just that … hold on.’
She applied more gel. She continued to probe my tummy, pressing very hard and at weird angles so that my bladder complained. I pulled a face at Anthony but his eyes were now glued to the screen.
‘Is-is there a problem?’ he asked the sonographer in a soft voice.
‘Well, I’ve found an embryo but it doesn’t look as though it progressed more than about six weeks. And … I’m very sorry; there isn’t a heartbeat.’
No one spoke. I drew in a deep breath and squeezed Anthony’s hand tighter. He covered my hand with both of his.
‘You’re sure?’ he asked. I couldn’t speak.
‘I’m afraid I am. I’m very sorry, Magenta. I could try an internal scan but it doesn’t really seem –’
‘Could we?’ I reached over to grab her hand. ‘Just try. Just to be sure.’
‘You’ll need to pop to the loo first,’ she said. Her face and her demeanour offered very little hope.
‘Okay,’ I said, eager to get up, wipe the stupid gel off my tummy. We’d get to the bottom of this. Maybe I’d drank too much water and it was obscuring everything rather than being helpful. Why didn’t I just follow the directions in the first place? I must learn to follow instructions to the letter in future, I promised to no one in particular.
‘Magenta,’ Anthony said reaching for me before I could leave the small, dark room. ‘You sure you want to … want to …?’
‘Look it’ll be fine,’ I said waving him off. I was at the door, opening it and letting in light from the corridor. Anthony looked pale. ‘Sit tight, okay? I’ll be right back.’
Why is it there is always a queue for the loo when you’re at your most desperate? There was a line of pregnant women and only two cubicles. I tutted loudly and two women with huge bumps turned to look at me. I was desperate to get back to that damned sonographer and prove her wrong. I’d ask for a different scanning machine when I got back, maybe a second opinion if necessary.
Back in the room, the dimness felt eerie. Had it been that dark a minute ago? I climbed back onto the bed. Neither the sonographer nor Anthony wanted to make eye contact with me.
‘If you could raise your knees and relax for me, Magenta.’
My eyes were on the screen again, willing a heartbeat to materialize, a foetus of eleven weeks and not six to be on that bloody screen. But it didn’t happen. All that uncomfortable and mentally draining internal scan revealed was that the sonographer had been right all the time. No heartbeat.
‘But why?’ I asked.
‘I know it’s upsetting,’ the sonographer said. ‘But it happens in more cases than people realize. Sometimes a pregnancy just isn’t viable. We never always know the reason. But it happens. I’m sorry. If you get dressed I’ll call the doctor to talk to you.’
For the next few moments I moved around in a dreamlike state. I sat in a small waiting room, not the main one as before, not bothering to wipe my tears away. Anthony did his best to dab at my cheeks with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. We weren’t prepared for tears so we had no tissues and no one came along to offer us one.
The doctor hadn’t shown up and an absolute age had gone by. I could hear the nurses paging away like mad after the first half hour.
‘She shouldn’t have to wait this long,’ one was saying. Another agreed.
‘So,’ the doctor said when she finally sat me in a stark-looking office with a metal desk and an examining table behind a screen. ‘I see you’ve had a missed miscarriage?’
I said nothing. She went on.
‘What could happen now is you’ll start to bleed, might even happen tomorrow; it goes like that sometimes. We’ll schedule a scan. You can decide then if you want wait for a complete miscarriage or if you’d prefer for us to manage it for you. Most women opt for this. It’s entirely up to you but it would involve an operation under general anaesthetic. Do you have any questions for me?’
She looked distractedly up from her notes in my and Anthony’s general direction. I looked away and Anthony shook his head at the doctor.
‘If you could let the nurses know you’re coming back for a scan, then. We’ll, er, book you in and take care of things for you, Magenta.’ She smiled, I think. My eyes were glassy again and I looked towards the door.
She continued to speak by which time I hoped Anthony was paying attention because everything the doctor said swam around the periphery of my understanding and floated out of the window that was open and causing a huge draft. I tightened my scarf.
‘Can we go?’ I asked Anthony. He looked at the doctor.
‘Are you sure you don’t have any questions? Either of you?’ the doctor asked.
I shook my head and we left the hospital. I stood by a low wall, the huge car park and hospital behind us, while Anthony waved down cab after cab, none of them stopping.
‘They haven’t got a light on, Anthony,’ I moaned at him. ‘It’s a waste of time.’
‘One’ll come along; let’s just hang on.’
‘What will we do with that?’
I pointed at the plastic bag in Anthony’s hand. He’d held on to the pregnancy package all this time.
‘I’ll bin it,’ he said.
Anthony walked a few feet away to dump our swag, as we’d both been calling it up until the scan, into a bin. While he did that a taxi with its light on went zooming by. I began to cry again.