Mama Mia Page 15

  We hadn’t really been trying for another baby. With a hefty mortgage and Jason having just scrambled back into life, the timing was ludicrous. We’d never discussed our future baby plans in detail, except to agree we should wait a while after Luca. Secretly, though, I was thrilled, and soon enough so was Jason. I was totally ready for another baby.

  NINETEEN WEEKS

  Voicemail to Jo from Jason:

  ‘Hi, it’s Jason. Can you give me a call back when you get this? It’s about Mia…’

  I wake up in the middle of the night with stomach pains. It feels nothing like labour—the pains are too high—but anything that hurts in the growing expanse between boob and crotch is alarming when you’re pregnant. So I call the hospital at 2 am for reassurance.

  ‘How many weeks are you?’ the midwife asks, all business.

  ‘Nineteen weeks,’ I reply hesitantly, wishing as always it was more.

  Her tone changes instantly. ‘Well, there’s no point coming to the maternity ward at nineteen weeks. You should go to casualty at your nearest hospital or see your obstetrician in the morning.’

  I am dismissed.

  The subtext of her tone is that at nineteen weeks, my baby isn’t yet viable. In medical terms, it isn’t even a baby, it’s a foetus. And thus not her problem.

  I’m stung but there’s nothing I can do. The pain isn’t bad enough to turn up at casualty and I’m not bleeding. I’ve been through labour and this is nothing like it. It feels more like food poisoning.

  Somehow I fall back to sleep, and by the morning the pain is gone. Clearly it’s some kind of stomach bug working its way through my system.

  My nineteen-week ultrasound is booked for three days’ time, so once the pain disappears I figure there’s no need to call my doctor. I’ll just wait until then. Still, I’m looking forward to this ultrasound. I have a small niggle in the back of my mind about the fact I’m not putting on weight and I want reassurance that the baby is growing at the right rate.

  I can feel the baby moving occasionally so I’m not unduly worried. It’s probably just the stress of work that has kept my weight down. I’ll have to eat more yum cha.

  Our appointment is for 11.30 am and Jason picks me up from the office at eleven. The plan is to see my obstetrician for my regular appointment after the ultrasound and then grab a quick bite of lunch together. ‘I’ll be back by one-thirty,’ I call to my assistant, grabbing my handbag and jumping into the lift.

  ‘Your afternoon is fully booked,’ she calls after me. ‘You’re in management meetings from two until six.’

  ‘No worries!’ I shout back as the lift doors close.

  As Jason and I sit in the waiting room, we giggle about a TV show we’d watched the night before. I’ve put my concerns about my weight out of my mind. ‘You know what’s great about pregnancy the second time?’ I say to Jason. ‘I’m so much less paranoid and so much more relaxed about the whole thing than I was with Luca.’

  ‘Mia?’ calls the sonographer and we head into the small dark room. ‘Hi, I’m Shannon,’ she says and we introduce ourselves in high spirits.

  ‘Is this your first baby?’ Shannon asks as I clamber up onto the table and hitch up my dress.

  ‘Second,’ I say. ‘Oh, and we don’t want to know the sex.’

  Shannon busies herself preparing the machine and squeezing the gel onto my tummy as Jason and I keep talking to each other.

  She puts the ultrasound on my stomach and immediately an image of our baby comes up on the screen. We stop talking and look at it, smiling at each other. Jason squeezes my hand. I feel a soft little kick.

  ‘How many weeks are you, Mia?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘And when is your due date?’

  ‘First of May.’

  In my first pregnancy, I used to read far too much into the tone and manner of the sonographers. I’d eventually realised they often go quiet when they’re concentrating and it was nothing to worry about.

  ‘When did you last see your doctor?’ Shannon asks evenly.

  ‘Um, almost four weeks ago I think. I’m due to see him straight after this.’

  Silence. Shannon is peering intently at the screen and suddenly I’m uneasy.

  I wait but she doesn’t say anything, she just keeps clicking away on the machine. An eternity.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ I ask tensely.

  I’m aware that Shannon is looking at me but I can’t take my eyes off the monitor. ‘Mia,’ she says slowly, ‘it seems your baby has not developed past the fifteen- or sixteen-week mark.’

  I feel an instant flash of relief. I speak quickly. ‘Oh yes, I know I’m a bit small but maybe my dates could be wrong. I’m not exactly sure when the first day of my last period was—’ and then I stop suddenly. Something occurs to me.

  ‘Is there a heartbeat?’

  Shannon touches me on the arm in that way you do when you want to make sure someone is paying attention to what you’re about to say.

  ‘No, Mia,’ she says quietly. ‘There’s no heartbeat.’

  The sensation in that moment is like being dumped by a powerful, suffocating wave. Slowly.

  I look immediately back at the monitor. There’s our baby, in profile. I hadn’t noticed before that the flickering light over the heart, isn’t flickering. No heartbeat. No heartbeat. No heartbeat.

  I think Jason lets out a small moan. Or is that me?

  Shannon says something about getting the doctor and quietly leaves the room.

  Jason and I are left to stare up at the TV screen where our baby is floating. Frozen, lifeless. And still, still I can’t understand. Didn’t I just feel a kick? Didn’t I?

  I look down at my protruding stomach that suddenly seems shamefully small and inadequate.

  I am crying, but very quietly. Jason’s face is crumpled in disbelief and he has his arms awkwardly around me as I lie there, trying to comfort me.

  We don’t speak.

  A doctor walks into the room with Shannon behind him. ‘Hello Mia, I’m John Beaumont. I’m so very sorry about this terrible news, it must be a shock.’

  I’ve stopped crying. I still can’t speak but it seems I don’t need to. Things are happening anyway. I’ve lost control.

  ‘Let me have a look here; is that okay?’ he asks gently and I nod. He turns the ultrasound back on and slowly slides the probe around my stomach as the tears roll silently down the side of my face into my ears.

  I try not to cry out loud. I don’t feel hysterical. Just shocked. Numb. It seems important that I not distract the doctor from looking at the baby, because, if I lie really still and I’m really quiet, maybe he will find a heartbeat after all.

  He clears his throat. ‘So, you’re nineteen weeks according to your dates but the baby has only developed to about sixteen weeks.’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you mean that’s when its heart stopped?’ I whisper.

  ‘Yes, it seems to be that way,’ he says.

  ‘Do you know why? Can you tell?’ asks Jason. His voice sounds strange, strangled.

  ‘Well, there’s some swelling around the baby’s brain area but I can’t tell if that’s post-mortem or a causal factor. I’ve looked at your medical notes and everything was fine at the twelve-week ultrasound, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’ My own voice is soft and far away. I can’t think of any questions. I can’t think. I can’t feel.

  The doctor is speaking again. I must concentrate. ‘Sometimes these things just happen. I know that’s an awfully unsatisfactory answer when something as devastating as this has occurred but we might not be able to ever give you an exact reason for it, although there are certainly some tests we can do.’

  Silently, we try to take in everything he says, all of us crowded into this tiny room, looking up at the image of our baby on the screen. It seems like there’s no oxygen in the room. Just horror.

  ‘Mia, I’m going to call your doctor now to tell him what’s happened. You’re going dow
nstairs to see him after this, aren’t you, so he can talk with you both about what happens next. I’m so sorry. Please stay in here as long as you like.’

  And then the doctor and Shannon are gone and it’s just us again. Us and our floating baby.

  When I look at Jason, his face is twisted with concern and I can tell he’s waiting for me to collapse. But I can’t.

  I pull my dress down roughly, feeling suddenly ridiculous in my high heels, wanting to disappear, feeling like I’m already gone, retracting further and further into myself.

  We stumble out of the dark room and into the fluorescently lit corridor, blinking. Jason has his arms around me, holding me up and I lean heavily on him in the lift on our way down to Dr Bob’s waiting room.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ says his receptionist quietly, squeezing my arm. I feel like I might collapse if anyone is too nice to me and I dimly become aware that I have to go to the toilet. My bladder had to be full for the ultrasound and I haven’t emptied it yet.

  My doctor is with another patient so I use the opportunity to go to the loo. Jason walks with me to the door but he can’t come in. It’s only when I’m inside, alone for the first time, that the wave breaks over my head again and I’m suddenly gasping, sobbing, gulping for air.

  I sit on the toilet and instinctively hold my hands over my stomach while the cries come from somewhere deep in my heart.

  And then it subsides. I revert to shock and pull myself together enough to splash water on my face and walk back into the waiting room.

  Somehow, I’m in the doctor’s office and Jason is asking questions while I sit there blankly. This isn’t happening, I decide at one point. But it is. It is happening.

  Through the fog, I struggle to understand what Dr Bob is saying. He is kind and compassionate and he’s being very gentle. Something about tests on me, on the baby, to try to find out what happened. I squint, trying to focus my eyes and my attention.

  Suddenly, a question bursts to the surface, wrapped in a sob. ‘Is it my fault?’ I ask.

  ‘No, it’s not your fault. Sometimes this just happens because the baby isn’t viable.’

  I need more specific absolution.

  ‘Could it have been the fake tan I used a few times?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hair dye?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That glass of champagne I had?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Exercise?’

  ‘No.’

  I’m sure there are more sins I need to confess but those ones are top of mind and the effort of asking questions and listening to answers has exhausted me mentally. My awareness recedes into the fog as Dr Bob continues talking.

  Something about what happens next. Something about having options. Something about inducing labour and delivering the baby vaginally.

  Now I’m more alert. This is important.

  ‘No,’ I say firmly. Even though I’m reeling, I know that to go through labour and give birth to a tiny stillborn baby would be too traumatic. It would scar me forever. Well, scar me more. And forever pollute the idea of giving birth. Retrospectively it would taint the beautiful birth I had with Luca.

  ‘No,’ I repeat. ‘What’s the other option?’

  An operation. Under general anaesthetic. Dilation and curette. A specialised procedure because of the size of the baby. My doctor doesn’t perform it but he knows the best person who does and he picks up the phone to call him as we sit there, flattened beyond all imagining.

  I assume we’ll be going straight to the hospital from here. An operation today. My mind flits distractedly, alighting on one thought, trying to process it and then darting to the next.

  I’m pregnant but I’m not. Everyone knows. So many people to tell. Meant to be in budget meetings at work all afternoon. Luca. What to tell Luca? What happens to the baby now? All the thoughts are horrible. I don’t want any of them. I push them away instead.

  I watch Dr Bob speak on the phone. Jason holds my hand and it feels dead. I feel dead.

  ‘Dr Peters can do it on Friday. He’s the best.’

  Friday. Friday? But today is Monday. How is that possible?

  Dr Bob reads my mind. ‘It’s the earliest it can be done by Dr Peters and I wouldn’t recommend anyone else,’ he says, gently answering my unspoken question.

  Some more things are said. Consoling words. I can’t recall any of them. And then we’re back in the car. I’m not ready to go home. Luca is there, with the nanny who comes two days a week. I can’t possibly face anyone.

  Jason drives us a few streets away and pulls over near a park. I watch joggers go past. City workers having lunch on the grass or walking to get sandwiches.

  The tears have gone. I can’t cry. I can barely breathe.

  I look at my mobile and notice three missed calls. One is from Mum—she knew I was having the ultrasound this morning and she’s calling to find out how it went.

  When she can’t reach me, she tries Jason. His phone rings and he answers it.

  I hear him murmuring something to her. The phone call is over quickly.

  Good. I’m saved from having to break the news. She’ll tell my dad and call Jason’s mum. Our families will know. Word of our tragedy will spread like a fungus.

  Suddenly something occurs to me.

  ‘I want to know if it’s a boy or a girl,’ I say to Jason.

  He winces. I can tell he’s parked his own feelings about the baby behind his acute concern for me. He’s treating me like an unexploded bomb, which I guess I am.

  ‘Okay, why don’t I call the ultrasound place and ask.’

  I look out the window as he makes the phone call, not seeing anything.

  ‘Yes, hi, we came in for an ultrasound a little while ago and…and there was no heartbeat…yes, the patient’s name is Mia Freedman. Yes. Thanks. Oh hi, Shannon. Yes, thanks. Listen, we were wondering if you could tell whether the baby was a boy or a girl.’ Pause. ‘Right, okay. Hold on a second, I’ll just check what Mia wants to do.’

  He reaches for my hand while he covers the phone. ‘She thinks it was a girl but she can’t be positive because she wasn’t looking closely after everything happened. She said if we wanted to we could come in again now and she might be able to give us a more definite answer.’

  ‘Yes, I want to.’

  A girl. A girl. I’m back in the wild surf being dumped by grief again. It’s not just a baby we’ve lost but a baby girl.

  Our waking nightmare takes us back to the ultrasound office. We’re met at reception by Shannon who shows us straight into the same room. The one with no oxygen.

  I clamber back onto the bed and with arms made of lead I lift up my dress. My stomach seems to apologise to me for how small it is, how pathetic it looks. I am ashamed.

  Our baby appears back on the screen and my tears begin to fall instantly and silently. I know it’s the last time I’ll see her. My stomach bounces gently with my quiet sobs. The pain and the horror of this moment are unbearable.

  ‘Yes, I’m almost certain it’s a girl,’ says Shannon gently. ‘I’m going to print you out some images so you have them to keep.’

  She presses them into my hand. I can’t take my eyes off the screen. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss; please stay as long as you like,’ she says, leaving us alone.

  We cry together quietly for a few minutes until I feel ready to go. I say a silent goodbye to my baby girl floating on the screen. In the car on the way home, Jason calls our nanny to tell her what’s happened so she can take Luca out to the park for a while.

  I tune out most of the conversation until three words leap into my ears: ‘the baby’s dead’. I physically recoil as though they’re gunshots. Even though they were said gently and quietly, it’s a sentence too brutal to comprehend and it jolts me to a level of awareness that’s far too painful.

  I say nothing. I have already begun to pull away from Jason and from the world. I’m falling down further into darkness and I don’t fight it.

&nbs
p; When we arrive home, I’m not sure what to do. Instinctively, I get into bed even though I feel neither sick nor tired. My eyes are dry and I’m sort of detached, wondering absently why I’m not weeping and wailing.

  Isn’t that how I should behave? Isn’t that the appropriate reaction of someone who has just been told their baby daughter died inside them three weeks ago?

  Three weeks ago. How could I not have noticed? What sort of terrible mother am I to have let my baby die inside me and not have even felt it, not even sensed it? I torture myself thinking about the moment I missed. The moment she slipped away from me forever. And all the moments after that when I’d foolishly thought I’d felt her moving.

  Not only had I failed my baby physically by not keeping her alive inside me, I’d also failed her emotionally and spiritually by not noticing when she had died.

  Wendy and Jo ring. My mother comes over. Her face is lined with distress and she hugs me but I feel nothing. My eyes stay dry. I just want everyone to go away and leave me alone. No one can reach me in this place. Not even me.

  When Luca comes back from the park, the nanny hugs me and starts crying. I’m stiff. Later that day, Jason and I speak to Luca about the baby.

  ‘You know the baby in Mummy’s tummy?’ Jason ventures.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Luca distractedly.

  ‘Well, we have some sad news. The baby got sick and it went away.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Luca and wanders off to look for his gumboots.

  I’m happy with this. He doesn’t need tortured explanations. He’s never been particularly interested in the subject of my pregnancy or the new baby and we don’t need to burden him with information or grief.

  I still haven’t cried since we left the ultrasound room the second time. I feel in a place beyond tears.

  Jason takes Luca out to pick up some takeaway for dinner and I run myself a bath. My grief is locked away and I want to be with it but first I need to open the door. Maybe music will help me.

  I find a classical CD and scroll through until I find the saddest track. I climb into the bath, cradle my stomach and let the music and the water envelop me. Quickly, my body is heaving violently with sobs. The sound of my crying echoes around the bathroom, and after a while I make out some words: ‘Why? Why did you leave me? Why did you go?’