The Girl Before

I take a deep breath, ambushed by a sudden surge of emotion.

“Relax,” the sonographer murmurs, misunderstanding. She presses the probe hard against my midriff, angling it this way and that. “There.”

I look up at the monitor. An outline emerges from the murk and I gasp out loud. She smiles at my reaction. “How many children do you have?” she says conversationally.

I must take a bit longer than most people to work out the proper answer to that, because she glances down at my notes. “I’m sorry,” she adds quietly. “I see you had a stillbirth.”

I nod. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say.

“Do you want to know the baby’s sex?” she adds.

“Yes, please.”

“You’re having a little boy.”

You’re having a little boy. Just the simple confidence of that statement, the expectation that everything will be all right this time, overwhelms me with emotion, joy and grief colliding so that I burst into tears of both.

“Here, have one of these.” She hands me the box of tissues they use for wiping off the jelly. I snuffle into one while she gets on with her work. After a few minutes she says, “I’m just going to ask the doctor to pop in.”

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“I’d just like him to talk you through the results,” she says reassuringly. Then she’s gone. I’m not overly concerned. This is happening because I’m technically a high-risk patient. Given that Isabel’s problems only started in the last week of pregnancy, there’s no reason to think anything will be wrong now.

It seems an age before the door opens and Dr. Gifford’s face comes into view. “Hello, Jane.”

“Hello.” I greet him like an old friend now.

“Jane, I just want to explain one of the main reasons we do this scan at around twelve weeks. It’s so we can get a heads-up on some of the more common fetal abnormalities.”

Oh no, I think. It can’t be—

“The scan doesn’t give us an exact indication but it does highlight where there may be an increased risk. In your case, we’re obviously looking for any problems with the placenta or umbilical cord, and I’m pleased to report that both of those seem to be working normally.”

I seize on the words. Thank God. Thank God—

“But we also measure what’s called the nuchal translucency. That’s the thickness of the fluid at the back of the baby’s neck. In your case, the NT does indicate a slightly increased risk of Down syndrome. We class anything above a one in one hundred fifty probability high-risk. For you, it’s currently about one in a hundred. That means for every hundred mothers with this risk profile, one will give birth to a baby with Down syndrome. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I say. And I do—that is, I can follow what he’s saying with my brain. I’m good with numbers. It’s what I feel that I’m struggling to process. So many emotions, so overwhelming, that they almost cancel one another out, leaving me clearheaded but numb.

All my plans, my carefully laid plans, have fallen apart—

“The only way to know for certain is to do a test that involves putting a needle into your womb and drawing out some fluid,” Dr. Gifford’s saying. “Unfortunately, that test itself carries a small risk of triggering a miscarriage.”

“How small?”

“About one in a hundred.” He smiles apologetically, as if to say he knows I’m bright enough to understand the irony of this. My risk of miscarriage with the test is exactly the same as the risk of my baby having Down syndrome without it.

“There is a new, non-invasive test that can give a reasonably accurate result,” he adds. “It measures tiny fragments of the baby’s DNA in your blood. Unfortunately, it isn’t currently available from this NHS trust.”

I grasp at what he’s saying. “You mean I can have it done privately?”

He nods. “It costs around four hundred pounds.”

“I want it,” I say quickly. I’ll find a way to pay for it somehow.

“I’ll make a referral for you now. And we can give you some leaflets to read. These days, many children with Down syndrome live long and relatively normal lives. But there are no guarantees. It’s a decision every parent has to make for themselves.”

By decision, I realize, he means whether or not to have an abortion.

—

I’m still numb as I leave the hospital. I’m going to have a baby. A little boy. Another chance at motherhood.

Or not.