Not My Daughter

I slip my hand from Matt’s and clench my fists in my lap once more. I’ve been so determined, doing everything right, whether its prenatal vitamins or avoiding caffeine, making time to relax or meditate, or whatever else the latest expert says will help, but in this moment I know none of it’s going to matter. It’s not going to count the way I thought it would.

‘In terms of your own pregnancy,’ Meghan says in that careful voice a medical specialist uses when the news isn’t good, ‘I would suggest using an egg from a donor.’ She turns to Matt. ‘If you feel that is the way you want to go forward. Obviously, you’ll need to take some time to consider, but there are other options as well…’ She continues on about egg donation, and IVF, and then surrogacy and even adoption, all the alternatives no one wants to consider, but at some point in her recitation my mind blurs and blanks. All I’m hearing is that I will never be pregnant. I will never have my own biological child, borne of my body, sharing my blood.

Twenty minutes later, Matt and I are both standing outside the clinic, an icy, unforgiving winter’s wind off the Bristol Channel buffeting us.

‘Do you want to go home?’ Matt asks after a moment, as we simply stand there. ‘Or we could go out for a coffee…?’

‘I don’t want to go out for a coffee.’ The wor

ds burst out of me in a snarl, surprising us both. I’m not angry at Matt, though; I’m just angry. ‘I’m sorry.’ I take a deep breath, willing back the tidal wave of emotion. ‘Sorry,’ I say again.

‘It’s okay,’ he says gently, even though it isn’t, and then he takes me by the arm as if I’m an invalid or an old lady. I’m not – it’s just my eggs that are old.

We drive in silence back to the three-bedroom semi-detached house in Redland, one of Bristol’s family-friendly neighbourhoods, that we’d bought two years ago, when we’d started thinking about families and babies and all those optimistic next steps.

We’d sold our one-bedroom flat in Temple Meads and bought the kind of house you had kids in, on a leafy street, with a garden, in walking distance of the local primary, in the catchment area of a good secondary. There’s a village hall where they do toddler groups and Girl Guiding, and a playpark right around the corner. It was all the way I’d imagined my life as a little girl, and now none of it matters.

‘Do you want to talk about it, Mills?’ Matt asks after a few minutes.

I stare out the window as I shake my head, my mind numb and frozen, refusing to move past the dead-end diagnosis we’ve just been given.

‘No. Not yet.’

‘Do you want to ring Anna?’

Anna, my best friend since year seven, the only person in the whole world besides Matt who has always had my back, who has never let me down. I know she will hug me, cry with me, and pour me more wine, but all that understanding might break me right now. I feel fragile, everything in me brittle, ready to shatter, but I know I’ll need her. I nod, sniffing. ‘Yes. I’ll ring her soon.’

Back at home I get out of the car first and walk quickly inside, flinging my keys on the hall table as I breathe in the scent of lavender cleaner – organic, of course – and lemon furniture polish. Home. Except everything feels changed now; everything feels like a horrible mockery… the garden perfect for playing, with space for a swing and a sandpit, the shallow stairs safe for children, the third bedroom we intended to be a nursery. I haven’t been so foolish as to paint the walls or buy a cot, not when I haven’t even been able to get pregnant yet. But I’ve dreamed. Oh, how I’ve dreamed. And that’s all it’s ever been – dreams.

Matt comes in behind me and heads for our open-plan kitchen and dining area, with plenty of light and room for a high chair, a playpen, a rattan basket for soft toys. I’d pictured it all in my mind so perfectly.

The French windows that overlook our tiny terrace were another plus, and we talked about sitting out there on sunny Saturday mornings with our coffee, our child on a swing in the horse chestnut tree at the bottom of the garden. Now the house I’ve loved so much has become a cruel reminder, taunting me with all the what-ifs that have suddenly turned into nevers.

I draw a quick breath, and it hitches like a sob. Matt turns from the kettle he’s been filling at the sink.

‘Milly…’

‘No. I can’t. Not yet. I’m sorry.’ I’m not ready to talk. I’m not ready to dismantle my dreams in a pragmatic conversation as we discuss a forward plan the way I normally like to do, complete with bullet points. Someday, but not yet.

I go upstairs, to the room we planned on being a nursery. There is nothing baby-friendly about it now; it just has some plastic storage bins, a few empty suitcases, and Matt’s saxophone stand gathering dust.

I stare at the empty room for a moment and then slowly slide down onto the floor, my back against the wall, my knees drawn up to my chest. Outside, bare branches tap against the window as the wintry gusts of wind rattle the pane. I rest my chin on my knees, drawing another breath. This one doesn’t hitch.

I’m not going to cry. I know if I cry I’ll have given up, and I’m not ready to do that yet. Not after everything. Not even if I will have to eventually.

I’ve been so good. I want to shout the words, but at whom? Who will listen? Who will care? I know life isn’t fair, not for me, not for anyone. I’ve seen too much suffering in the news, too much casual cruelty in the world around me, to think otherwise, but I realise now that some small part of me believed if I played by the rules, if I did everything right, if I was kind and loving and respectful and all the rest, I’d get the deep desire of my heart. I believed there was some overarching justice I could appeal to, that I could count on, some cosmic jury that would decide in my favour. But today tells me there isn’t. There can’t be.

I’m in menopause, no matter that Meghan didn’t want to use that word. I’m thirty-four and my eggs are withered up, dried out. Useless. So useless, in fact, that there is less than one per cent chance of me conceiving naturally. I remember Meghan telling me that.

The door creaks open and then Matt is there, crouching next to me with a cup of tea. As I take it, tears sting my eyes.

‘I wasn’t ready for that news,’ I say, my hands cradled around the warmth. I blink hard, because I’m still not ready.

‘I know.’

‘I won’t be able to get pregnant.’ I say the words as if I’m trying on an outfit to see if it fits. It doesn’t. It’s tight and scratchy and I want to rip it off right now.

‘Dr Finlay didn’t say that exactly.’ Matt has never called her Meghan. ‘She discussed other options…’