Not My Daughter

After she leaves, Anna rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘This isn’t something to get panicked about, Milly. Trust me. They’d tell you if it was serious.’ I nod, wanting so much to believe her, but I am starting to doubt. ‘How about we put on some music? I brought my Bluetooth speakers. Some mellow jazz to get everybody’s heart rate down, Alice included.’

She sets up the speakers and then the soulful saxophone notes of a jazz piece drift out. The music relaxes me, but not enough. I turn to stare at the jagged lines on the screen, wishing I knew what they meant and yet half-relieved that I don’t.

‘See, this isn’t so bad,’ Anna says as she sits next to me. ‘And Matt will be here soon.’

I nod, but after only a few minutes it all goes to pieces. The consultant comes in to check how I’m doing, and whatever she sees on the screen, she doesn’t like, because she barks out something to a nurse, and then the next thing I know she is telling me that my baby is in foetal distress and they need to get her out quickly.

‘Her heart rate is too high,’ she explains, her voice steady but clipped. ‘The best thing for you now is an emergency caesarean section.’

I stare at her, feeling my own rapid heartbeat, in time with my daughter’s. ‘But…’

Anna squeezes my hand. ‘This is for the best, Milly.’

I know that, but I still don’t want it, and I’m filled with an icy terror that at the very last moment things might still go terribly wrong. I’m wheeled to the operating theatre and prepped for surgery, while Anna waits outside, by the doors. I am alone, surrounded by faceless surgeons in green scrubs, all of them moving so quickly I know it’s urgent. It’s dangerous.

‘You’ll be holding your baby very soon, Milly,’ the consultant says kindly, and I hold onto that promise as they inject the anaesthetic and ask me to count backwards from ten. Before I get to eight, the world goes dark.

Sixteen

Anna

I stand outside the theatre doors, listening to the different sounds of the hospital around me – a beeping monitor, a woman in labour, the squeak of a trolley wheel. The last few minutes passed in a blur of motion as they rushed Milly out of the room and into surgery. As calm as I tried to be for her, inside I am filled with fear.

She can’t lose that baby. Her daughter.

‘Why don’t you wait in the visitors’ room?’ a nurse asks me kindly, more command than suggestion. ‘You’d be far more comfortable, and we’ll make sure to tell you when there’s any news.’

‘Milly’s husband is on his way…’

‘I’ll direct him to the visitors’ room when he comes.’

I find myself in a bland little room with a sofa and chairs, a coffee table and a couple of magazines a year out of date. I pace the small confines, too restless to sit. How long does a caesarean section take? When will I find out how Milly and her baby are doing? What if…?

But I don’t let myself think that way. I can’t, for Milly’s sake – and also for mine. I can’t imagine life without Alice in it, and she’s not even here yet.

Half an hour passes with agonising slowness, and no one comes. I flip through a Woman’s Weekly, my mind pinging all over the place like a butterfly, unable to land anywhere for long.

Out in the corridor, I see a man holding a couple of glittery blue balloons walk by. A few minutes later, a pregnant woman, clearly in early labour, hands resting on the small of her back, lumbers past, her husband at her elbow. Then a couple of grandparents come, holding the hand of a little girl, maybe three or four, who is clutching a brand new baby doll. This is the place of new beginnings as well as happy endings. It has to be that way for Milly.

Then I start to think about my own pregnancy. I was seventeen weeks when it ended. I’d started to feel flutters. Even now, it hurts to remember those butterfly kicks. It’s the worst form of self-torture, but I begin to imagine a rosy what-if scenario, one I haven’t let myself consider before because it’s been far too painful. But now I imagine that I kept my baby, that I told my parents, that they supported me rather than threw me out.

But even as I envision this warm, fuzzy scenario, it starts to fall apart. I was eighteen years old, and I’d stumbled through the last six months of sixth form, sitting my exams without writing much more than my name. My pregnancy had ended just two weeks before I sat them. If I’d kept the baby, would I have passed my exams? Would I have taken them? And what about afterwards?

I wouldn’t have been able to go to uni; I would have had to live at home, and found some minimum-wage job. I would have had to depend on my bitter and resentful mother for childcare. Hardly a dream scenario, and yet I would have had my baby. A boy. They told me, afterwards – even though they didn’t want to – because I’d insisted. I’d needed to know, even though it hurt.

Now I release a ragged breath, my hands clenched so hard in my lap that my nails have made crescent moons in my palms. I can’t think about all that now. I have to focus on Milly. The visitors’ door opens, and a nurse smiles at me, the same one who suggested I wait in here.

‘Anna? Milly’s out of surgery, and she and her baby are doing well.’

‘Oh…’ A rush of relief floods through me, so I nearly sway. ‘That’s wonderful.’

‘Would you like to see her?’

‘Milly…?’

‘No.’ The nurse’s smile is gentle, apologetic. ‘Milly isn’t awake yet. She had to be given a gen

eral anaesthetic, due to the urgency of the procedure, and it will be another hour at least before she’s ready for visitors.’