Wednesday 

February 2024 

This will always be the day that should have been so wonderful. I was so excited that morning. I didn’t realise how wrong it could all go. I didn’t think about the possibility that there might ever be something wrong. It had all been so seamless with your big sister: we wrongly assumed it would all go the same way for you.  

The sonographer was very jolly and made jokes about you being in cahoots with the other babies in the waiting room because all the babies she’d seen had been in difficult positions that morning. She looked at your heart, and decided to come back to it because your arm was in the way, apparently. She checked everything and listed all your perfectly measuring, perfectly formed body parts and organs. She came back to your heart and still couldn’t get a good view, so she asked me to go for a wee (to my relief) and see if you might turn around. I didn’t know that the next time I used that loo I would be in tears.  

When I came back, there was another sonographer, for a second opinion. They spent a lot of time looking at your heart, not saying much and speaking in code. Looking back, I realise I heard everything they weren’t saying. Something was wrong and she wasn’t allowed to tell us. They kept mentioning a woman called Helen, who would be able to have a better look. They mentioned she was a heart specialist. Still, I didn’t think much of it. I just thought it was a bonus that we would see you twice in one week. The sonographers remained jolly but serious, giving little away. She said things like “I’m just not sure...” and “I can’t see the heart well enough”.  

I went to work that afternoon as I'd offered to cover two classes that day. I was on a high, waving your scan photo around. I was so happy to be pregnant. Happy in the knowledge I wouldn’t see out the academic year: the hard bit at the end of the year. I covered a class for a colleague. I talked about my pregnancy. I talked about having you in the summer: I used you as a language point, to talk about things happening in the future. I didn’t know that in less than two weeks I would be saying “I am not having a baby in the summer”.  

Helen called whilst I was teaching. I accepted the call and was impressed that we were being seen again tomorrow, so soon. Again, still on a high, I was excited to be seeing you again tomorrow.  

I went to a staff meeting that day. Some of the content of that meeting annoyed me. But I didn’t care: I was having a baby in the summer, so none of that shit would matter to me soon.  

I taught an evening class I don’t normally teach, with energy I don’t normally have. Was it nervous energy? Your daddy picked me up that evening, and on the way home I mentioned the niggling thought that I had been suppressing all day. Why were they seeing us again so soon? Why couldn’t she see your heart properly? Why were we being squeezed onto the end of someone’s clinic? The end of someone’s busy clinic, who was a heart specialist? Your daddy batted my worries away, calming my thoughts and dismissing my fears. I mentioned it again that evening to my WhatsApp mum group. I had managed to convince myself that there was something to be concerned about. They all batted away my worries with positive platitudes. Silly me, I thought, always finding something to worry about. That night I felt your kicks. You let me know you were there. You let me know every night up until the end. What should have been one of the most wonderful sensations ever became something that made me cry every time it happened.  

The following Wednesday, I was discussing the options for having a Termination for Medical Reasons. A term I had never heard of a week before. A term I was now painfully familiar with. A term I was certain would be tattooed on me for the rest of my life. I am sorry, baby girl. I had no idea of what was to come following that day. I had no idea my world would stop turning with you in it. We had no idea. We’re so sorry.  

x