But my lips are sealed.’
‘The main thing,’ Abbie ventured, because this was a question continually on her lips, in her thoughts—and after everything that had happened, who could blame her for having just the odd nugget of panic? ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Absolutely fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Here’s a picture for you both so you can see just how perfect baby is.’ The sonographer smiled. ‘I’ll sort you out a DVD too. Yes, Abbie, baby is doing just fine for thirty-four weeks. And Mum...er...sorry, Emma is doing great too.’
Awkward. But it wasn’t the first time and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
Emma wiped the jelly off her belly and sat up. ‘I feel great. And don’t worry, we get that a lot. Okay, missy, you’d better get back to work, right? Busy day?’
Emma was always so chirpy at these appointments—and every day in between—laughing and joking, but she’d been here before when she was pregnant with Rosie. How was she really feeling, though? Did she feel like the mum this time too? Would she be bereft at handing the baby over? Would she want to keep the baby herself?
‘Abbie?’
‘Oh. Sorry.’ Abbie glanced at the wall clock and pushed back the little, silly anxieties she had—of course Emma was going to hand this baby over. ‘Oh, yes. My lunch break has finished. Gotta dash. See you later. Enjoy the rest of your day off.’
‘I have a few hours before I pick Rosie up from school. Do you want me to get any shopping in for you?’
Abbie gave her friend a hug. ‘No. I’m good, thanks—do you want me to sort dinner out? No—let’s have a quick coffee before we pick her up. Meet in the staff canteen? We can talk shopping and dinner then. Listen to us, we’re like an old couple.’
‘No man’s got a chance.’ Emma laughed again, but there was more than a kernel of truth in her words. ‘No complications. Just how I like it.’
Just how they both liked it, really. Between them they’d had a rough ride where relationships were concerned. One husband dead, the other might as well have been, for all the good he was. After all the heartbreak they’d had, who needed another man?
As Abbie walked down the corridor towards the emergency department and the rest of her shift, she thought about how things had changed. Eight years with one man who’d been her life completely, then three years in the wilderness. But she was fine about it. No man would come close to Michael. She would bring this baby up on her own, in his memory... Or as much on her own as her next-door-neighbour-best-friend-for-life would allow.
As she turned the corner into the department she heard voices.
‘Imagine if someone you loved couldn’t have a baby, and you knew you could. Would you do it? For a friend? A sister? Would you have a baby for someone else? It’s a long nine months, though, isn’t it? What if something went wrong? What if they decided they didn’t want it, what then?’
Another voice in a stage whisper that echoed around the quieter than usual emergency department replied, ‘Honestly, I don’t know how a mother could give her baby away. All those months inside her, kicking, hiccups, little feet under your ribs...you have a bond, y’know? You’re not telling me that you don’t develop a bond. It’s living inside you.’ There was a pause where Abbie imagined the gossipers all shaking their heads. Then... ‘Oh. Er... Hello, Abbie. We...er...hello.’
‘Hi.’ She was standing where she’d frozen to the spot the second she’d heard the subject of their conversation, probably looking like a complete idiot with her mouth open and bright red cheeks. Her hand was still clutching the scan picture. Her heart was raging. Raging with all the things she wanted to tell them, but it was none of their business.
How she’d wanted to feel the kicks and the hiccups, but no pregnancy had ever progressed past fifteen weeks. How many times she’d had IVF. How many times she’d failed. Until she hadn’t had the energy to do it any more and keep on failing.
It’s my baby. Not Emma’s.
Made with my eggs and Michael’s frozen sperm. It’s our baby. Just a different incubator.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been over and over and over these thoughts every day since the minute a grinning, glowing Emma had shown her the pregnancy stick with the positive blue line. She’d loved her friend in that moment more than she’d loved anyone else ever—possibly even more than Michael—for doing something so precious. And she would love this baby as fiercely, no matter what. Finally, she’d have a family—a family of two. Other single parents managed, Emma did, so she would too. Just the two of them in a tight little unit.
And she’d always known she’d be the subject of gossip. How could she not be? Surrogacy wasn’t common and people needed educating, otherwise the stigma would be with her baby for life. She gave them all a smile. ‘If I could do it for someone else, I honestly would. I just can’t even do it for me, which is why Emma’s helping me out. She says to think of her as being the oven, but the bun is made from my ingredients. Does that make sense?’
There was a moment where they all gaped back at her, as open-mouthed as she’d been, and she hoped her message was getting through.
‘Of course, Abbie, it makes perfect sense. Now, back to work everyone.’ Stephanie, Head Nurse of Queenstown ED, and very well respected for her no-nonsense approach, turned to the group, thankfully distracting Abbie from the conversation topic and the need to defend herself. No one could possibly understand what she and Emma were going through—and that was fine.
With a few words from their boss, the subject of Abbie’s baby’s parentage and unconventional conception was closed. For now.
Thank you.
‘Wait, Abbie. There’s a Code Two call, and I want you to go with the helo. Tramper took a bad fall on Ben Lomond.’
‘A medivac? On the helicopter?’ Excitement bubbled in her stomach and she pushed all her baggage to the back of her mind. Four months in and she still couldn’t get over the adrenalin rush of working at the coalface that was emergency medicine. Every day, every second, was different from the last, with no idea of what she might have to deal with next.
‘We’ve got enough staff to cover, so yes. This is your chance to watch and learn what it’s like out in the field.’
‘Sure thing.’ Abbie controlled the fluttering in her chest. ‘Thanks, Steph.’
‘No problem.’ Her boss smiled and said in a voice that everyone would hear, ‘For the record, how you choose to have your child is no one’s business but yours and I think it’s wonderful. Put me down for babysitting duties. Now, out you go.’
It was the beginning of spring, so theoretically Queenstown should have been warming up from the previous long cold months, but there was still a good dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains and a cruel wind whipped across the helipad, liberating Abbie’s unruly mane from the clips and elastic that were supposed to hold it all in place. Really, longer length was theoretically easier to look after but would she get a mum’s bob when the baby came? Her heart thrilled a little at the thought, and she laughed at the image in her head of her being all mumsy with a short, neat, practical bob, at the thought of being a mumsy mummy
