She did need to do something to pass the time, though. She should have considered that her usual practice of arriving in good time for things wasn’t always the best way. It was great when you were queuing for a first-come-first-served ferry. Or anything first-come-first-served, in fact. It was also great when you had somewhere comfortable to waitandsomething to do. This waiting room was very nice, actually. Padded suedette chairs, low music, soft lighting, pleasant décor, large vases of vibrant orchids at strategic intervals. It almost felt as though the clinic were trying to get people in themood. Which, in the case of the male halves of these couples, presumably they might need to be, for sperm production. Eurgh.
Anyway, the room was lovely as waiting rooms went. But it wasnotcomfortable being here. Shereallyneeded something to do. She got her phone out.
She should have googled ‘what to expect at your first fertility appointment’ in advance. She’d kind of been blanking it out until now, when blanking was no longer possible, since it washappening. Thinking about anything ob/gyn-related brought back terrible memories of losing the baby. Her last appointment had been six weeks afterwards, and she’d had to have an unexpected internal scan (bad) done by a man (even worse). She’d then had a discussion with a female doctor who’d told her with an ill-placed big smile that all was well and you’d never know she’d ever been pregnant.Especially because I don’t have a baby to show for it, Cassie had screamed. She’d thought she’d screamed it out loud and had then realised that the noise had only been inside her head, and had wondered if she was going mad with grief.
Actually, she’d moved on enormously from there, to be able to be sitting here perfectly normally.
And now she was finally reading what Google had to say about what to expect. Basically, it varied. Sometimes there was an internal scan to check your ovaries and uterus, sometimes there wasn’t. Maybe the leaflets the clinic had sent would have told her but she’d been too stressed to read them. There was likely to be a lot of chat. Maybe some blood tests.
In summary, it was likely to be a crappy morning. But it would be more than worth it if things worked out.
Yep. It had been a crappy morning. Cassie walked up the steps from the clinic onto Harley Street. Funny how out here the world was just going on as normal, while in there such huge things happened.
A man in paint-splattered overalls bumped into her and said, ‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen.’
And that was the whole point. It might indeed never happen. Oh God. Her eyes were filling again.
She’d spent the entire morning in there. She’d had a couple of blood tests and was going to have to go back next week to have some more on a different day of her cycle. As feared, she’d had an internal scan, which had actually been better than expected because the woman who’d done it had been very understanding and had said that she knew that no woman ever was keen to take her underwear off, hitch her dress up, cover herself in paper and stretch her knees ‘wider please, if you wouldn’t mind’.
As it turned out, those had been thebestparts of the morning.
The bad part had been the ‘chat’. Cassie had cried. She clearly wasn’t the first, because they’d had tissues on hand and had seemed completely unsurprised, but still.
Now she had a headache and a lot to think about. If she was going to go ahead, she needed to choose her sperm, from a well-regulated supplier. And she had to attend ‘implications counselling’. She needed to be aware that there was the risk of failure. Well, duh. And that going through pregnancy and looking after a baby by yourself were both hard. Again, duh; and also, yes, going through pregnancy by yourself would be a challenge, but, frankly, it would be a hell of a lot easier than going through it with a selfish, uninterested partner.
To be fair, there was a lot to consider. Doing it by herself would be very stressful and there could be a lot of heartache involved. Maybe she should explore adoption.
Too many thoughts.
What Cassie needed now was some carb and chocolate-heavy lunch and to distract herself with work.
She began the afternoon with a walk round South Kensington for research purposes, past immaculately kept white stucco houses in side streets, and then up Exhibition Road past the famous Science, Natural History and Victoria & Albert museums and into Hyde Park. She saw beautiful architecture, and beautiful trees and shrubs in the park. And, honestly, what felt like literally thousands of beautiful babies. Everywhere. In buggies, strapped to people’s chests, being carried in people’s arms, some older ones toddling around very gorgeously. And when she tried to look away from the babies, her gaze just encountered glowing pregnant women. Literally everywhere. It was like she’d been transported into some baby-filled parallel universe.
It had been like this after she’d had the miscarriage. Everywhere she’d looked there’d been happy parents with babies and young children.
If she did IVF and it didn’t work out, it would be so hard. And now she was feeling physically sick to the stomach at the memory of when she’d realised that something had gone terribly wrong with her pregnancy.
Could she do it? Would she regret it if she didn’t try?
A gorgeous nutmeg-brown Labrador ran past her, chasing a stick.
Maybe she should get a dog. She loved the alpacas and the chickens. Animals were great. She’d explored the IVF idea, which had been the right thing to do, and now she should move on. Having a baby would be a huge undertaking by herself. Island living was hard in the winter. She was lucky. She had a lot of friends and the animals. Better to move on from the baby plan and, yes, get a dog, and focus on the good things in her life, including work and her new books.
A text pinged through from James.
Cleaner – don’t worry – I have her covered.
Okay, well that was nice. There was still something very irritating about him, though. And what was even more irritating was that every time she thought about him, she remembered how hot he was. It didn’t seem right to find supremely irritating people attractive.
Nine
James
James picked his coffee cup up to head back inside after sending Cassie a quick text. If he was honest, he knew he should have replied politely to her Wi-Fi apology message but he’d been too angry, and now it felt like the moment had passed. Anyway, whatever, he was still paying for the cleaner and neither of them was going to get angry about that. The Wi-Fi situation was still really pissing him off but hopefully he’d be able to get it sorted soon.
‘Hullo. You must be James.’ A middle-aged woman carrying a lidded casserole dish had come round the side of the house. ‘I’m Isla Brown, Don’s wife.’ She said it like James would know who Don was. There was a lot of extreme friendliness on this island. ‘How are you doing today? I know Cassie left a lot of meals for you but she only cooks European food and her fancy Middle Eastern dishes. I thought you’d like to have a New England speciality. I have Maine-style clam chowder for you.’
‘Thank you. Very kind of you.’ Itwaskind of her, but he hoped she didn’t want to question him the way Laura had.
