I

Something in her switched at that moment. Seeing the two pink lines on the pregnancy test made her feel every symptom of pregnancy she hadn’t noticed before. The nausea, the fatigue, the sore breasts: she could practically feel the creature moving inside of her, even though it couldn’t have been larger than a strawberry. All at once she felt horrifyingly ordinary. How had she not seen it before now? She was born to a GP and a teacher, she went on to the top university, graduated with a 2:1, became an assistant in her father’s practice. She should have known, her life had been inevitably leading up to this moment.

“Any luck yet?” her fiancé asked through the closed door.

“Eh, no. Still waiting. I think it’ll take a few more minutes”

He sat on the bed at the other side of the en suite bathroom door and excitedly awaited the news they had been anticipating. She could hear his muttering prayers and could almost feel his tightly clenched crossed fingers.

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, she looked around the room and was disgusted by its agonizing lack of originality. The ceramic tiles glistened a pearly white, but when you looked closely you’d find lone hairs and the occasional bobby pin. The sink to her right was clean but the taps had that permanent layer of crusty grime around the rims. The toilet opposite it was no better, exposing a barely noticeable but nonetheless unpleasant tinge of brown. There were minor cracks in the ceiling paint above her head from condensation, which they had been meaning to look into for fear of mold. Small mosaic tiles of green were placed on the walls, each one carefully and uniformly placed, with one missing above the sink below the mirror.

An eventual knock at the door interrupted her spiraling. A gentle, affectionate knock. She had been sitting on the porcelain bath edge for so long, she had a wretched tingling in the backs of her thighs. She did not stand up, but simply reached the short distance across to the door handle and opened it.

When she showed him the double pink lines, he embraced her and sobbed the way men aren’t supposed to. She pitied him and envied him all at once. She too should be sobbing with joy. She had always admired his capacity to feel his emotions to the fullest, but now she inexplicably wanted nothing more than to slap him and tell him to get over himself. She couldn’t bear his overwhelming joy at a moment where she felt anything but joyful. This frustration, she figured, would pass. She would realize how lucky they were and how excited she was and everything would work out exactly as they had always planned.

 

II

It was the day of the first ultrasound. The pregnancy so far had been predictably uneventful, and the scan confirmed this. Proudly, from the corner of the room, her father crowed, “No news is good news, so they say!”

The trip to the scan had converted so quickly into a family outing she barely even knew what had happened. The doctor, for no sane reason, allowed her mother, father, fiancé, and brother (accompanied by his wife and their tiny daughter) to be in the crowded room, which was ringing with a cacophony of high-pitched, joyous voices.

“Look! He’s definitely smiling! Look!”

“Ah, he wouldn’t be smiling yet now.”

“No, look, he is!”

“Who’s to say it’s a boy? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves! I’m set on another little girl to put dresses on! Isn’t that right, angel? We can put her in all your dresses from when you were only a babs! We will! Oh yes we will, won’t we!”

She could not identify who was speaking over the rhythmic thudding of the ultrasound. Each rapid heartbeat added another knot in her stomach and replayed in her head like a jackhammer. As they were being ushered out, their discussion moved onto whether they would get lunch at Avoca or Clement and Pekoe.

The car pulled into the ever-familiar car park of Avoca. And as always, she knew what she would order: the sundried-tomato quiche with vegetable soup. Nothing different. Nothing special.

Days went on, increased excitement for everyone else, increased morning sickness for her. With every scan, no problems. She selfishly wished for problems, anything at all to stunt this organized, preplanned hell. But they were simply not the type of couple that would encounter complications. The fetus grew at a standard, textbook rate, with no abnormalities and a steady heartbeat. She watched her fiancé’s eyes glow with a warmth and love each time he felt a kick. He affectionately dubbed the parasite “Bump” and referred to it at every opportunity. She hated this but figured her disdain was down to hormones. Doctors had warned her that she would likely suffer from mood swings and heightened emotions, with a slight possibility of mental illnesses such as depression, paranoia, and anxiety. On top of this, she had every physical side effect in the book. Nausea, morning sickness, swollen ankles. Every Sunday he brought her violets because his Nana told him that they did wonders for the nausea.

 

III

She was ever closer to the third trimester, and was showing it. She was uncertain what was more exhausting—the mood swings, having an extra few pounds of weight on her body, or constantly having to pretend that she didn’t urgently need a bathroom. It was likely a combination of all three. There had been one night in the past month that she had slept right through. Last night she stared at the ceiling until the alarm went off, unable to even toss and turn with her new bodily extension, mostly praying that the next day would bring something interesting, something different. She knew the lack of sleep wasn’t helping the morning sickness and general nausea either. Her mother was the first to remind her that the lack of sleep was nothing to worry about anyway, and that if anything it was practice for her future sleepless life.

She continued to go to work as normal: Monday through Friday, in for 9, out for 5. Every weekday predictable. Every day the same. She would get on the train in the morning and evening. Someone would offer her a seat, like today, for being noticeably swollen at the abdomen, a fact that crushed her each time. She wanted to reverse her whole life and bring herself back to her own birth and redo it all from scratch. A chance to remedy every mistake, or lack thereof, that she had made in her life. Her thoughts were interrupted when her bag vibrated:

Just looked it up- Bump is the size of cauliflower 2day :-)! Website says drink lots of water if skin is stretching 2 much. Many kicks? Xxx

He had only dropped her off at the station some 10 minutes ago and had already managed to send such a sickly-sweet text. It pained her how perfect he was. This whole thing had been so effortlessly exciting for him, and she hated him for it. All anyone seemed to talk about now was Bump, and birth, and labor, and pregnancy. It made her mouth go dry.

Birth seemed to follow her everywhere that morning. It was a particularly cold February, yet the daffodils had still managed to sprout from beneath the frost. Looking out the train window to the endless fields, more and more baby calves and lambs and foals. Blooming, birthing, fresh happy faces embracing the longer days. As they went through a tunnel, instead of the birth-filled fields her own reflection stared back at her. She noticed that her permanently pink cheeks were buckling with the weight of the bags under her eyes and it seemed like she was getting plumper by the minute. There was a grey hair sprouting and she was only 29.

Everyone else is happy. Everyone but me. I don’t even have a reason to be sad. Fiancé is wonderful. I am having a safe and uneventful pregnancy. Hell, I am pregnant. My life is exactly what I wanted. Exactly how I planned it out. Why do I feel so empty? I was happy once. How did I get here?

She wanted something to change. She didn’t want to be stuck anymore. There must be something different. She’d try anything. Out of the tunnel, blinding bright sunlight, back to reality.

Caught up in her thoughts, she fell face first exiting the train and Bump’s incessant heartbeat stopped. Her hands in coat pockets, and she was unable to throw them out in protection of her protruding stomach. Worried passengers rushed to her aid but she brushed them off. No ambulance needed, no need to panic. She stood, dizzy at first but then grew eager to escape the situation. It was only on the walk from the station to the office that she first noticed the absence of kicking, but she was certain it was only temporary. For everyone else’s sake, it had to be only temporary.

 

IV

She knew, being the daughter of a doctor and working with them daily, to never ignore a symptom. Feeling faint or having a stabbing pain in your pregnant stomach was not normal, but she ignored it anyway. Nothing was wrong. Everything was fine. She lasted the full day in the office without suspicions, and headed for the evening train home as early as she could. Keeping up the ruse of normality, she began texting her fiancé Bump updates once seated.

Actually had to stand on the train earlier cuz kicking was so bad! We have a little fighter, lol x

The day was endlessly long, and very little of it was spent actually working. Most of it was spent daydreaming about what would have been. Now that there was no baby to consider, it was all that she could think about. How many feeds would it have needed? Would she have joined one of those mother-and-baby yoga groups everyone always raved about? Would it have had her round face and her fiancé’s pointy nose? She hoped not, not that it mattered much now.

She was curious as to how it would have all turned out but relieved to have her burden lifted. She knew she should be sad, or maybe grief-stricken, but those felt like inappropriate words to use to describe her state. She did not feel any sense of loss, just numbness.

She also knew that everyone around her would grieve heavily for the loss of life, and for that she felt a twinge of guilt. She was certainly guilty for having wished this baby into existence in the first place. She feared that once the truth was out there, she would be put back on the same track as before, repeating steps 9 and 10, trying for a pregnancy and having a baby.

While changing into her house clothes, she noticed the deep purple bruising developing across her stomach. The bruise was a physical representation of the event that she needed to carefully hide. She had to cover it up. It was too late to turn back, even if it had only happened that morning. They would all judge her for not alerting them immediately. She knew that the only way she could successfully pull this off was by taking on the persona of an excited expecting mother for the first time in her pregnancy. “Woman Loses Baby and Hides It for Weeks” was not one of the headlines she had expected to see in the news bulletin of her life, but there it was in plain sight. Now that it was no longer real, she only had to act. If she pretended it didn’t happen, then maybe it didn’t.

 

V

She swiftly began her research. “What happens when you lose a fetus?” “How long can you carry a dead fetus for?” “Do you get septicemia from a dead fetus?” She learned that her body would eventually spontaneously go into labor, likely in the next three weeks. She might get septicemia, but her chances were no higher had she been going through a normal pregnancy.

She knew that avoiding doctor’s appointments was a must. As soon as they knew, they’d induce her, and her little bubble would be shattered. This would be difficult; all of her appointments were on a shared family calendar on each of their phones, her mother’s, father’s, fiancé’s, brother’s and his wife’s. They had all been to every appointment and would certainly start asking questions if she asked to go alone. The next appointment wasn’t for a week anyway, so she had some time to think it over. But until then she opted for changing the time on the calendar and texting the family to say that she got it rescheduled because her new prenatal meditation session clashed with it. The approvals flooded in. Everyone wholeheartedly supported this decision.

Glad to hear you are doing something with other moms!

Can’t wait til the next appt.

Keep us updated!

This game of deception was already proving time-consuming and tiring, but necessary.

The productivity of the morning strangely thrilled her. Her mind raced with different ways she could keep pretending that nothing was wrong. For the first time since before she was pregnant, she looked to the future with joy and excitement. This was tempered by the twinges of pains and cramps in her belly, and her stomach was tender to touch, but the adrenaline of it all seemed to mask the majority of the pain. She was glowing and all were happy to see how positive and excited she was. She reveled at every cooing old lady who came into the office. They never failed to dote over her and ask when she was due.

This revelry was fine until someone would ask to feel the Bump. Then a small bit of panic would set in as she tried not to flinch from the tenderness. Would they know? Could they tell? Nobody ever did. They smiled and went about their business.

She felt safe in this secret, especially when her fiancé suggested discussing baby names. They had always admired the more exotic names, and had compiled a list of interesting ones they had heard over the years for fun. For a boy they chose Axel. For a girl, Aisha—Arabic for “she who lives.”

 

VI

It was going on a week and things were going well. A family lunch was scheduled at noon, and a new episode of The Great British Bake Off would be out that evening. She could certainly keep this charade up, she thought while brushing her teeth in the en suite. That is, until she experienced a pain like no other deep in her gut. It brought her to her knees, and she struggled to stop herself from passing out, grabbing the edge of the tub for support. It could have been a few seconds or ten minutes, she couldn’t tell, but she came to leaning against the bath, leg twisted underneath her.

With the en suite door ajar, she could hear her fiancé stirring in the bed and starting to get up. She quickly wiped away the sweat that was dripping down her forehead and pulled herself up as quickly as her body would allow, making sure to pick up her toothbrush from the sink so as to appear normal. Just continuing her morning routine.

“Morning, beautiful,” he said sleepily through a yawn, leaning against the doorframe, rolling his neck in a morning stretch. She shot him a smile through her foamy, toothpaste-filled mouth and reached out to gently pet his stubbly cheek. If she had not just been semiconscious on the floor from the dead fetus she’d been hiding, it would have been quite a beautiful moment.

 

VII

It was the bleeding that night that gave her away. Nothing too severe, but enough to raise alarm bells. He shook her awake when he noticed the small pool of blood around her, soaked into the bed sheets. She couldn’t talk herself out of this one. He rushed her to the car and grabbed the premade hospital bag that had been sitting at the end of the bed for two months, equipped with new pajamas, a “Born in 2019” babygrow in yellow, breast pads, and a tiny white frilled hat.

He drove erratically, saying comforting words between heavy breaths. She was silent. The inevitable was upon them. He would find out. They would all find out. She could feel the warm blood trickling down her thigh as she got another stabbing contraction. Hunched over, teeth gritted, she moaned as he rubbed her back and pushed down on the accelerator. He pulled up to the drop-off of the hospital, right up to the door in quite a dramatic act, like a movie. He opened the passenger door and put her arm around his shoulder as they approached the front desk.

Everyone panicked as she was only 26 weeks along. She was admitted immediately and deposited on a bed boxed in by gaudy green-and-yellow curtains. He sat in the chair beside her, cursing the doctors under his breath, blaming them for not having more regular scans. Her parents were on their way. He asked her how she felt approximately every 30 seconds, hoping each time for an improvement in her condition. Each time, she let him know that she was fine, and she was certain that this was a false alarm. Some bleeding was always common. Maybe she was starting to have Braxton-Hicks contractions. She tried to say anything that would prevent the reveal. Then they wheeled in the heart monitor, and they told them the news. She cried with him when they found out. No heartbeat detected. Luckily, the midwife never commented on the bruising, only looked at her with eyes full of concern and a tight-lipped grimace.

 

VIII

Just as the doctors were explaining the different possible methods of inducing labor, her water broke. The spontaneous labor she read about was quite conveniently happening in a maternity hospital. Not very spontaneous of it at all, she thought. They moved her to a different ward and a different bed, this one boxed in by bright white walls. When her parents arrived, her fiancé broke the news. Her mother was distraught, her father practical, making necessary arrangements with the funeral home, as per the doctor’s suggestion, and had already had her fiancé request orders for an autopsy to determine when and how the doctors had let this happen.

Her labor was a fast one. A precipitate labor, they called it. There was no time for an epidural, let alone a talk from her midwife about options and what to expect and what the baby would look like and what happened next. Before she knew it, she was pushing out a 1.5 pound mass of cells.

They all waited for a cry that wasn’t coming. For people programmed to hear a cry after birth, the silence following a still one was unsettling. There were exclamations of joy faintly heard through the walls from other rooms, which only seemed to make the silence in their room louder. Bump was a girl.

 

IX

They named her Aisha. Holding Aisha’s still body was like playing with dolls as a child. She was as rigid and dainty as a doll, but less pretty; her skin was dried out and taut with a yellow-brownish hue and she had black lips instead of pink. She heard the nurses comment about how far along the decomposition was. They wondered why she hadn’t come in sooner. She must have known something was wrong when there was no movement. They gossiped about the bruising and speculated abuse.

She and her family were allowed to do all of the things you get to do with a real living baby. Bathe, diaper, dress her, take pictures. Weigh and measure her. Sing to her. Cradle her. She felt nothing, but played along. From her calculated rendition of “Hush Little Baby” while holding the doll against her chest to the tears shed when using the foot-printing kit brought by her sister-in-law. She no longer seemed to have thoughts about how she was feeling, only how she was supposed to feel. She had already read up on all of the online mammy blogs, telling their stories about how heartbreaking the whole experience was. She just had to follow suit.

They spent eight hours with the doll before she was allowed to leave the hospital. Her fiancé’s puffy red face and eyes were completely dried of tears. They drove home in silence, holding hands, with Polaroid photographs and tiny clay footprints sitting in the back seat instead of a baby.

 

X

She spent the next four days in bed, being consoled by her grief-stricken family and consoling them. They held the funeral service and there she started producing milk. She couldn’t help but think about how hellish this must be for real mothers who lose a baby, and not empty shells who’ve miscarried like her. Her fiancé had picked out the wording on the white marble tombstone. It read:

“Our beloved Aisha May, born sleeping on March 29^th, 2019. Cherished and remembered, always.”

Cherished.

Some of her friends and colleagues were there, all shocked at the tragedy. All empathetic. Two or three of them pregnant themselves. The coffin brought everyone to tears because was smaller than anything any of them had ever seen. White and gold and lined with satin, it cost €650 of her parents’ money. She didn’t ask, but her fiancé pleaded with her parents to let them contribute to the costs. They were having none of it, it was the least they could do after such a loss.

Later she wondered how long was she going to have to play the grieving mother. Surely not for the rest of her life? So what now? She remembered the thrill every time someone asked her about her due date, or the talks about baby names and schools and wondering whether he or she would have blue or brown eyes. She looked down at her now-empty but ever-swollen stomach and placed her hand on it. Nothing. They sat on the couch and flicked through channels before he put on Friends. “The One with the Birth.” Unfortunate timing indeed.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” she said.

She left, mostly to break the awkward silence. After an uncomfortable painful pee, she stood and looked in the mirror for a moment. The swelling in her face had gone down significantly, and she was starting to look like her old self again. This was jarring. She was no longer that person and never would feel like her again. She sat on the edge of the bath, looking around at the familiar features of her small en suite. The ceramic tiles still had their lone hairs and bobby pins. The crusty grime remained. The ceiling cracks were mended; they couldn’t live in a house with a risk of mold if they had a baby, but they didn’t have a baby, did they? The mosaic wall tiles had been cleaned, and she could see her faint outline reflected in them. None of it was ordinary anymore.

Roisin Doyle-Bakare is an Irish-Nigerian budding writer and English literature student in her final year of Trinity College Dublin. A lover of reading, writing, singing, dancing, and everything in between.

Header image by Marilyn Hallett Granzyk