‘Yes, of course there are. You know how I am.’ He smiles, and presses the remote, the moment nearly forgotten.
If only I’d known how prescient my words were. If only I’d known how this was all going to end.
But I didn’t know, and so I dismiss Alice’s eye test and instead talk about what I think is really important.
‘Matt… I think it’s time we thought about another baby.’
Matt’s eyes widen, his lips parting silently as he presses pause once more on the remote. ‘Milly…’
‘I know it’s scary,’ I say, my heart starting to thud, because in all this time we have not talked about having another child even once. ‘And there’s a likelihood that I’ll experience depression again.’
‘Milly…’ Already he is shaking his head.
‘Matt, we’d be prepared this time. And I’m not getting any younger.’ In fact, my POI has advanced to a point where if I don’t have IVF in the next year or so, the window will most likely have closed forever. I’m on HRT, and so far it’s all been manageable, but still.
Matt leans his head against the sofa and closes his eyes. I wait, determined to be patient. I want this too much to jeopardise it by pressing hard now. I’ve learned that much over the years.
‘I don’t know, Milly,’ he says finally. ‘I really don’t know. What happened before…’
‘But it will be managed this time,’ I can’t keep from interjecting. ‘If it happens at all. It might not, you know. With the medication and therapy and knowledge I have now, it might not.’ I’ve done my research; I have a fifty per cent chance of experiencing postpartum depression again.
‘Even so.’
‘Alice is so wonderful.’ I hear the emotion clogging my voice. ‘So, so amazing. Don’t you want her to have a brother or sister?’
‘Yes, of course I would like that.’ Matt sounds irritated, which makes me fall silent. ‘Do you honestly think I don’t? Sometimes I think you believe you’re the only one who ever wanted a family.’
‘What?’ I blink, startled by the turn in the conversation. ‘Of course I don’t think that, Matt…’
‘Well, all of this has been hard for me too. The POI, the IVF, the PPD, a dozen different acronyms that basically suck. I don’t think I can go through it again, Milly. I just want to enjoy having Alice.’
I sit back, winded by his diatribe, and more than a little hurt. He’s acting as if it’s all been my fault, and isn’t that what I have been trying not to tell myself for so long? What I so desperately need to believe?
‘I’m sorry,’ Matt says after a moment. ‘I didn’t…’ He rubs his hand over his face. ‘I shouldn’t have said it like that. I’m sorry. I’m just scared, Milly. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to face all that again.’
‘Together we can be strong enough. I’ve looked into it, and because I’m a known risk, I can have a care plan in place from the beginning. I can consult a perinatal psychologist, I can start taking medication that’s safe for the baby even while I’m pregnant.’
‘What about the high risk? You’d have to have a C-section again, and while you were pregnant, you were on bed rest for weeks, Milly. What about Alice during all that?’
‘A C-section is one thing, and I might not have to be on bed rest. Look, there were a lot of factors last time that won’t be a consideration this time around – my job, my mum’s diagnosis…’ I gaze at him despairingly. ‘Will you just think about it, please?’
It takes an age for Matt to slowly nod. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘I’ll think about it.’
After a tense moment of silence, we settle back to watch whatever’s on the TV. I feel as if I know what the battle ahead is, as if I’m prepared for it, because I have a plan, when actually I had no idea at all.
Twenty-Four
Anna
I am lying in bed one Saturday morning in September, the sunlight through the window spreading over me like golden syrup, when my phone pings with a text.
At first, I think it’s Will. We’ve been dating for a few months, since June, and it’s becoming more serious, slowly and sweetly. It started after that first cup of tea while it rained; in the weeks after, we found ourselves running into each other more often, giving jokey, self-conscious smiles and sharing a bit of banter. It wasn’t until later that we confessed we’d both been spending more time on the allotment for just that reason.
Chats standing in soil, cups of tea in his shed when the rain came down and then when it didn’t, and finally one late afternoon in June, when it was just melting into a golden evening, he asked me out for a drink.
Since then we’ve seen each other several times a week, drinks and dinners and movie nights in, and I made it official in my own mind by telling my colleagues and friends at work that I had a boyfriend. In July, Will asked me to accompany him to a friend’s wedding; in August we spent a day at the seaside, like little children, eating ice creams and even going on donkey rides.
So I am smiling, thinking of him, wondering if he wants to do something together today, as I reach for my phone and then stiffen in shock when I see who it’s from. Milly.