The Baby That Changed Her Life

‘It’s a baby,’ she said.

Sophie laughed at them both. ‘Of course it is!’ She began to take measurements. She measured the head-to-rump length and then zoomed in on the nuchal fold, which was one of the measurements they took at the three-month scan to check the risk factors for Down syndrome. ‘This all looks fine. Well within parameters.’

‘That’s good,’ Lucas said, relieved.

‘I had no idea you two were together. You kept that quiet,’ Sophie said.

Callie glanced at him, a question in her eyes. Should they correct her?

‘Actually … er … we’re not …’ He stumbled over the explanation, his words fading away as he recalled Maggie’s impression of their relationship. ‘You love Callie, Lucas! Always have! I could never live up to her, so now I’m giving you the chance to be together!’

‘We’re not together,’ Callie said. ‘Just having a baby.’

Lucas gave a polite smile.

Sophie raised her eyebrows. ‘There’s no “just” about it—you two should know that. Having a baby is hard work.’

‘You give all your patients this pep talk?’ Lucas didn’t want her attacking their decision, and he certainly didn’t want Callie getting upset. She’d been through enough already, what with all the morning sickness and everything.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’

Lucas shook his head, appalled that he’d been snappy with her. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be sharp with you/It’s just been a tough few months already.’ What was he doing? He wasn’t normally this prickly.

But Sophie was obviously used to the up-down moods of her patients and she smiled. ‘That’s all right. Here—take these.’ She passed over a long strip of black-and-white scan photos.

Callie took the opportunity to pull free of his cradling hand and took the pictures first. She held them out before her, admiring each one, and then turned them so that Lucas could see. ‘Look, Lucas.’

His heart expanded as he looked at each one. He could physically feel his love growing for this little bean-shaped creature he didn’t yet know, but had helped create. All right, maybe not in the most ideal of circumstances, but they’d find a way to make it work. They had to. Even though he knew he and Callie would never be together like that.

‘You okay?’ He looked into her eyes and saw the tears had run down her cheeks now. He hoped they were happy tears. She seemed happy, considering …

‘I’m good,’ she said, nodding. ‘You’d better take these.’ She offered the pictures to him, but he sat back, shaking his head.

‘Not all of them. I’ll take half. You’ll need some too.’

She looked puzzled, and he didn’t like the look on her face. It made him feel uncomfortable to think that maybe she still didn’t feel that the baby was part hers.

‘It’s your baby, too,’ he insisted.

The smile left her face and Callie avoided his gaze, looking down and then wiping the gel from her belly using the paper towel.

He helped her sit up and turned away so she could stand and fasten her trousers. Then, when he judged enough time had passed, he turned back and smiled at her. ‘Ready for work?’

‘As I’ll ever be.’

He thanked Sophie for her time and followed Callie, blinking in the brightness of the waiting room. He tried to avoid looking at all the couples holding hands. Couples in love, having a baby. The way he ought to be having a child with a partner.

Yet look at how I’m doing it.

He didn’t want to think about how appalled his parents must be. He’d avoided talking to them about it, knowing they’d be sad that his marriage had failed. He was upset to have let them down, having wanted his marriage to succeed for a long time—like theirs had.

‘Youngsters these days just give up on a relationship at the first sign of trouble!’ his mother was fond of saying.

But I’d not given up. I thought everything was fine … We were going ahead with the surrogacy. It all looked good as far as I was concerned. And then … Maggie said it was over. That she’d found true love elsewhere because she’d had to!

Now he and Callie, his best friend in the whole wide world, were in this awkward situation.

We have to make this work.

I have to.

Callie had not expected to have such a strong emotional reaction to seeing the baby on screen. Why would she have suspected it? Having a baby had never been one of her dreams, had it? Not really. She’d always been happy to let other people have the babies. She just helped them along in their journey from being a woman to a mother. Others could have the babies—others could make the mistakes. Others could be utter let-downs to their children and be hated by them in the long run. Because that was what happened. In real life.

What did people say about not being able to choose your family?

So even though she’d known she was pregnant, logically, had known she was carrying a child, she’d still somehow been knocked sideways by seeing it on screen. Her hypothetical surrogate pregnancy had turned into a real-life, bona fide baby that she might have to look after! And seeing it on screen had made her feel so guilty and so upset, because she already felt inadequate. She feared that this baby would be born into a world where its mother was useless and wouldn’t have a clue. Callie could already imagine its pain and upset.

Because she knew what it was like to have a mother like that.

Callie waited until the sonographer had led someone else into the scanning room and then she stopped Lucas abruptly. ‘Hold this,’ she said, passing him her handbag. ‘I need to use the loo.’ Her bladder was killing her! Sophie had pressed down hard, no matter what she’d said about being gentle.

In the bathroom, she washed her hands and then realised how thirsty she was and that she wanted a coffee. Her watch said that they had twenty minutes before they were due to start their shift, so when she went back outside she tried to ignore the anxious look on Lucas’s face and suggested they head to the café.

‘You okay with coffee?’ Lucas asked with concern.

‘I think so.’ She’d been off coffee for weeks. But now she could feel an intense craving for one and ordered a latte from the assistant. ‘This is so strange,’ she said as she gathered little sachets of sugar and a wooden stirrer.

Lucas looked about them, glancing at the café interior. ‘What is?’

‘This.’

‘Having coffee?’ He smiled.

She gave him a look. ‘You know what I mean! This. The situation. Me and you—having a baby. I mean …’ She swallowed hard, then asked him the question that had been on her mind ever since Maggie had walked away. The question that had been keeping her awake at night. The question that she wasn’t even sure she wanted answered. If he said he wanted her to be the mother … ‘How’s it going to work?’

She could tell her question had him stumped.

He was trying to decide how to answer her. After all, it wasn’t an easy situation. After Maggie’s big revelation they’d both been knocked for six—especially when Maggie had kept her word and disappeared out of their lives altogether. No one had heard a peep from her—not even the hospital where she’d worked. She’d really dropped them in it as they’d lost a midwife without notice!

For a while Callie had believed that at some point Maggie would call and it would all sort itself out again. That she and Lucas had simply had one giant misunderstanding and it would all be sorted easily. Because then it would be easier for her. Callie. And wasn’t that how Lucas operated? Before Maggie there’d been other girlfriends. There’d certainly been no shortage of them during the time she’d known him. Which seemed like forever. He’d always been splitting up with them and then getting back together again.

But Maggie hadn’t called. The situation hadn’t changed.

Callie was pregnant with Lucas’s child. But they hadn’t slept together and they weren’t a couple.

Lucas wanted a baby and Callie never had.

Yet here she was. Pregnant. And though she’d thought she’d be safe getting pregnant, because she wouldn’t be in any danger of having to keep the baby, she was now in the predicament that she might have to. Or at least have more to do with it than she’d hoped.

It.

‘Honestly, Callie …? I don’t know how it’s going to work. But I know that it will. In time. We’ll sort something out.’ He stood opposite her and shook some sugar into his own drink, replaced the lid.

‘But how do you know that?’ She pressed him for more information. He was her best friend in the whole wide world and always had been—for as long as she could remember. There’d once been a moment—a brief, ever so tempting moment—when she’d considered what it would be like to go out with him, but she’d not allowed herself to do it. His friendship with her had been much too valuable and the one stable element in her wretched childhood.

Callie didn’t do relationships. Not long-term ones anyway. She’d had dates, and gone out with someone for a couple of months, but once he’d started making mutterings about commitment she’d backed off.

Then one day Lucas had asked her out. On a date. In a boyfriend/girlfriend kind of way. He’d looked so nervous when he’d asked her. And though they’d been great friends, and she’d known she loved him a lot, she just hadn’t been about to ruin their friendship by going out on a date with him.

Lucas had been her one stable choice through her childhood and she couldn’t risk losing him if things went wrong between them. Besides, they’d both been about to go off to university—it would never have worked, would it? It had been a sensible decision to make.

She could still recall the absolute shock on his face when she’d turned him down. But then he’d left her that night and gone out and met Maggie and the whole thing had been moot, after all.

‘I don’t know it. But you’re sensible—so am I. We’re good friends. Best friends. I don’t see why we won’t be able to come to some arrangement.’

She watched him sip and then wince at his coffee. ‘I wish I could be as sure as you,’ she said. Because Callie wasn’t used to certainties. All her life she’d felt as if she lived in limbo—nothing stable, nothing rooted, her mother going through bottles of alcohol as fast as she went through various men, all of them the latest, greatest love of Maria’s life.

He put his coffee down and reached out to take her hand, knowing she didn’t feel comfortable with personal touch but doing it anyway to make his point. His thumb stroked the back of her knuckles, gently caressing the skin. ‘We’ll be fine.’

Then he let go and went back to his coffee.

She was relieved he’d let go—relieved to get back control of her hand. Relieved the sizzling reaction to his touch—where had that come from?—had gone. Her hand had lit up with excited nerves as his fingers had wrapped around hers and her stomach had tumbled all over like an acrobat when he’d squeezed them tight before letting go.

She gave a little laugh to break the tension. ‘Too big a subject when we’re due to start work in ten minutes!’ She grinned, but inside her mind was racing. She’d never reacted like that to Lucas before. Why? What was happening? Hormones? Possibly …

No, it had to be. No ‘possibly’ about it.

He smiled back, laughing too. ‘Way too big.’

Callie laughed nervously. There’d been something reassuring and caring about his touch, and though she disliked physical contact something had changed since she’d got pregnant. It was as if she needed it now but didn’t know how to ask for it, having gone for so long without it.

And how threatening was Lucas’s touch anyhow? He was her best friend. It didn’t mean anything. Not like that. And he knew it.

But I’d like you to protect me, Lucas. Promise me I’ll be safe.

Lucas sat in his office, twiddling with a pen without really seeing it. There was plenty of work he knew he ought to be getting on with, but his mind was caught up in a whirl of thoughts and emotions. As it had been for many weeks now.

Maggie was gone. But if he was honest with himself that wasn’t what was bothering him. Not at all. What bothered him was what Maggie had said on that final night before she’d walked out.

‘I tried with you, Lucas, I really tried! But it was all pointless, wasn’t it? You’ve never truly loved me. Not the way you should have.’

‘Of course I love you—’

She’d half laughed, half cried.

‘But it wasn’t real, Lucas! You thought it was, and that was the problem. You lost your heart to Callie long ago and you can’t see it!’

‘Callie? No, you’re wrong. She’s my friend … that’s all—’

‘She’s more than your friend and I can’t be second best in your life. I need someone to love me for me. I don’t want to be your substitute.’

‘You’re not! Maggie, you’re being ridiculous. Callie and I are just friends and that’s all we’ll ever be!’

‘But you still want more. Haven’t you noticed how uncomfortable it is for me every time she comes round? How you are with her?’

He’d looked at her then, confused and still reeling from her announcement that she was leaving him.

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘I know you care for me, Lucas. Maybe you do love me—just not enough. And not in the way that you should.’

‘But we’re going to have a baby together, Maggie. Hopefully. One day soon!’

She’d looked at him then, her eyes filled with sadness.

‘And look who you picked to carry your child.’

Why had he allowed Callie to get into his mess? His beautiful Callie. His best friend. That was all she was. He knew her situation, knew her background—with her awful childhood and her ridiculous drunk of a mother—and he’d stupidly let her get into this situation.

Why?

Was it because Callie always seemed to set things right? Was it because he only had happy memories with her, so he’d let her suggest the surrogacy in the hope that her involvement would somehow set his marriage right?

Maybe. He couldn’t be sure.

But now his mess had got real. There was a baby. He’d just seen it. And though he was happy, and thrilled to be having a child—there was no disappointment in that—he wasn’t sure how all of this was going to sort itself out.

He didn’t want to pretend. As he had with Maggie. The fact that he’d hurt Maggie hurt him. Pretend to Callie that everything would be fine …? He couldn’t be sure. Not really. Callie didn’t think she could be a mother so it looked as if he was going to have to raise this baby by himself.

I could do that. Plenty of men are single dads.

But the realisation was there that he did want Callie involved. More than she had ever volunteered for.

Was that fair of him? To push her down a road she wasn’t ready for? Did he want to parent a baby with someone who wasn’t committed—like his father?

The pen dropped to the table with a clatter and he glanced at the clock. He needed to be with his patients.

I’ll have to think about this later.

He and Callie could do this. He was sure of it.

Callie was running the booking clinic that afternoon, and there were twelve women booked in to be seen over the next four hours. Due to Maggie’s unexpected absence they were still down a staff member and had had to rely on an agency midwife to step into the breach and help out.

Callie took a few minutes to show the new member of staff where everything was, and how to log into the computer system, and then pulled out the first file: Rhea Cartwright. Sixteen years old.

Callie checked to make sure she had all the equipment she’d need and then went to the waiting room and called out the girl’s name. A young girl, who was there alone and looked far less than sixteen, stood up. Clasping a large bag in front of her stomach, she followed Callie into the clinic room.

‘Hi, there. My name’s Callie Taylor. I’m a midwife here at St Anne’s and I’ll be following your case throughout your pregnancy—hopefully right up to the birth. How are you feeling today?’

The girl was about eleven weeks pregnant, according to the notes from her GP, so Callie hoped she was no longer suffering the effects of morning sickness as she herself had done. Those few weeks when it had been at its worst had been just horrible!

‘I’m all right.’

The girl answered tersely, without smiling, and didn’t meet Callie’s eye as she gazed about the room, taking in the breastfeeding poster, the framed black-and-white picture of a baby fast asleep surrounded by sunflowers in full colour.

Callie beckoned her to sit down and settled into a chair next to her. ‘No one with you today?’

‘My mum couldn’t make it. She was busy.’

She nodded. Perhaps Rhea’s mum was busy. Or perhaps Rhea’s mum had no idea of the pregnancy—or, worse still, couldn’t be bothered. Callie didn’t want to jump to that conclusion, but she had personal experience of having an uninterested mother. It wasn’t nice. But she couldn’t judge someone she’d never met, and nor did she want to jump to conclusions.

‘What about your partner? The baby’s father?’

Rhea shook her head and looked at anything but Callie. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

She was going to be a closed book. Callie knew she would have to tread softly with Rhea and gain the girl’s confidence if she was to learn anything. It was like this sometimes with teenage mothers. They suddenly found themselves in an adult world, living by adult rules, when all they wanted was to live by their own and be left to get on with it.

And in Callie’s experience pregnant teenage mothers were often reluctant to show their trust until you’d earned it.

‘Okay … well, take a seat.’ Rhea still hadn’t sat down. ‘I’ll need to run through some questions with you.’

She tried to keep her voice gentle and neutral. Nothing forceful. Nothing that would suggest Rhea was being ordered or expected to answer questions, as if she was taking some sort of test.

‘Just some basic things about you and your last period … that sort of thing. Is that okay?’

Rhea sank into the chair with her bag clasped in front of her, still looking at anything but Callie. She shrugged, as if unwilling to commit either way.

‘Well, we’ll just start with some basics and see how we go on. Can you confirm your date of birth for me?’

Callie sensed it was going to be a long afternoon. Rhea was not going to give up any information easily. Small red flags were waving madly in her mind. Her midwife’s sixth sense, developed over time, was telling her that there was something going on here that she didn’t know about. She had learned that it was best to listen to it. It would be so straightforward if every couple or single mother she saw had a happy home life for a baby to be born into, but quite often that wasn’t the case. There was a lot of poverty in London. There were a lot of drugs problems, lots of drink problems. Hadn’t that been her own experience?

‘April the first.’

April Fools’ Day. Not a joke. It was confirmed in her notes. Callie knew she didn’t have the type of relationship with Rhea yet to make a joke about the date, so she kept a neutral face and voice and continued with her questions.

‘And when was the first day of your last menstrual period?’

There was a moment of silence, as if Rhea was weighing up whether to give her the information or not, then she said, ‘February the seventh.’

The same as me.

Callie smiled, about to say so, but decided to hold back. This young girl was so different from her in so many ways.

‘Do you mind telling me whether this is a planned pregnancy, or were you using contraception?’ she asked without thinking.

She’d not asked just because Rhea was a teenager. It was one of the questions that she always asked. It was important to know whether someone had planned their pregnancy. Whether they’d been actively trying for a baby, or whether the pregnancy was a complete accident and a surprise. It had a bearing on the mother’s attitude to it all. Just because a mother was at her booking visit it didn’t automatically mean that she wanted to keep the baby. Plus, she needed to know if Rhea had taken any prenatal vitamins.

‘I don’t see why that’s important.’

Callie put down her pen. ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to know whether you’d planned the pregnancy or not.’

‘Because I’m sixteen? Because I’m young it must have been a mistake? Is that what you’re saying?’

Rhea met Callie’s gaze for the first time, and now Callie could see how frightened and unsure this young girl was.

Where was her support? She was so young! It had to be scary for her. Callie herself was twenty-eight—a whole twelve years older than Rhea—and she was terrified of being pregnant. How could she even begin to imagine how this girl felt?

‘No, not at all. I didn’t mean that. It’s a standard question—’

‘Well, I don’t want to talk about it. Next?’

Rhea folded her arms and closed up and didn’t meet Callie’s eyes again for the rest of the meeting.

It was obvious she was a troubled young woman, and if Callie was going to be there for her then she needed to get the young girl on side.

‘Let’s start again … Let’s look at your family health. Any medical problems on your side of the family I should know about? Diabetes? Asthma?’

Rhea shook her head reluctantly. ‘We’re fine.’

‘Again this is a standard question: any history of depression? Anything like that?’

‘My mum has that.’

Right, okay—that’s something.

‘Do you know if your mum suffered with postnatal depression?’

‘No.’

‘That’s okay.’ Voice still neutral. Unthreatening. Soft. Rhea was answering the questions.

‘What about the father of the baby?’

Rhea stiffened, still not meeting her gaze, shuffling her feet, twiddling with her bag strap with nervous fingers. ‘What about him?’

‘Any health issues on his side we should be concerned about?’

‘I don’t know.’

What is it about the father of this baby that she doesn’t want me to know?

‘How tall is he?’

‘What?’ Rhea frowned.

‘His height? It can have a bearing on the size of your baby.’

Surely she can tell me his height?

‘I don’t know.’

Callie paused. What was going on here? How did she not know the boy’s height? Or perhaps she did know but didn’t want to give Callie any clues that might identify him? Perhaps he was an older man? Married? Or was he younger than Rhea? Which would be a whole different kettle of fish. Not that she wanted to think that way, but it was a possibility she had to consider.

‘How did you two meet?’ That wasn’t a standard question, but Callie felt she needed to do some extra detective work on this case if she were to get any helpful answers.

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

Callie shrugged. ‘I’m just interested.’

‘Nosy, more like. How I got pregnant has got nothing to do with you. You’re a midwife. You should know how people get pregnant, yeah? So just tell me what I need to do next so I can get out of here.’

Callie shrank back from the anger, but she was getting really concerned for Rhea. The girl was so angry and scared. There had to be a way to help her. To get the young girl to trust her.

‘Okay, okay … I guess what I really need to know is your intention. You’re very young and I have no idea of your support system. I’m making no judgements, but I need to know what your intentions are regarding this pregnancy.’

‘My intentions?’

‘Yes. Are you keeping it? Are you here to ask about other options?’ She didn’t want to use the word abortion unless Rhea used it first.