Joss Wood - With Love From Cape Town

Annette was pale and held on to her husband Mike’s hand as if for dear life.

Robina asked the nervous couple if they were sure they were happy to be filmed. ‘You can still change your mind,’ she told them gently.

‘No, we said we’d do it and we will.’ Annette raised her chin. ‘We want people to know what it’s like to go through IVF.’

Robina nodded to John, who focussed the camera on Annette.

‘Only people who have been through this know what it’s like.’ Annette’s voice was so soft, Robina had to strain to catch her words.

‘At first, every month you hope that this will be the month, but you tell yourself not to get too excited, but you can’t help yourself. You just want it so much. And then, when it doesn’t happen, it’s like a dark cloud descending on top of you. So you ask yourself, why me? What is wrong with me? And then eventually you realise that you have to seek help, because it’s not going to happen on its own—no matter how much you want it to. Suddenly, you can’t bear seeing babies. Sometimes you’ll cross the street so you don’t have to look at them, and you even avoid friends and relatives who are pregnant or have young children—even though you know it’s wrong and selfish.’

She took a shaky breath. Robina wanted to reach out and put her arm around Annette’s shoulders and tell her she knew how she felt, but she forced herself to stay still and let her have her say.

‘People tell you to relax, that it will be all right, that there is always adoption, and yes, for some people adoption is the right thing. But although they mean well they just don’t know how much it hurts not being able to have children of your own.’

She paused for a moment, her eyes welling up with tears. ‘And then, when you decide to go for IVF, you think that this is it. That soon you’ll be pregnant. Oh, you know the treatment might be unpleasant, but you don’t care. And they tell you it might not work, but you’re not really listening, cos you have hope again. So you do everything you are told, and loads of other stuff that you read about on the internet and in magazines—just in case. You go through the injections, do the diets, try the alternative treatments—put up with the hormones making you a little crazy, because you just know that soon you’ll be holding a baby in your arms, and you’ll do anything to have that feeling. Then when the drugs work, and they take you to Theatre, the hope is almost painful. So you have your eggs collected, but you have to wait again to see if they fertilise, and if they do, and one or two are replaced, you have to wait again to see if they implant. And even if you know there is still a chance you won’t fall pregnant, you go out and buy the cot, and start to think of names. And it’s the longest two weeks of your life as you wait. You are almost too scared to do anything, even though you know it won’t make a difference, and every twinge and niggly pain terrifies you. Then, at last, it’s pregnancy test day. And you tell yourself you must be pregnant because you couldn’t bear it if you are not.’

Annette took another deep breath. ‘But if you are like me, then the first time the test was negative, and I couldn’t believe it. I was devastated. But Mike wouldn’t let me give up, so we tried again. And this time the test was positive. We were so excited, even though Sally warned us it was only the beginning.’

She paused as Sally re-entered the room. ‘We didn’t listen, did we? We told everyone and they were so happy for us. But something didn’t feel right. I tried to tell myself I was imagining things, but I wasn’t. This time we got as far as the seven-week scan—like the one we are having today. But there was no heartbeat. We had lost our baby.’

Robina swallowed the lump in her throat. She also recognised the terrible feeling of loss; even though her baby had been no more than a few centimetres in length. A baby was no less mourned because it was only a tiny embryo.

‘C’mon,’ Sally said gently. ‘Let’s get you scanned. I think you’ve waited long enough for this moment.’

A few minutes later, Annette lay on the bed looking even paler and on the verge of tears. She’s expecting bad news, Robina thought. It’s written all over her face. Or at least she’s preparing herself for the worst.

The room was deathly silent as Sally ran her probe over Annette’s abdomen. Annette clutched Mike’s hand as if he were a life-raft and if she let go, she would drown.

But a few minutes later a huge smile spread across Sally’s face. ‘A clear, strong heartbeat.’ She swivelled the monitor so the couple could see. ‘See just there.’

Robina craned her neck to see where she was pointing and, sure enough, the steady movement of a heartbeat flickered on the screen.

‘Are you sure?’ Annette whispered.

‘One hundred per cent. You can relax, we’ve got an ongoing pregnancy.’

Annette burst into gut-wrenching sobs and her husband gathered her into his arms. ‘I can’t believe it,’ Annette hiccupped once she had regained her composure. ‘We’re going to have a baby. Thank you, oh, thank you.’

‘Congratulations,’ Robina said. ‘I’m so happy for you both.’ With a bit of luck, in a few months’ time this couple would be holding a much longed-for baby in their arms. Robina’s throat tightened and she knew that tears weren’t far away. Annette’s story had brought too many painful memories flooding back.

Leaving the ecstatic couple with Sally, Robina found the staff in Reception gathered around a woman who was proudly showing off a baby, who, judging by its size, was somewhere around two to three months old.

‘Isn’t he just gorgeous?’ Linda was saying. She noticed Robina. ‘Dr Zondi, come meet our latest arrival, little Matthew.’

She held out the baby and, before Robina could protest, handed her the tiny bundle as everyone looked on. For a second Robina’s heart froze. She hadn’t seen, much less held, a baby since her miscarriage. Now she had no choice but to accept the infant.

John was filming, his camera trained on her face. He was one of the few people who knew about the miscarriage, but the thought probably hadn’t entered his male head that she would find cuddling a baby difficult. She forced herself to look down at the tiny bundle she held in her arms. His eyes were closed, and impossibly long lashes fanned plump cheeks. She inhaled the baby smell of him and the numbness in her throat spread into her chest, making her feel as if she could hardly breathe. If her baby had lived, she would be due about now. Don’t let me cry, she thought. Don’t let anyone speak to me, cos there is no way I could force any words past my throat.

She glanced up and over the heads of the nursing staff and saw Niall watching her intently. Without a word, he crossed the room and gently took the baby from her arms.

‘Ah, let me see,’ he said, holding the baby as if he’d had years of practice, which, of course, he had. ‘What a fine-looking lad. You must be very proud of him.’

Robina backed away as Niall diverted attention away from her. She was shaking and desperately needed some time on her own to compose herself. Mumbling something about the Ladies’ to no one in particular, she walked as steadily as she could, on legs that had turned to mush, towards the bathroom.

Inside, she slumped to the floor and laid her head on her knees, taking deep, gulping breaths. Her hands were still shaking and she could feel the pressure of tears behind her eyes. It should be her, holding her baby. She caught her breath as a fresh wave of grief washed over her. She couldn’t break down, not here. She needed to regain her composure before she went back out. Maybe Niall was right and she should never have agreed to this programme. She was still too raw, too vulnerable. Thank God, he had seen how close she had been back there to losing it, and had rescued her. How on earth was she going to manage weeks of this? Especially if every time she saw a baby, she thought she would disappear inside herself from the pain of it?