Eeyore slippers at night. She kept out of our way, spending a lot of time shut in her room, updating her Facebook page or visiting other internet sites she favoured. She always seemed to be online.
Slowly the wound of what we had done healed, and skin grew over the fading scar. Sometimes I managed to forget that we had even gone to bed together. Alice was becoming more like a younger sister to Mole, and, one day I found my heart singing, nearly convinced that this whole thing had been a nightmare I would soon forget. The kaleidoscope had shifted, and the incident would soon be a distant memory.
How naive I was.
Alice's body was changing, too. She was putting on weight as our baby grew inside her. Mole told me she had booked Alice in to see her smart gynaecologist, the handsome Doctor Forget, for the first scan at seven weeks, so I cancelled a meeting with Nigel Rosenthal I’d scheduled for that afternoon, secretly glad not to have to pore over Excel spreadsheets with him. I kept glancing at my watch to see whether it was time to leave the office yet.
My wife and Alice were in the waiting room when I arrived, sitting opposite a chic Arab woman. "Bit different to what I'm used to," said Alice. You could tell she was a overawed by her surroundings. This clinic was so dignified that you felt nothing bad could happen there. How wrong you could be.
Doctor Forget put his head around the door, and the three of us followed him to his consulting room with its bubbling gas fire. It seemed like only five minutes ago that we had embarked on this great adventure, and now here we were: our surrogate lying on his examination table carrying our child. I felt both excited and apprehensive. "Now, if you could lift your blouse, I've got cold hands," he said. Alice bunched up her shirt and Forget squirted some gel onto her stomach. "Not too cold?" he asked. Alice shook her head. Forget ran what looked like a supermarket price-checker over her tummy, and the TV monitor came to life. At first, I couldn't understand the garbled black-and-white blur. But then it settled down and I saw, really saw , our baby for the first time. Forget began a running commentary: "There's the head and lungs, and look away now if you don't want to know whether it's a boy or a girl."
"I want to know," said Mole. She looked to me for approval and I nodded.
"Well then ... it’s a girl. You’re going to be the proud parents of a baby girl."
A girl. Somehow the question of what sex our baby would be had never crossed my mind. Just as long as it, or should I now say she, was healthy. I felt an overwhelming rush of tenderness towards this tiny image, which looked so defenceless, like a tadpole swimming inside Alice’s belly. This was our little fishy, Emily and my DNA combined.
"Good. Everything is looking fine." It hit me for the first time that this was really going to happen, that our lives were about to change forever and a new cycle of life was beginning.
We took a taxi back home via the supermarket, chatting about the scan at the doctor's. Somehow the idea of having a baby had taken hold. Mole got busy chopping vegetables when we were home, and I poured us both a glass of wine as she whizzed some disgusting-looking green drink in the blender. Spinach and apricots and yoghurt. Good for expectant mothers, apparently. I loved watching Mole in the kitchen, where I truly believe she was at her happiest. I sipped my wine and reflected on my good luck: I had narrowly steered the ship away from rocks that would have destroyed us and brought us safely into harbour. "Here, take this though to Alice, would you?" Mole said, licking some drops off her fingers.
I found Alice on her single bed, hugging her knees and crying. She was rocking herself backwards and forwards.
"Hey, are you okay?" I said, putting the smoothie down next to a box of tissues. Inwardly, I braced myself for the worst. Just agree with everything she says and get the hell out of there. "Do you want
Slowly the wound of what we had done healed, and skin grew over the fading scar. Sometimes I managed to forget that we had even gone to bed together. Alice was becoming more like a younger sister to Mole, and, one day I found my heart singing, nearly convinced that this whole thing had been a nightmare I would soon forget. The kaleidoscope had shifted, and the incident would soon be a distant memory.
How naive I was.
Alice's body was changing, too. She was putting on weight as our baby grew inside her. Mole told me she had booked Alice in to see her smart gynaecologist, the handsome Doctor Forget, for the first scan at seven weeks, so I cancelled a meeting with Nigel Rosenthal I’d scheduled for that afternoon, secretly glad not to have to pore over Excel spreadsheets with him. I kept glancing at my watch to see whether it was time to leave the office yet.
My wife and Alice were in the waiting room when I arrived, sitting opposite a chic Arab woman. "Bit different to what I'm used to," said Alice. You could tell she was a overawed by her surroundings. This clinic was so dignified that you felt nothing bad could happen there. How wrong you could be.
Doctor Forget put his head around the door, and the three of us followed him to his consulting room with its bubbling gas fire. It seemed like only five minutes ago that we had embarked on this great adventure, and now here we were: our surrogate lying on his examination table carrying our child. I felt both excited and apprehensive. "Now, if you could lift your blouse, I've got cold hands," he said. Alice bunched up her shirt and Forget squirted some gel onto her stomach. "Not too cold?" he asked. Alice shook her head. Forget ran what looked like a supermarket price-checker over her tummy, and the TV monitor came to life. At first, I couldn't understand the garbled black-and-white blur. But then it settled down and I saw, really saw , our baby for the first time. Forget began a running commentary: "There's the head and lungs, and look away now if you don't want to know whether it's a boy or a girl."
"I want to know," said Mole. She looked to me for approval and I nodded.
"Well then ... it’s a girl. You’re going to be the proud parents of a baby girl."
A girl. Somehow the question of what sex our baby would be had never crossed my mind. Just as long as it, or should I now say she, was healthy. I felt an overwhelming rush of tenderness towards this tiny image, which looked so defenceless, like a tadpole swimming inside Alice’s belly. This was our little fishy, Emily and my DNA combined.
"Good. Everything is looking fine." It hit me for the first time that this was really going to happen, that our lives were about to change forever and a new cycle of life was beginning.
We took a taxi back home via the supermarket, chatting about the scan at the doctor's. Somehow the idea of having a baby had taken hold. Mole got busy chopping vegetables when we were home, and I poured us both a glass of wine as she whizzed some disgusting-looking green drink in the blender. Spinach and apricots and yoghurt. Good for expectant mothers, apparently. I loved watching Mole in the kitchen, where I truly believe she was at her happiest. I sipped my wine and reflected on my good luck: I had narrowly steered the ship away from rocks that would have destroyed us and brought us safely into harbour. "Here, take this though to Alice, would you?" Mole said, licking some drops off her fingers.
I found Alice on her single bed, hugging her knees and crying. She was rocking herself backwards and forwards.
"Hey, are you okay?" I said, putting the smoothie down next to a box of tissues. Inwardly, I braced myself for the worst. Just agree with everything she says and get the hell out of there. "Do you want
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