What Once I Was

Chapter 3 - 21 Years Ago

The waiting room buzzed with conversation, mothers to be excited to see black and white images of their ever growing babies. Partners sat beside them shifting continuously, eyes wide with panic - or excitement perhaps - as doctor after doctor entered with clipboard in hand.

Only I sat alone with my thoughts. Robert was working again and we'd decided - well, he had - that it would be best if he didn't take time off for a fifteen minute appointment.

It was my first ultrasound and though I'd googled what to expect I still felt out of my depth. As with most people, one Google search had become another and then another until I slipped into the rabbit hole from hell. Stillbirth, Down syndrome, miscarriage, birth defects. The words had screamed at me through the screen, leaving me breathless. I'd slammed the laptop shut telling myself no such thing would happen to me.

I observed mother after mother stand and leave, herded to whatever room was free. I watched as each left, smile glowing and images in hand. Some on the phone gushing their news to family and friends.

Only one woman left distraught, the tears raining down as she struggled to breathe. No doctor by her side, no partner. Just her own company to comfort her grief. No photos hung from her grasp. Nurses at the station gave sympathetic looks but said nothing. I did nothing. Just watched as her figure shrunk into the distance until she was gone.

I often find myself thinking of her and wondering how life has faired her since. I hope she found peace within herself.

"Mrs Collins?"

I looked about the room waiting for someone to rise and follow the young female doctor. No one stood. It took a moment or two for my mind to catch up with the words that echoed the room. It was my turn.

The room was small, a long bed in the centre with a plastic chair against the opposite wall. I lay without instruction, lifting my blouse as I'd seen in multiple movies over the years. My eyes fell on the television like device before me. Large, bulky and drab like the rest of the room. No bright colours, no wall decor. It was clinical and unwelcoming.

"This might be a bit cold." She stated cheerily before squirting a gel that superseded cold. I'd expected her to glide the probe along my abdomen, for a baby to appear on the screen full of life.

I winced as she pressed firmly on my stomach, wiggling the probe this way and that. An image manifested before my eyes. A grey blob with a single area. Two masses lay either side of the hole a soft pulsing in each. I looked at the doctor confused.

Why didn't it look like my friends' ultrasounds? Where was the gigantic head atop a tiny body? The hands and feet? My heart raced. Where was my baby?

"Congratulations Mrs Collins, you're having twins."

I gaped at the screen, trying to see what she was. Twins? She glanced at me large smile planted on her face.

"I - I don't see them." I sobbed. My hormones had made me incredibly emotional and the slightest event would trigger uncontrollable weeping.

She placed a hand on my shoulder passing a tissue my way.

"Hey. It's okay. See those two blobs? Those are your babies. You see how they're in the same sac? That means they're identical. Two boys or two girls. You'll have your hands full that's for sure."

She murmured to herself, click clacking on a keyboard before turning and speaking to me once more.

"You're around eight weeks and three days. There's a beautiful heartbeat in both twins and they're growing just as they should be. Would you like photos?"

I nodded not removing my eyes from the computer. Twins. Identical twins. What am I going to do? I can't cope with two!

Three photos in hand I trudged from the hospital mind racing. She'd told me a letter would arrive in the following weeks to schedule my next ultrasound. The thought filled me with dread.

I'm not quite sure how I got home, my mind was somewhere else entirely for the journey, but when I closed the front door behind me I could hear Robert on the phone somewhere inside. He'd left work early and hadn't bothered to visit the hospital. Worry morphed into rage.

————

"How did Robert react to the news you were expecting twins?" Ben asks laying his hands on the table.

"I never told him. He thought, still does, that there was only ever one. Only ever Naomi." I give a small shrug.

Gary turns to face me, eyes wide and mouth open. Ben looks unphazed, as though he somehow already knew the answer to question. My curiosity is peaked.

"You.. you never told... your husband that you were having twins?" Gary struggles to keep his cool, its quite humorous actually.

I shrug again.

"No, not once."

"But the scan photos. Surely he would have noticed two babies?" I can sense his brain whirring trying to come to a logical conclusion.

"I told him that day that the baby was too small for us to get a photo. After that I was lucky enough to get individual photos of each baby as well as, at least early on, photos of them together."

Gary shakes his head, mouth still wide.

"What did you do with the photos?" It's Ben's turn to interrogate now.

"I burnt them, all but the first ever scan. I hid that in a place I knew Robert would never dare look. Any photo with Twin B in I also burnt.  That's what the doctor would call them both. Twin A and Twin B."

"Surely he'd have realised. Your bump would have been rather big and there would be two babies born eventually."

I smile and stretch. It's all getting a bit tedious now. They're not very smart and it's giving me such a thrill.

"I lied to him. A consultant advised an elective cesarean since giving birth to twins naturally comes with a greater risk. I knew well in advanced when I'd be having the twins, I just told him my due date instead. That way he'd be guaranteed to be at work,"

I can see the horror written across Gary's face but I'm not yet finished.

"I'd arranged with a nice enough couple for them to adopt Twin B. We'd meet in secret, not that they knew that of course. And I'd give them updates about Twin B's development. It's was pretty straightforward actually,"

I pause to take a long drink, peering over the rim at the two men in the room. One cool and collected, the other pale and trying desperately to fix his composure.

"On the day of my surgery I rang Robert as I did most days when he had a break. I triple checked my suitcase making sure I had everything I needed for Twin A and then I left. Hopped in a taxi and made my way to the hospital.

I had a spinal block, the thought of being put under riddled me with fear. First born was Twin B, small and fragile a tiny cry escaping her. Then came Twin A, bigger than her sister and screaming at the world as though she could take on anything and anyone.

I refused to hold Twin B, why would I need to. After all she wasn't mine, she was just something I'd incubated for another couple. You should have seen the joy in their faces. The mother, Carol or something like that, sobbed and kissed the baby over and over. Their repeated thanks became tiresome. I was glad to see them leave.

Then it was just me and Naomi. She latched well, the doctors happy with her weight and health for me to be able to. In fact, I was quite surprised that she didn't need any time in th NICU. It was as though she had absorbed Twin B's strength.

All 5lbs of her. None of the clothes I'd bought had fit. It was only when the other parents had left that I called Robert and told him our baby was born. He sobbed and told me he was leaving work then and there. That he'd be with us as soon as he could.

It was then I knew, I really had made the right decision. That if I'd have kept Twin B, Robert really wouldn't have had any time for me. One child would take enough of my time with him."