The Surrogate

They Know Who She Is

Thursday November 18th, Qatar, Saudi Arabia.

Another week, another country.

That's how it feels to Holly and she wonders how on earth Seb copes with what seems like constant travelling. It's not surprising that he'll need help once he's got a newborn son or daughter to care for, three races in a row is kind of exhausting for her so god knows what it's like for him.

But at least they'll have the doctors appointment to look forward to or at least Seb will, she's been to enough to know the drill - urine sample for confirmation test, blood pressure check, possible blood test and a chat about when her last period was so they can determine a due date. Only this time she knows the date of conception which will be taken into account and then looked at again during a 12 week dating scan.

In his room nextdoor, Seb is laying in bed with only his phone and the faint hum of the air con for company. He's also thinking about the baby and when the due date might be, there's not been much more on his mind apart from that and Holly whenever he's not been doing anything connected with racing and the car itself. Right now he's poking around Google and has managed to find a site that might be able to tell him when his baby could be born. It looks simple enough; just take the date of conception and add 266 days (or 38 weeks) on to it.

He remembers the date well, it's ingrained into his mind as is everything about that night and the next morning so he taps it into the search bar: what date is 266 days after October 27th 2021? The result comes up immediately - Wednesday July 20th, 2022. He smiles but he's also immediately thinking that he's missed his target date. Ideally he wanted the baby to be born around the start of August, right at the start of summer break to guarantee him being there not only for the birth but for those precious first days and weeks afterwards. At the moment he's looking at the time of French Grands Prix with a race in Hungary the following weekend. It's not great timing but then it wouldn't have been any different if they'd stuck with their original choice of artificial insemination either. But he knows that pregnancies can vary in length and sometimes go up to 42 weeks so there's still a chance of an August birth date. Ultimately it's now out of his control, he's going to let nature decide when his baby arrives - that's if everything goes without a hitch. What matters more now is that he's getting the child he longs for and that he or she will be born safely and be healthy. One thing he's almost certain of is that his 'little bean' (he's nicknamed his unborn child already!) is now three weeks old and he flicks over to the website he's using that charts pregnancy week by week.

A vanilla bean seed! He smiles lovingly at the thought, his little bean is the size of a vanilla bean seed and is still not much more than a bunch of a cells. It's crazy and mind boggling to think that in the summer of next year those cells will be his first child and he already loves his little bean so much that he's blown away by how fiercely protective he feels towards it and to Holly too.

There's a quiet tap on the door and he quickly puts his phone down to purposely push the sheets down so that his top half is on full display then he calls out a soft, "you can come in," while trying to look as relaxed as he can.

She pushes the door open to be greeted by the most divine sight. Seb sitting up in bed, partially uncovered and showing off his toned torso could very well become her favourite sight! He looks stunning and so, so tempting, like an all you can eat buffet of the most delectable, delicious treats imaginable.

"You don't have to knock, you know that," he says as he pats the vacant space on the bed next to him. He smiles happily as she comes over and joins him, this is something that is fast becoming a little morning ritual, she's done this now for the past week and hasn't missed a morning. For him, it's quite remarkable considering the way she reacted when he'd told her that her he loved her but he's not going to say anything, he's enjoying this new little ritual far too much.