Never Truly Living

Chapter 9

The first week of the new year went by very quickly for Vesper. She continued her journaling, and had begun reading the book she'd picked up as well. It had helped her to understand the changes her body was going through, as well as prepare her for what to expect in the future. She was now eating rapaciously, her appetite was thriving, and she had been gaining weight steadily.

Dr. Andrews had called to confirm the ultrasound technician's findings, and tell her that neither of them had detected any anomalies on either baby during the ultrasound. Her babies were, as far as they could tell, completely healthy. It was the best news she could've hoped for, and after hanging up the phone she brushed away her tears unashamedly.
He asked her again if she planned to deliver at home or in hospital and if she needed a referral for a midwife. She still wasn't exactly sure where she'd be delivering her children, but a homebirth seemed like the best option for her. After setting up an appointment for early February, she told the doctor that she'd get back to him about it.
A week and a half into 2007, M called her, the sound of the older woman's voice gave Vesper a slight jolt of fear. Vesper soon learned that she had nothing to worry about, the head of MI6 sounded distracted and tired. She also sounded satisfied with Vesper's progress, and the phone call between the two was short.
Her pregnancy was getting impossible to hide, even though she still had two weeks until her third trimester. She was starting to feel the strain that these two growing lives were putting on her body. According to the book she was reading, her babies were now over a pound in weight and almost a foot long each.

Her skin was starting to feel tight around her belly and chest, although she hadn't yet developed any stretch marks yet. Her bellybutton was becoming shallower as the time passed on, and she was finding it a harder to get around, with the growing weight on her front and the shortness of breath.
But she still took a walk every day, bundling herself up despite the fairly mild weather. She found herself making small purchases here and there, baby clothes and supplies, though she still felt almost silly buying things.

She knew this was her 'nesting' instinct kicking in, and as her third trimester came closer, it got became stronger. She felt a need to furnish the little corner of her bedroom that would be for her children, to have everything ready for their impending arrival.

She bought two little cots, barely more than baskets, and laid them on the floor, adding a few soft blankets. She didn't have much use for any big wooden cribs at the moment anyway, since newborns were tiny and content on whatever soft surface they were laid down upon. Besides, she wanted her children close to her.
The children's movements became stronger and stronger, their kicks would occasionally cause her pain. She spent many hours watching her children move beneath her skin. It was an endless fascination to her, to be able to watch her children, to be able to touch them beneath the thin sheath of flesh that separated the three of them.

Soon January turned into February, the weather became frosty for the first time, and she kept her promise, walking to Dr. Andrews' office for her planned check-up. He measured her belly, took her blood pressure, and listened to her babies' heartbeats, and then let her go, assuring her that everything looked well, and making another appointment for her in a month.
She had almost finished furnishing her children's little area, buying things here and there, one or two at a time so as not to be conspicuous. She had still not made a birth plan, or decided where she was going to deliver, but it was not a particular worry for her.
Now she was determined to avoid the hospital at all costs, not only because of its distance from her home, and the lack of privacy, but because she was hesitant to let anyone else into her affairs. Hospital births required the participation of many people, and it was difficult for her to trust Dr. Andrews. She was hesitant as well, to involve a midwife, to invite a new person into the sanctuary of her home.
So as February passed and her children grew, their developing bodies becoming more and more restricted inside her, she began to do more and more research on childbirth, buying every book she could afford. She read constantly, accounting for every probability and complication. She had no definite plans yet, and had made no decision on how her children would come into the world, but she wanted to be prepared.
Her third trimester was going well, and she was still not uncomfortably large, still able to get around. She found the fact that a mere ten weeks remained in her pregnancy astounding. As her due date came nearer, time seemed to go by quicker, and she found herself wishing almost that it would slow down, so that she could have more time to enjoy it.
But March was soon there and her appointment with Dr. Andrews went well, her blood pressure and fundal height satisfactory and the babies' heart rates acceptable. She was thirty weeks along and the babies were putting on weight quickly in preparation for their birth. The doctor told her as he felt her abdomen, pushing on it slightly uncomfortably, their heads were down. He informed her that it was unlikely that they would move from this position, which she found very reassuring.
She was determined to deliver these babies naturally, though she still had not decided where that would be. But she still had some time to think about it, the doctor informed her that she hadn't begun to dilate yet, and it still would be some time before her children were born.
March proceeded sunnily, which made her daily walks more enjoyable.
Even as cold weather hit in late March she remained active, still journaling and reading often. She found it impossible to refrain from tidying up the flat, from cleaning the bathroom floor-to-ceiling, from arranging the babies' now considerable collection of things.

It was not until April that she began to feel truly burdened by her children. Her check-up with the doctor went well, everything staying within acceptable levels, her babies were still head-down. Her cervix had begun thinning and dilating, though the doctor encouraged her not to be worried by this. Thirty-seven weeks was considered full-term, though most babies remained in the womb for at least a few more weeks after this, the body's preparation for birth often took quite a while.
Vesper found it hard to believe that she had made it to this point so quickly, and walking home from her appointment, and needing to stop several times to catch her breath. She realised that M had not her called since January. She wondered, as she ascended the steps to her flat, if it had anything to do with the distraction and exhaustion she had heard in the older woman's voice during their last conversation, and if it had anything to do with James Bond. She found it hard be concerned about it. The timing of whatever was keeping M away was actually quite perfect. She could feel that April would be the last month of her pregnancy. She knew, and she was glad that she'd slipped down to the bottom of the list of things M was concerned about.
April was oddly sunny and dry, but as the days passed, Vesper found herself leaving less and less. Walking had become quite difficult, and not even her thick coat could hide the fact that she was pregnant anymore. The skin over her stomach was stretched unpleasantly tight, and she was rather annoyed to see a few angry red stretch marks developing on either side of her bump.
She was out of breath very often, the combined girth of two children pressing into her diaphragm, and she began to wish, as the days began to crawl by, that this would be over soon. She longed for the early days of her pregnancy when everything had been so easy and she'd felt so light and content. The babies' movements slowed down as the days went on, their growing bodies becoming cramped inside her womb, but they stubbornly remained active, squirming and protesting against their shrinking environment.
Three and a half weeks into April, she got some relief, when baby A's head began dropping into the birth canal. She found herself unable to become flustered at the obviously impending births of her children, it was so much easier for her to breathe. But as the days passed by, she began to feel more and more pressure in her pelvic area and was shocked one day to discover blood on the toilet paper.
This bloody mark told her that her pregnancy would soon come to an end, and as the thought took hold, her conscious mind took a backseat, letting her instinctual one to make the decisions. She left the flat one last time one evening under cover of darkness, picking up the few things she still needed. She hadn't even realized until later that she had made up her mind.
And so, when the pains began the evening of the twenty-ninth of April, she unconcernedly went to bed, she knew that she would need her rest for the day ahead of her. She refused to involve anyone else in the births of her children. They would come into the world only in the presence of their mother, in the tiny flat that had become their home.