Baby Deyes: A Zalfie Fanfiction

Week Fourteen: Hope and Hospitals

Monday on Week Fourteen and I already couldn't wait for Harry to be born. But this time it was for a different reason.
I was spending all most of my time hunched over the toilet, retching. I was weak, fainting because I was eating nothing. I couldn't even keep down water.
It had been three days, starting on Saturday, the day after Alfie had come home. At first I thought it was food poisoning, but Alfie wasn't being sick. He insisted on taking me to the hospital, but I was determined that it was just morning sickness making a brief reappearance.
"No, Zoe." He said. "I'm calling an ambulance."
I could hear sirens down the road soon after.
"Okay, Miss Deyes, if you'll just stand up we can give you an injection. It'll stop the sickness."
"I don't like needles," I protested weakly, but the young, lithe paramedic insisted. I eventually felt a sharp pain and then a lot less sick. I was loaded onto a stretcher with Alfie grabbing random items and piling them into a bag. Then we entered the back of the ambulance and were taken to the maternity ward.
As I entered Ward 7, Alfie having been sent home to fetch a list of things I had listed in the ambulance, I registered that there were nine other women on the ward. One was sitting crying, being comforted by her partner, on a bed in the corner. Another four were sitting with plump bellies and looked excited. Two were holding babies (one who was holding a baby had her partner next to her, and he was also holding a baby), one was feeding one and one exceptionally exhausted-looking mother lay with a baby in each arm.
I was wheeled next to a woman with a plump belly. I had an IV drip and had been told that I had Hyperensis Gravidarium, which Kate Middleton had had.
"I'm Debbie. I'm eight months but she's breech and I'm for a Caesarean. This next to me is Lily. She had Alex and Jamie this morning. In the corner is Josie." Debbie lowered her voice."She lost her daughter this morning. She was stillborn. On your other side is Carla. Same as me. Over there is Sarah, who's being induced, and Amy, who's got HG. Pearl, who's feeding, gave birth to Parker yesterday morning. Maia had Anya on Saturday but she needs monitoring because she had a Caesar. June had Eden and Elijah not two hours ago, and that's her husband John."
"I'm Zoe. I've got HG like Amy. Fourteen weeks. I juat know it's a boy, so we called him Harry."
We talked and talking for over an hour. Then Alfie threw himself through the door.
"Zoe! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Pumped with drugs, but I'm fine. I've been talking to Debbie."
"The doctors say you need to stay in for a week. You won't be leaving until next Monday."
"But that's the 2nd of February!" I said. "What about vlogs? Videos? The internet?"
Alfie passed me my phone and electronics.
I sent out a quick tweet:

In hospital with Hyperensis Gravidarium, pumped full of drugs so I'm okay, but no videos until next Wednesday! Sorry!

I got sympathy, inevitably some hate, and a few well-wishes.
"Anything else?" I asked.
"I was told that I could sleep in a side room. I can if you want. Visiting times are 2 - 4 if not."
I shook my head. "It's not fair on you or Nala. Go home, get rest. I'm actually exhausted from all my throwing up."
He kissed me and left. "I'll come at 2 until 4, every day."
As he left so did Carla for her Caesar. An hour and a half later Tracey, one of the midwives, came in to let us know that everything was fine but that they wanted to tell us the sex and name themselves, the next day, after some time in Recovery.
When we saw her again, she was alone. Josie had also gone, as had Lily and the twins, to be replaced by Dawn with Baby Grace. Pearl and Parker left too, and Sarah popped out Alison after her induction the previous night.
"It's a little boy. We named him Edward Louis." Carla said, holding him practically aloft.
Over the the week people came and more often went. On Friday it was just me and a middle aged woman called Ruth, her husband Mike and her baby Maggie, with eight empty beds.
On Saturday, Lou, Layla, Hope, Sal, Anne and Xavie joined us. I learnt their stories. Sal, Anne and Xavie were three late twenties women with large bellies. Lou and Layla were twin sisters in their thirties who had decided to become pregnant but had no partners. So they enlisted the help of Paul via the IVF clinic and he "Personally inseminated them." As they delicately put it. Lou gave birth to Hattie and Layla to Hidahg just hours apart. Paul is also getting married to Lou, after bonding over shared DNA for 9 months, and Layla has found Les, a boyfriend.
However it was Hope's story that touched me most. She was 17, a quiet, intellectual young woman who had been raped unceremoniously in an alleyway by a Jamaican man. She was having a daughter, but wanted to keep it. If it was blonde, she said, it would definitely be her boyfriend Luke's. Each time I asked her about her life, she would fold bony, scarred wrists over her rounded belly and tell me tales of her well-bred, supportive lifestyle. Everything about Hope suggested a planned first baby, with a loving husband, just a little too early. Unfortunately, life isn't like that.
When I left two days later, Hope had just delivered. Her little girl was pale and blonde and had come very quickly. After her waters breaking the night she arrived, at 4 a.m Abby Hope was born.
I went home to find Nala jumping at my knees. I hasn't had access to a full length mirror for the week and so when I looked in one I noticed how much my belly had grown. I now had a neat little bump that I could stroke and talk to. It made it all the more real, and I loved it.

GUYS, I'm SO sorry for not updating in nearly a month, but it's nice to see that I've passed 2.56K reads! Wattpad wasn't working for me, and I was busy writing a new Dan and Phil fic. I completely forgot about my Zalfinian readers. But I promise more regular updates soon. Hope u enjoyed this part!
Kisses!
Claudia

*DISCLAIMER*: By saying that Hope's rapist was Jamaican I mean no racial discrimination. If I'd done it the other way round it may have caused hate too, and I just thought it simple to set the races apart so it would be easier to tell who Baby Abby's dad was. It was just the first thing that came to mind after reading something similar in the paper.

God, I'm talking like they're real.