Beyond the Pain

Beyond the Pain - Prologue.

Prologue.

I was twenty and thirty two weeks pregnant. Eight weeks and then my beautiful baby girl would appear. I couldn't wait. We hadn't planned to have a baby, but there was no question whether we would keep it or not. Neither me or Nick had the heart to destroy a life.

The thought of changing nappies, sleepless nights, caring for a child and being parents before we were married, terrified us when we found out. We knew our parents' reactions wouldn't be good and we had no idea what to say, to make the baby inside me sound like a positive step. But we did it. They had to accept it, whatever they thought. My baby wasn't going away.

My mum was more optimistic than I'd expected.

“Pregnant?” she'd shouted, “how can you two look after a baby? You're hardly parent material. I mean come on. Surely you didn't plan this?”

“No, we didn't,” I said in shame, not making eye contact with her.

“So, you're keeping it then?”

“Yes,” I replied, not going into detail about not having a heart to kill a living child. She thought we were too young, and I suppose we were.

The conversation ended with mum saying if we needed anything, we knew where she was. I think she was aiming that more at Nick than me. She cared for him like he was her own, not taking my feelings into consideration. She acknowledged him before me whenever we went round to hers.

Nick's parent's had moved to Paris, so it wasn't a face to face confrontation with them. Nick said they had taken the news well. I felt a wave of jealousy. Why couldn't my mum just be happy for us?

By the time five months had passed, I had fallen in love with my little baby. The scan revealed that she was a girl. Me and Nick were elated. We had just bought a house and moved in together, Nick's job was going well and now we had a baby girl. We already felt like a proper family.