We Will Survive

Amanda Prowse

Tina sat forward on the back seat with the ten-pound note held tightly in her hand. Her stomach bunched in anticipation, as she relived the sound of her daughter’s voice on the phone. “Mum! Oh, Mum…” She had of course dropped everything. Unplugged the iron, made a quick call to her line manager at the supermarket to say she wouldn’t be in, and called a cab.

It would always be this way; no matter how busy or where she was, when her little girl needed her, she would go to her.

As she’d stood on the pavement, with the seconds ticking by far more slowly than usual, waiting for the car, she’d realised that mixed into the high emotion of the moment was a small hint of satisfaction. That she could prove this was the case to Lauren. As her mother used to say, “The talking is easy, it’s the doing that counts.”

Her shoulders had sagged with relief when the car appeared around the corner. “Just anywhere here is fine.” She spoke quickly to the cab driver, hoping her urgent tone might encourage him to stop as soon as possible. The man nodded in the rearview mirror and pulled the taxi into the lay-by outside the maternity unit.

“Well, no wonder you are in a hurry. I’m guessing it’s for your first? And let me tell you, there is nothing in the world like it.” He pointed at the picture of a toothy toddler, a pretty little girl with blonde curls, awkwardly cradling a swaddled newborn. Not wanting to be rude, she smiled briefly at the lovely picture, pinned in pride of place on his dashboard.

“I love being a grandad,” he continued, oblivious of how his words stung like ice on raw skin. “It’s been the making of me. It’s not like it was when the kids were little.” He sighed. “Now, I’ve got time to properly enjoy them and I must say it’s nice to give them back at the end of the day!” He chuckled.

“Keep the change,” she managed; keen not to engage him further, desperate to get up to the ward. She gathered her handbag into her chest and stepped from the cab.

Looking up at the tall front of the hospital, she let her eyes fall to the revolving door of the reception and pictured stepping through it twenty-five years ago. She remembered the excitement laced with fear as she left the confines of the hospital where she had felt safe and cared for, let loose to face the unknown.

Hindsight hitched her top lip into a smile. She needn’t have worried. Lauren had been a happy baby; calm and quiet, as if she could sense that the strain of her parents’ short-lived marriage was already more than Tina could cope with. She swallowed and blinked away the memory of that day.

Stepping from the lift on the fifth floor, her senses were assaulted by the bustle of activity. Men stood leaning on the windows, mobile phones clasped against their ears, either offering updates or sniffing the good news down the line to the people who loved them.

One, a portly man in his thirties wearing a rugby shirt, scooted tears away with the heel of his hand. “Oh my God, Mum, she’s absolutely beautiful!”

Tina looked away, wary of intruding on the most private of moments.

Doctors and nurses purposefully criss-crossed the foyer and porters wheeling beds or trolleys loaded up with canisters of Entonox, navigated the jostling crowd. She made her way to the reception, hovering anxiously; she waited for the receptionist to finish her telephone call.

“How can I help you?” The smiley woman with a large name badge pinned to her pink cotton tunic looked up over the counter top.

“I… I’m trying to find my daughter, Lauren Brown.” She held the receptionist’s eye, hoping there was no need for further explanation. She watched, as the woman ran a lidded Biro along a list of names on the computer screen,

“Ah, yes.” She gave a slow blink of understanding. “Lauren is in room 448. I

just need you to fill in some details…”

Tina did as she was asked and stuck the white sticky label with her name on her chest. The sixty-foot walk from the reception to the little side ward seemed to take an age; it felt as if she was trekking miles, crossing seven months of planning and a lifetime of expectations.

She hesitated before knocking on the door, trying to quieten the churn of nerves in her stomach. She turned the handle.

Despite telling herself to be brave, giving silent instructions not to cry, her resolve melted the moment she met the stare of her daughter.

Lauren seemed to have shrunk, her eyes huge and bloodshot. Her thick, red hair splayed on the white pillowslip and the voluminous pale blue hospital gown was tied loosely around her shoulders. Her lips quivered with sadness at the sight of her mum. She sat up on the mattress as fat tears fell down her wan face.

“Mum!” Her voice was barely more than a croaked whisper.

“It’s OK,” Tina lied, dumping her handbag on the floor and sitting on the side of the bed as she took her girl into her arms. “It’s all going to be OK.”

“He was…” Lauren hiccupped, “he was…”

“Sshhhh…” She tried to calm her with the sound that had soothed her since the day she had been born. “Take a breath, darling, just breathe.”

Pulling away, Lauren swallowed, trying to regain composure. She sat back again among the pillows and stuffed a balled tissue into her eyes before throwing it on the chair with others. “He was perfect,” she managed. Tina nodded and took her girl’s hand into both of hers.

“And,” Lauren continued, slowly, “and I wanted him so badly.” “I know my love. I know.” The two sat in silence for a beat or two, letting the acceptance, the disappointment settle around them like a fine dusting of sadness that filled their lungs and coated their skin. It was Tina who spoke first. “Does Jacob know?” Lauren nodded; fresh tears fell at the

They let DISAPPOINTMENT settle around them like a FINE DUSTING

mention of her husband, a truck driver now, and always her childhood sweetheart. “He had a job going up to Coventry, today of all days. He’s driving back. I told him to be careful, don’t want him rushing or not paying attention.”

“He’ll be fine. You just concentrate on feeling better.”

Then the silence again descended. It was Lauren who spoke this time.

“Why… why does this keep on happening to me?”

Tina saw the way her eyes flew to the window, as if out there in the blue spring sky might be where the answer lie.

She shook her head, hating the feeling of impotence at her inability to wave a magic wand and make everything better. “I don’t know.” “The doctor was nice.” Lauren blinked, picking at the edge of the sheet that sat taut across her legs. “He said the same as last time, that these things can just happen. But why do they keep happening to me?” she croaked, reaching again into the box for a large tissue.

“I don’t know.” Tina reminded herself to think of a different response that might help the situation.

“I thought we were home and dry this time. I saw… I saw the scan from before and I had such a good feeling.” Lauren’s hand flew to her stomach. With splayed fingers she cradled the pouch of skin, a redundant host that had only recently lost its most precious gift.

“I didn’t think it would happen again, Mum. I kept saying third time lucky.”

“And one day you might be lucky. You mustn’t give up.” The empty platitude tasted hollow in her mouth.

“I feel like everywhere I look I see women with babies or pregnant women or dads with carriers and little downy heads popping out. And that is all I want, Mum – all I want is my baby!”

“I wish I could fix it, Lauren. I wish I could make it all OK for you.”

Her daughter nodded and gripped her hand tightly. “I don’t understand how it is so easy for some women to become mothers, how some have three, four, five babies and just seem to pop them out with ease and all I want is one! Just one!”

Tina watched as her little girl’s face crumpled again.

“I think,” she chose her words carefully, “I think that sometimes people want what they can’t have more because they can’t have it.”

“I want a baby!” Lauren raised her voice.

“I know you do, darling, I know. I don’t doubt it for a second. I can only imagine how hard it is for you and women like you to sit and hear words of reassurance from women like me who found it so easy to become a mother, but what I’m saying, I suppose, is this.”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t think anyone gets everything. God knows I wouldn’t haven’t have swapped anything with anyone if it meant not being your mum… but I had a horrible marriage, there was no love, no friendship, no kindness – and there have been times in my life when I have craved those things.”

Tina noted her daughter’s hopeful expression and went on.

“I have been lonely. Now I am older and life feels tough at times, the prospect of growing old on my own is scary.”

Lauren had stopped crying and was paying attention.

“What you and Jacob have is very special. You love each other and I believe that love is intensified, strengthened when you face adversity together. And my darling, you have faced adversity –” she kissed her fingers, as her daughter stifled a sob – “but you are strong. You will survive this just like you did before and you are right to mourn your loss, right to remember the little ones who left you too soon. But don’t let that loss define you, don’t let that loss become the sadness that consumes you because that would be a waste of all that is good in your life.”

“OK, Mum. I will try.” She nodded, sniffing back her tears. Her bravery tore at Tina’s heart. “That’s my girl.” Both looked towards the door at the sound of it opening. In rushed Jacob. The big man, still in his high-vis jacket and wearing his work boots, walked cautiously towards the bed. His tears pooled the moment he met his wife’s gaze.

Tina stood, knowing it was right to leave the two alone. She patted her son-in-law’s back as she picked up her handbag and stood to leave. Her daughter’s face was squashed against her husband’s neck. His words, stuttered through fractious breaths, filtered back to her, as she made her way to the door.

“I am so sorry that he’s gone, but I’m still here, Lauren. And I am not going anywhere, not ever. I love you and I always will. You see for me it’s a win either way. If we get our baby that would make me the happiest man alive and if I just get you then I am still the happiest man alive.”

“I love you, Jacob.” “I love you, too.” Tina quietly closed the door behind her and walked along the corridor. Passing the open ward, she caught glimpses of women like her, women with more years behind them than ahead, sitting in plastic chairs holding their grandchildren, wrapped in pastel-coloured blankets and kissing their squashed little faces, as they cooed their love.

She swallowed her sadness and pictured the day she had walked from here all those years ago with her own little miracle in her arms.

It’ s true, my love, you don’ t get it all, but I’ ve got you and that makes me the luckiest woman in the world…

“You are RIGHT to MOURN your loss. But DON’T let that loss DEFINE YOU”