Hour-long minutes pass and I know I need to deal with this, whatever it may bring. I know I need to be brave, but I am made of jelly and terror.
I heave myself up from the bed, shove my feet into my slippers and walk slowly to the bathroom. Tom, who had followed me back into the bedroom, is behind me. Steeling himself for what his role may need to be today. Supportive partner, rock, voice of reason, mental punchbag, simply a shape on which I can cry.
I breathe, trying for deeply, but it’s shallow and raspy with nerves.
I think of Maurice from yoga. I picture his lit candle.
And then I push the bathroom door open and look down.
Next thing, Tom and I are wrapped around each other and again, I am a child. I cling to him, I cry, I heave, and he now does the same.
But this time it is different.
This time, I am being told that there are presents downstairs, Father Christmas has been. This time, something magical has happened. This time, it says yes.
I’m doing heaving sobs, every tiny part of me shaking as though it is minus twenty. This is the biggest influx of emotion I have felt in my life and already I am thinking: Shit. Calm down. Is this much shock good for the baby?
Because there is a baby.
Tom is smiling at me and hugging me and whispering one word: positive.
The test is positive. I feel positive. After so long of negative, there is positive.
And just like that, there is a new reality.
I think of last time, when our baby didn’t stick, and every time I go to the toilet it is like sitting in front of a doctor and steeling yourself for the worst news.
But it is impossible to block it out and pretend it’s not happening, because this Almost Baby is there, in all its physicality. I am only five weeks pregnant, but I am so bloated from all of the fertility drugs that my normal clothes no longer fit comfortably.
Days later I am opening a parcel containing a pair of maternity jeans. I stroke them. My pregnancy is tangible and it feels like size 14 super-soft denim.
I meet Anais for lunch, determined that I will keep this baby – this barely a baby – a secret. Until we’ve had a scan at least. Until it’s safer.
Anais looks nervous of me, wary. I know she is thinking before she speaks, tiptoeing around me like I am her sleeping child, just off for a much-needed nap. It’s understandable, I think, I don’t blame her.
‘We could get the goat’s cheese?’ she says, looking at the shared small-plates menu.
I look at her son, Dexter, who is sleeping next to us in a pram. It is only the third time that I have met Dexter. Dexter has been my enemy. Dexter is seven months old.
My eyes spill with tears, but then there is more than that and out of nowhere I am sobbing on a shared table, as people try not to look at me and focus on their charred broccoli.
Dexter stretches and yawns.
Anais springs out of her chair and hugs me, and I think of how it used to feel, in the months when her bump was in the way and I wish we could go back. Do it all again. To a version of events where I don’t resent her happiness. Where I can be kind. A friend.
‘I want to explain some things,’ I start, pulling away, but Anais stays where she is and clings more.
‘You don’t need to,’ she says, speaking through her own sob as it catches in her throat. ‘I knew. I always knew.’
Was it so obvious? Did everyone know? I feel oddly relieved at the idea that that might be true.
And then we stay there until we have calmed down, the rest of the diners possibly thinking Anais has fallen asleep on me through baby-induced sleep deprivation.
I know I shouldn’t tell her, I know it’s too soon, but it’s impossible now not to complete the picture.
‘I’m pregnant,’ I whisper into her hair, and she pulls away with her eyes wide and then kisses my head over and over, crying herself. Then she hugs me again.
‘I don’t think I can have goat’s cheese?’ I say through tears that keep coming and aren’t slowing.
Dex stirs; cries lazily, half-heartedly.
Anais pulls away and says softly as she wipes a tear from her own face and then one from mine: ‘Goat’s cheese is fine when it’s cooked, my love.’
She takes Dex out of his pram and hands him to me, and I sit him on my knee while he giggles. When she takes him back, I look down at my stomach. I still feel the anxiety. But surely. Surely. Nothing can hurt us now, can it?