I go for a walk after the check-up. The health centre is next to a forest with a running track. At this time of day, I can waddle in peace: the track is empty of joggers, or dogs, or ponies from the riding stables.
I went to the antenatal group three times. We talked about our expectations of giving birth, compared baby equipment, discussed breastfeeding. All the women were nice, and we all had bumps of about the same size.
I don’t know why I had to tell them. I hadn’t even plucked up the courage to tell Pekka at that point, although I knew I should have. But as everyone shared their own feelings about pregnancy and motherhood, it suddenly seemed possible. As if something in me had waited for a moment when it was all right to say it, and then it came.
And so on the third occasion I said that our baby’s limbs had grown together like a tail and it wasn’t certain how long it would live. I listed the body parts and organs it lacked.
The other mothers asked how I dared to give birth to a child like that. The mothers asked if we hadn’t had a nuchal translucency scan performed. They said I was really strong and they probably wouldn’t be able to do what I was doing. But I realized they pitied me. Suddenly, the other mothers didn’t want to hear about what kind of baby carrier I was thinking of getting and what I thought of co-sleeping. Suddenly, they were all at pains to make clear that their sit-uations and their babies were totally different from mine. Their babies were normal and ours wasn’t. One woman started crying because she thought the death of a baby was such a terrible thing. Really, you shouldn’t even talk about it, in case you catch the bad luck.
‘Our baby isn’t dead,’ I would have liked to say. ‘It hasn’t been born yet. And not all of them die.’ I didn’t say how many didn’t, but they didn’t ask, either. No one wanted to look at the ultrasound picture and admire the button-nosed sweetie. And when it was time to choose a partner for neck massage, the woman who had said you mustn’t talk about the death of a baby suddenly turned away, as if death could spread from my neck to her hands.
Late autumn is so quiet. The birds, the flies and the leaves have gone. There’s not a sound. Over there I can see a chanterelle poking out, but I leave it – I can’t be bothered to stuff it into my handbag.
Is there no one here?
The ancient Greeks used to lower the gods on to the stage when the plot of a play got into a knot and the characters weren’t able to work it out themselves. Gods in white clothing in their little box, descending creakily to the middle of the stage with the help of a rope. There they could declare judgement. It wasn’t thought to be quite as skilful an ending as one where the characters solved their problems themselves, but it was better than nothing.
I walk a kilometre. Then, without warning, a rushing begins. A wave rising, rising in the middle of this silent forest, and suddenly I’m invaded by the feeling that everything is crumbling. I won’t stay in one piece; I’ll trickle into this shrubbery and all that will remain is a wet patch. Now I make a sound; I pant in the forest. What does that sound like? I find it hard to grasp. How come I’m here, all alone? Help. Help me. I stand there – no, here – in the middle of a sawdust path, and I can’t even take hold of a pine trunk. I stand here – it is here, I’m so totally here – and I don’t know what will happen now. I’m totally here, because there may not be anything else.
Everything is crumbling.
I hold so much water, an entire ocean. The sharp rocks on the shore stab my sides. Sometimes a whole cliff will crumble into the ocean and people will come rushing with their buckets to dig for fossils.
I’m so totally here; everything else has gone.
How can one baby need so many litres? Salt water pushes through my skin and rises to my lungs in waves. A sea creature kicks inside me. The rushing is so loud. Lower the gods! I try to carry on walking but the water rises up from my stomach. I stop by the exercise equipment to gasp for oxygen. Maybe my womb has torn and the water has flowed into my whole body. I press my hand against my mouth to prevent the ocean from coming out.
The baby must have water.
Water’s good.
Luckily, I don’t feel any pain.
That must be a good thing: there’s no pain.
Is it me standing here? Is that my panting I hear, here, next to the gym equipment? Please help that woman now, gods; have mercy on her. How come I’m so alone? Couldn’t someone run past, at least? Come and cuddle me, here by the chanterelle.
The water ebbs. No, this isn’t happening. So that’s how it is. The water ebbs and my skin holds out. This isn’t happening.
This is not my life. Walk. I carry on walking.