Annie’s early pregnancy look:
Red ruffled wrap dress (Picchu maternity)
Black support tights (Elbeo)
Black suede boots with mid-heels (Russell & Bromley)
Total est. cost: £420
‘Oh my god.’
This was strange. This was definitely a little bit too strange, Annie couldn’t help thinking as she watched the nurse slide the ultrasound scanner over her lower stomach. Just four weeks ago, Annie had been holding Dinah’s hand in a scanning room. Now, here she was on the couch.
Ed had a tight grip on her left hand and from the corner of her eye, she saw the images begin to flicker to life on the screen. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. For a moment, thinking of Dinah, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to look.
She still wasn’t totally sure if this was where she wanted to be. Part of her wished that it was Dinah lying here in her place on the bed with a twelve-week-old pregnancy happily in progress inside her.
But it was her. For whatever reason, this had happened to her instead.
Ed was so frantic with excitement, with the strange newness. He was so bursting with gratitude, how could she not go along with it?
Somehow, she was sure, he would carry her through. So, she would do this for him. And when the baby was born, she knew she was going to fall in love, all over again. Because that’s what mothers do.
She had once loved Lauren so intensely that she worried she’d never feel quite the same about her second baby. But oh, the rush of instant love she’d felt for that bright-red baby Owen, with his sticky fuzz of black hair. Some magical cell division had happened in her heart and suddenly there was more than enough love for two children.
So, she was staying calm, accepting the pregnancy, letting this embryo grow, take over and move into all the areas of her life that she knew it would soon inhabit.
‘There we go,’ the nurse’s voice broke into her thoughts, ‘a nice steady heartbeat over here… and…’
Annie looked and saw the pulsing white shape, already more defined than the blob she’d seen on Dinah’s screen. Over and over, the rhythm of life already beating strongly.
‘Amazing,’ Ed murmured, his eyes fixed to the screen.
The scanner slid over her stomach and they saw the shape again.
‘OK, let’s just move over here again,’ the nurse said, pushing the scanner towards Annie’s hip bone and pressing in firmly. ‘I thought I just saw…’ she began, looking closely at the screen.
Annie felt a flicker of anxiety. Was something wrong? All of a sudden, her uncertainty about this baby seemed to evaporate. Now she only wanted to know that everything was OK. Annie looked at the screen again.
This time there was no mistaking what the nurse had seen… This mysterious process had been set in motion weeks and weeks ago and now she was going to have to face it. Try to get used to it. Make sense of it.
‘Is that…? Ed began in astonishment.
The nurse nodded her head and smiled at them.
‘Is that really…? Ed still couldn’t finish a sentence, he was so surprised.
Annie just stared. Stared and stared at the screen. She didn’t move, she didn’t even blink as she tried to let this register in her scrambled mind.
‘Are there any twins in the family?’ the nurse asked, still not wanting to confirm what they could both see so plainly before them.
Annie felt as if she couldn’t keep up. Within seconds, it seemed, she was supposed to pass from not being sure about a baby, to being anxious about the baby, to being the prospective mother of two babies. Now she was unsure all over again, yet all she wanted was for the nurse to say that yes, there were two babies, and both looked absolutely fine.
‘Are there two?’ Annie found her voice.
‘Yes, there are two embryos here,’ the nurse confirmed.
‘And they look OK?’
‘Everything looks fine. I’m just going to take some photos and take a few measurements.’
As she pressed buttons and examined the stills on the screen, Ed turned to Annie.
She didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so happy. He seemed to be keeping his smile tight and small so that the happiness couldn’t burst out of him.
‘Two babies,’ he whispered, gripping her hand, ‘you are so clever!’
Annie’s eyes turned back to the screen. Every other anxiety could wait, she just needed to know from the nurse that everything was OK with the… two… babies. Two. Babies.
‘Everything looks normal,’ the nurse said finally, ‘I think we’ll book you in for a sixteen-week scan, just to take another look, but at this stage, there doesn’t seem to be anything to worry about. Congratulations.’
Ed moved Annie’s hand up to his face and kissed her fingers.
‘What about Owen and Lauren?’ Annie asked him.
‘They’re going to love it! They get a baby each!’
‘What about Dinah? And Connor?’ she asked, almost tearful now.
‘You are surrounded by people who will love these babies,’ he said calmly.
‘What about Dave?’ she asked, with a small sob.
‘Connor has offered to adopt Dave,’ Ed replied.
‘Oh no,’ Annie shook her head, ‘Owen will never forgive us. He loves that dog!’
‘Well, then I suppose Dave will have to get used to the babies.’
‘Two teenagers… a dog… a live-in mother… and twin babies.’
‘And a TV career,’ Ed reminded her. ‘Congratulations,’ he repeated, ‘clever, clever girl. Two babies,’ he repeated, sounding a little bewildered. Then he uttered the phrase she really had been trying to avoid all day. ‘Happy birthday, Annie!’
She was going to have twins and she’d found out today, on her dreaded birthday.
‘Oh my god,’ she began and then, as if it was a mantra, found she couldn’t stop repeating it.