‘I THINK IT’S a girl,’ says Dr Jacobs, the obstetrician at the Royal Hospital for Women. ‘In fact, I’m sure of it.’
‘No dingle-dangle?’ says Jenny, which makes me crack up. That’s exactly the kind of word she’d use for ‘dick’. I can just imagine her seeing her first lover’s penis and exclaiming, ‘Oh, what a lovely dingle-dangle!’
Speaking of lovers and dicks, it turns out that Jenny is love’s dark horse. While we were in the outpatient waiting room before my appointment, she revealed that she’s been having a secret affair with Tom from St Augustine’s! Over the last three weeks she’s gone from kissing virgin to practically all the way with Stephen Agliozzo’s way less handsome friend.
I can’t really blame her for not telling me sooner. Things have been tense between us and I haven’t been there for Jenny. I’ve been one hundred per cent focused on myself. To be fair, though, I do have something worth focusing on.
‘No dingle-dangle,’ confirms the doctor. ‘And a very healthy baby as far as I can tell.’
Jenny and I share a look of relief. We both know that I should have seen a doctor a long time ago, but it’s so good to be reassured that, luckily, there have been no consequences for the baby. I feel elated seeing images of my daughter’s squished little self straining for room in a part of my body I could never really imagine. And to think that I baked her!
Dr Jacobs measures my baby’s head circumference and length. ‘She’s a lot bigger than average,’ she says.
‘Everyone in my family’s gigantic,’ I say.
After the appointment, I fill out a lot of paperwork to book in for my delivery, which is just weeks away. Then Jenny’s aunt Coralie, a midwife, takes us for a tour of the delivery suites. In a matter of months, I’ll be giving birth in one of them. There’s going to be a little girl, who didn’t even exist before this year. It’s incredible when you think about it, yet it happens every day. I can’t get over the wonder of it, and also its everydayness. As we walk around, a smile comes over my face and I just can’t shift it.
‘You look excited, Shauna,’ Coralie says.
‘And scared,’ I add.
‘There’s not much to be scared of at your age,’ she says. ‘The risks of just about everything that could go wrong for you or your baby are much, much lower than those of someone older. Even a woman in her late twenties.’
This is news to me, good news. I wonder why people act as though teenage pregnancy is the end of the world. I begin to wonder whether there is anything so terribly wrong about it for anyone other than perhaps the teenager involved.
After the appointment, Jenny and I go to the hospital café for a snack. We’re dressed in civvies, so I get some funny looks. When I’m in my built-for-purpose school uniform, I get far fewer. People can’t hide their shock at the sight of a pregnant teenager in regular clothes. Why is it any of their business?
‘I still can’t believe you’re going to have a baby.’ Jenny sips her hot chocolate and looks over the froth at me in wonder.
‘I still can’t believe you’re going to France without me,’ I reply.
Jenny has decided to start a degree in romantic languages at the University of Sydney next year. Not only will she go to Paris for a holiday during the sumptuous European summer, she’s also going to do an exchange for a year at the Sorbonne or another European university. It’s something I just won’t be able to do, probably not ever.
As we chat about where she plans to live and her possible travel plans in Europe, I feel a deep, burning envy that I could never admit to Jenny. She’ll get to remain a footloose child, while I’m forced to grow up. I’ll go through the motions of being a university student. I’ll research for assignments and sit exams. But the real essence of being a uni student, or at least what I’d imagined it to be – getting contentedly lost in library research for hours, meeting new people with similar interests, and going out with friends – will be for others to savour. I’ll be a student in my spare time, which won’t be abundant. And if I meet a man, which will be far less likely because I’ll be stuck at home a lot of the time, I’ll be meeting him as a single mum. I’ll have to be really careful about who I let into my life.
‘So?’ Jenny looks at me expectantly. ‘Shauna?’
‘Sorry, what?’
‘You will come and visit me in Paris, won’t you?’
‘What? With the baby?’
‘You could leave the baby with your mum for a week or two couldn’t you?’
‘I guess so . . .’
Right at this moment, I feel like I’m going to miss out on so much that I can’t even force myself to sound excited about the prospect of visiting Jenny. What would the point be? To experience, with bitterness, what great things might have been, but weren’t?
‘You could leave the baby with Nathan,’ Jenny says casually.
I feel a sudden stab of annoyance. ‘You know that Nathan’s not going to be part of our lives, Jenny.’
‘But you are going to let him see the baby, aren’t you?’ When I don’t answer, she takes a long sip of her hot chocolate. ‘I suppose it’s your choice.’
‘Like it was my choice to tell the school about the pregnancy,’ I say quietly. Bitchily.
A strange expression comes over Jenny’s face. A combination of shock and betrayal. She blinks at me from behind her glasses for a few seconds before responding.
‘So you’re still smarting, Shauna,’ she says with restrained anger. ‘After all this.’ She gestures around the hospital cafeteria, as though I should be grateful for the stale sandwiches and soggy donuts that surround us. ‘I thought you wanted help.’
‘No, you thought I needed help.’
‘Was I wrong?’
I grit my teeth. ‘You can be really judgemental sometimes.’
‘You can be really irresponsible sometimes,’ she dares to reply.
I move forwards on my chair and its legs screech against the ground. I try to stay cool.
‘You just said it was my choice whether to involve Nathan or not.’
‘And it is. Doesn’t mean you’ve made the right choice, though, does it?’
‘What do you care, Jenny? It’s my life. Why are you trying to stick your nose into everything? You’re lucky I’m even speaking to you after the crap you put me in with Mrs Green!’
I push my chair back from the table, resulting in another loud screech, and clamber to my feet. People at the other tables stop talking and stare at me. I’m getting quite good at making a big, pregnant spectacle.
‘Sit down,’ says Jenny in a dangerously low voice. I’ve never heard her sound so tough. I sit. I fold my arms over my enormous boobs. When the other diners begin to go about their business again, Jenny starts talking.
‘I care about you,’ she tells me, still in the low voice. ‘You’re my best friend. And do you want to know why you’re my best friend?’
I take a deep breath. ‘Why?’
‘Because you’re so smart and so brave. Think about it, Shauna. Our backgrounds are really different. I’m not like Lou-Anne or Olivia. They follow you around like bad smells because you’re charismatic but safe for them. You guys were always going to get along. You and me though, we had to get to know each other, didn’t we? We weren’t even friends until Year 10. So I know that you probably think you powwow better with Lou-Anne than you do with me, and maybe in some ways you two are closer, but our friendship grew out of a crack in the footpath. That’s why it’s so strong.’
Jenny’s eyes are shining with tears now.
She continues, ‘So when I tell you that I care about you, I hope you know how much I mean it.’
‘You think I’m going to hurt my baby by leaving out Nathan.’ Now my eyes are stinging, too.
‘Don’t you think it would be better if she knew her dad?’
‘But what if he doesn’t want her . . . want us?’
‘And that’s the other thing,’ says Jenny. ‘I want you to have Nathan.’
I nod. ‘For help with the baby?’
‘For love, Shauna.’
On the way back to school, in Jenny’s car (in her family you get a car when you get your licence) I think about my dad and what my life would be like without him. How could my mum have coped? Would I have made it to Oakholme? Would I even be alive?
Then I think about my parents and how they got together. They were young, clueless teenagers, too. They’ve had the toughest time any parent can go through, burying their son, but they’re still together and they never stopped loving one another.
There was always lots of love. Always.
I want Nathan to love the baby and me, but I’m so scared that he won’t. What will I do if he doesn’t?
As if reading my mind, Jenny suddenly pipes up. ‘There are other guys out there, too, don’t forget.’
I smile. ‘Hypocrite. I’ve been telling you that ever since you clapped eyes on Stephen Agliozzo. It took you a while to take your own advice, didn’t it, Jenny Bean?’