Chapter 33

I don’t think it hit either of us, until I started to show. My tummy was evidence just how permanent this was. Once there was “proof,” it dawned on Lawrie’s mother that her son would be a parent with someone he neither really knew nor could truly love that quickly. I guess she felt she had to protect him. After all, he was still a kid, in her opinion.

“It’s not yours,” his mother would say. I know he tried to fight her but he didn’t have the rebellion in him like I did. His family was secure, the same mum and dad and everybody still together. His was from a total different upbringing than mine, I mean as different as Yin and Yang!

With a rush of hormones raging through my body, I still clung to the juvenile notion that it had to work out. We had to be a family. We had created a little life together, another little person to love, and that had to mean something to Lawrie, like it did to me. If it didn’t, then all of those carefully planned fantasies, all of those sweet little stories were lies. I really didn’t want to, no I just couldn’t believe that. I had created a perfect world in my mind, a world where there was a happy ending at the end of the rainbow, and it involved Lawrie and our unborn child.

Without Lawrie, it meant I would have to face reality, that there was no such thing as hope, that I was going to be a mum and I was going to have a child who would depend on me, alone. Me? I can’t even look after myself, how am I going to take care of a baby?

All the fantasies in the world didn’t prepare me for his fatal, last letter. “I’m sorry Abbie, it’s over,” he said. It hit me like a torpedo. His letters stopped coming and the phone didn’t ring. I knew that was it. He was off to sea with no way for me to try and stop it. I had absolutely no control. I had to sit back and watch the breakup, alone. I never felt so helpless. I knew deep down inside that Lawrie wanted the baby. I knew that he wanted me, after all he had bagged one of the school’s major catches. Well, so he assured me often enough. Why would he let me go without a good fight? Did he fight? Maybe he did and lost. All I knew was, I was pregnant and alone.

My heart was torn apart, and I could hardly breathe. I panicked and even considered having an abortion. But even if I did, would Lawrie be allowed to see me again? I doubt it, his mum had made up her mind. She’s formed her opinions, right or wrong. I knew it would be a fight with her before I could have her Lawrie back. I didn’t know what to do. I stayed in my house for weeks, sulking, slipping back into the depression that had so often consumed me. Lawrie had been first to lift the clouds of darkness and now he was gone. What am I going to do now? Who will want me with a baby?

I had a lot of planning to do. It didn’t occur to me at first, but I soon realised that having the baby would be the one thing in my life that was all mine, the one person who would love me unconditionally. It took some time to figure out that this was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Maggie was convinced that I had gotten pregnant on purpose. I hadn’t. I was on the pill, how could it be on purpose? I showed her the packet, but she still didn’t believe me. I had taken them all, but what the Doctor didn’t tell me, when I had been prescribed antibiotics for a chest infection, was that I needed to use additional protection. Nevertheless, there was no doubt in my mind, I knew I would be keeping the baby. I rubbed my stomach feeling the bump, a bump that was steadily growing inside me.

“I will look after you baby, don’t worry,” I told my stomach, gently rubbing it. “I’ll be here for you, and I will never allow you to be treated the way I was as a child. I promise you that!”

Maggie came to ante-natal classes and all the midwifery appointments with me. We even started getting on a lot better since she told me I was pregnant. I could almost say friends. She helped me pick out baby clothes and advised me on what I needed. The social services gave me a grant to help buy things like a cot and a pushchair. Most of the items I bought were second hand, but the baby wouldn’t know the difference.

Lawrie was neither seen nor heard of; he had no involvement at all, much to Maggie’s pleasure.

“I told you he wouldn’t support you, didn’t I?”

She often waved the red flag in my face. She always had to be right. Why can’t she be wrong, I wondered, just this once? I really needed her to be wrong. I left loads of messages for him with his mum. I heard he had left sea school and was now working on the ferries. He never returned a single phone call.

Appointments were every month at first and everything was perfect. I found out at 18 weeks that I was going to have a little girl. To say I was overjoyed, would be an understatement. Towards the end of my pregnancy, it got to the point where I couldn’t get myself up if I sat down. My stomach was huge.

My due date was the 17 of February. My leap year baby wasn’t far away and, when it passed uneventfully, I was in a ditch. I was so upset. At that point I didn’t care how much pain labour and childbirth would bring, I just wanted it over and done. My baby girl refused to come out, and I kept counting the days. Where did she get all this stubbornness? Ten days later I was admitted to hospital to be induced.

I left another message with Lawrie’s mum when I was in the early stages of labour. I asked him to come to the hospital if he wanted to be with me when she was born. He never came.

I was screaming in pain when my contractions were two to three minutes apart. My labour had been full on since the first contraction. An injection of Pethidine was given, and it didn’t take long before I was in the land of Ga Ga. Ah yes, I did remember. I recognised this place, it had been a long while since I had been stoned.

Then they asked about my last bowel movement. How embarrassing! I had to do it on the bed where I lay. Talk about torture. Pain, pain, and more pain!

“Get it out of me!” I screamed at the poor midwife. I then received the hiding of a lifetime. They had to cut me down below and the pain was indescribable. She was coming so fast I was ripping. I didn’t even have the chance to push and there she was, this beautiful little person I had been waiting forever to meet. There was no noise though, no cry, the room was manic, nurses and doctors running around. The baby was taken out of the room in a dreadful silence.

“Where is she? Why are they taking my baby?” I was getting in a right mess, shouting at Maggie who had been with me throughout the whole labour. It seemed like forever, that macabre silence then it finally came. “Whaaaaaaaa!” That cry was music to my ears and I breathed a long sigh of relief.

“She was sleepy from the Pethidine you had, it’s all okay,” the doctor assured me. “Baby is fine.”

Again I tried to contact Lawrie. I spoke to his mum telling her how Lawrie now had a daughter and that she was a grandma and the baby was fine. I told her all about how beautiful she was with her mop of dark fluffy hair and how much she looked like Lawrie. She promised to pass on the message.

I had no idea what to expect really. Everyone had told me various stories or offered opinions and tried to put me off in the early days. I heard countless horror stories of giving birth, but to be honest it wasn’t all that bad, especially when it was over. Or is that nature helping me to forget the pain?

I found it hard over the next few weeks. Maggie pretty much left me to it, but she was in reach if I needed her. It was about then that I looked at her and realised what a friend she was. She was my mum and I had just rejected her all those years. She had never done a thing to hurt me, I caused it all myself. Am I growing up? Maybe it’s maternal feelings. I thought I was grown up, after all, I was a mum now. I had to think about the baby, not just myself.

I tried to forget Lawrie, but every time I looked at the baby I saw him. She looked so much like him. Everybody said it all the time too, so it wasn’t just me. I couldn’t escape it. I rang so often to speak to him, almost to the extent of becoming a stalker myself. It wasn’t long though before I realised his mum wasn’t giving him the messages.

It was always, “He is in bed,” or “He is at work,” or “He’s nipped out.” I think I heard every excuse under the sun as to why I couldn’t talk to him. I guess I just wanted to hear from his lips that he wasn’t interested. I needed to hear it from him personally and not his mum.