Page 69 of The Love of My Life
The dizziness returned as I put my camera away, although this time it ebbed and flowed, imitating the waves. Pain was beginning to gather in my back, accompanied by a darker, more powerful sensation near my ribs. I knelt down again, tucking my hands in my lap, and the dizziness billowed.
I counted to ten. Murmured words of concern, laced with fear, tumbled around above my head. The wind changed direction.
When I finally opened my eyes, there was blood on my hand.
I looked carefully. It was unmistakably blood. Fresh, wet, across my right palm.
‘It’s fine,’ I heard myself say. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
Panic rolled in with the tide.
After I’d sat with my head between my knees for a few minutes, Janice called the maternity ward in Edinburgh.
‘Yes, she’s sitting down. No, not like a haemorrhage ... But enough for there to be blood on her hands when she put them between her thighs ... Yes. More than just spotting ... No loss of consciousness. She just got a bit dizzy and had to sit down but now she’s ... Hang on. Emily. Are you still bleeding?’
I checked again. ‘No.’
‘No. She’s twenty-one weeks pregnant. Yes ... Emily, have you had any pain or cramping?’
‘In my back, yeah ...’
Janice paled. ‘Yes, in her back. What do you think? Do we need an ambulance?’
I stared out to sea. There was an island, a couple of miles south, jutting out of the sea. A small wink of white on its furthest tip – a lighthouse, perhaps. It was as lonely as I felt. I might be losing my baby.
‘Well, she’s OK now, but I hardly think ... OK ... Right ... Do you have their number? Oh, it’s no matter. I’ll get her there.’
She sat down next to me. ‘They said you should come in to get it checked. Because you’re so far from Edinburgh they suggested you go to the maternity unit in Alnwick. OK? It’s not far at all.’
The wind blew, clouds scudded.I cannot bear it. I cannot bear it.
The sun passed briefly over the island, over the tiny lighthouse.
‘I want to go to Edinburgh,’ I said, after a pause. ‘I ... I don’t like hospitals. I’d rather go to the one I’m used to.’
‘Of course,’ Janice said. ‘Once we’re in the car it should be less than two hours. But are you sure, Emily? What if the bleeding starts again?’
Terror. There was terror in her voice.
‘I am sure,’ I said. I didn’t want to be with her anymore. I didn’t want to be anywhere near this woman, who already felt that this was her baby. ‘And I’d like to go on my own. On the train. I feel fine now.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I took the train back to Scotland, sitting on my coat. Janice had begged and pleaded at Alnwick station, but I stood firm. I wanted as many miles as possible between her and my baby.
My baby.
I’d never allowed myself to use those words. But all the normal rules were out, and I stroked my belly all the way.
The bleeding didn’t restart, but I must have checked nearly twenty times between Alnwick and Edinburgh.
‘Please be OK,’ I whispered to her, as we sped north. ‘Please be OK.’
‘Try not to worry, Emily,’ the midwife on the delivery suite said. Her tone was neutral, but I knew it wasn’t good when she took me straight off to a private room.
A few minutes later my community midwife, Dee, came in. ‘I saw your name on the board,’ she said. ‘Are you OK, sweetheart?’
That’s when I started crying. I cried all the way through my examination, and when she attached me to a machine that monitored the baby’s heart (‘Looks good!’ she smiled, examining the printout) I sobbed. It was only when Dee took me for an ultrasound and I saw her there, asleep with her tiny head against my navel, a miniature hand tucked under her cheek, that I believed she might survive.
