Rory Fitzgerald
“Mummy’s always vomiting,” my three-year-old daughter told her preschool teacher merrily, “vomit, vomit, vomit, all day long”. “Oh, is she now?” said her teacher, with a smile and a knowing glance in my direction.
The teacher had surmised correctly; there was indeed a baby on the way. However, we didn’t want to tell the children that “there is a baby in Mammy’s tummy” just yet. Having experienced the tragedy of miscarriage more than once, we knew how upsetting it would be for them if the baby didn’t make it, so we resolved to wait until the 12-week scan. By then, the odds would be more in our favour.
Andrea had shockingly severe morning sickness and could barely leave the house for weeks, except to go the hospital to get fluids via a drip. Our plans to travel for Christmas were cancelled and we hunkered down at home for a more sedate festive season. One evening, I was playing chess with my eight-year-old boy, when she walked in to the room, pallid and weak, and I said, absent-mindedly: “You poor thing. It’s not much fun being pregnant, is it?” Oops.
Since Seán regularly beats me at chess, there’s not much I can get past him. There followed a – dare I say – pregnant pause, as our little boy absorbed the implications of my throwaway remark.
He looked at me and his mother searchingly. Then, the inevitable and, very pertinent, question came: “Dad, is Mum pregnant?”
Andrea and I looked at each other with amused expressions. I improvised: “Well, she might be. We’re starting to wonder if that’s why she’s so sick. We’re going to have a scan next week to check”. His eyes lit up, and he stood up with a bright smile, raising his arms in the air like a striker who had just scored the winning goal in the FA cup final: “Hooray – a baby!”
We tried to dampen expectations until, finally, the day of the scan came. We were nervous going in.
We expected to, once again, see the sonographer shake her head, as the image of a lifeless, tiny body came up on the screen, and for our hearts to slowly break.
Clear image
Yet this time, the screen showed an amazingly clear image of a very active little person kicking their legs, and moving their arms about, and generally behaving as if my wife’s womb was some sort of discothèque.
I felt a surge of joy to see the heart beat so strongly. It was incredible to see the tiny face in profile, already somehow familiar.
The sonographer printed off a little picture of the baby to take back to show her brothers and sisters at home.
The kids were overjoyed. Rose had some questions about just where everyone was going to sleep, but once these were answered to her satisfaction, she joined in the general delight.
I’ve permitted myself to hope, but amid the joy, there’s always for me a fearful sense of the risk and fragility of the precarious journey of pregnancy.
The kids’ prayers for the baby ease my worries. They already speak to the baby in their mother’s tummy, morning and evening. God willing, this summer will see this brand new person arrive safely amongst us.