The Heartbreak Factor - Part Four

As I sat in the waiting room of the maternity ward at the hospital, I flicked through a magazine. Although there was hundreds of words on the page, staring right back up at me, I wasn’t reading them. It had got to the point where I didn’t even think they were words anymore - they were just squiggles. I kept glancing over at George every so often but he was too engrossed in the leaflet on post-natal depression that he didn’t even realise I was looking at him. 

Putting the magazine back down on the coffee table, I decided to attempt to watch the daytime television that was showing on the old television in the corner of the room. That didn’t help much though. I was still as nervous as I had been all morning. I couldn’t get to sleep until 3am because I was so worried about the appointment and ended up waking up at 4am without being able to fall back asleep. It was a miracle that I was still awake for the appointment. I had managed to go past the point of tiredness and now I was that exhausted that I was wide awake. 

“Sammy Shelley,” the receptionist called. 

It took me a few moments to realise she was calling me since I had decided to keep ‘Sammy Jones’ as my performing name. George was already stood up by the time that it hit me that she was calling after me. 

“Yes, that’s me,” I smiled as I walked over to the receptionist, who was stood in the doorway, looking down at her clipboard. 

“The midwife will see you now,” she smiled, standing to the side to let George and I through the doorway. “Just down the corridor and through the double doors then third door on the right.” 

“Okay,” I replied nervously. 

Taking hold of George’s hand, we walked down the corridor, following the instructions that the receptionist had just given. My stomach was grumbling like mad. It wasn’t just the nerves that were making butterflies appear in my stomach. The fact I couldn’t have breakfast because I was that nervous also made it ten times more worse. I swear there were people looking at me funnily because my stomach was grumbling so bad. 

“Sammy?” the midwife smiled to me as she stood outside her door, waiting for George and I to approach her. 

“Yeah,” I nodded. 

“Good morning,” she greeted, holding out her hand for me to shake. “I’m Katherine and I’ll be your midwife.”

“This is my husband, George,” I replied, introducing George as we walked into the consultants room. 

“Good morning, George,” Katherine smiled, shaking George’s hand as I sat down on the chair beside the desk. 

Katherine took her seat at the desk and rummaged through a file of notes - presumably my medical history and record. “So I’m right in thinking that this will be your third pregnancy?” 

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“But you had a miscarriage with your first pregnancy, am I right?” 

I nodded again. 

“I’m very sorry to hear that, Sammy. But it is my job to make sure that this baby grows healthy and strong while it’s inside of you so I think after your history with pregnancies, I’ll like to see you more often so we can monitor how things are going and how well the baby is developing,” she explained. “Is that okay by you?” 

Once more, I nodded. I wasn’t sure if the midwife wanted me to respond, but she seemed pretty satisfied by my nod so I didn’t say anything. 

After running through a list of questions that I had to answer with the first consultations with the other two pregnancies, Katherine left us alone in the room in order to book a scan. George had his fingers still interlinked with mine as we sat in silence. It was so quiet that we could hear the ticking of the clock that was hung up on the wall behind where I was sat. George was stood beside me, smiling down at me as I stared into space, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. No matter how hard I tried to battle with the thoughts, they still stayed in my head. They were all I could think of and I hated it because it was making me scared, even more scared than I already was.