Can I Let You Go?: Part 2 of 3: A heartbreaking true story of love, loss and moving on. Cathy Glass

to Becky next time I spoke to her. From then on I took and collected Faye in the car. It saved a lot of time and worry.

      The days passed and Faye continued to talk openly about her pregnancy and what she now referred to as ‘my baby’. My family and I were happy for her; her openness seemed preferable to ignoring her condition, as long as you didn’t think about the end result: that it would never be her baby. But with all the talk and openness, something else was starting to happen: I was bonding with her baby, as I was sure Faye was, and possibly my children too. When Faye had refused to acknowledge her pregnancy the baby had remained a vague and indistinct entity – something apart from our lives. But now she was sharing her pregnancy openly, by telling us when the baby moved and what it felt like, and that it was uncomfortable at night, for example, and she was now sitting with her hands resting over her bump, it had gone from being an ‘it’ to a real living person. As we didn’t know the sex of the child we couldn’t refer to it as ‘he’ or ‘she’, so we used the term ‘baby’. We always asked Faye how baby was today and she’d reply with, ‘My baby is very well, thank you,’ or something similar. So in a few weeks we’d effectively gone from fostering Faye who was pregnant to fostering Faye and her unborn baby, which felt very different. And perhaps part of me saw what was coming next, for I wasn’t as surprised as I might have been.

      In complete contrast to Faye’s previous antenatal check-ups, she was very enthusiastic about the next one, at twenty-eight weeks gestation, and was looking forward to learning how her baby was doing and hearing its heartbeat. As we entered the consultation room she smiled at the midwife and said a bright hello, then answered her questions and generally engaged with her, interested in all aspects of her developing baby. We’d brought the urine sample with us from home and the midwife dipstick-tested it in the surgery and said everything was normal. Faye was pleased and thanked her. She then took her blood pressure and that was normal too, as was her weight gain.

      ‘You’re doing very well,’ the midwife said.

      Faye smiled, thanked her again and then, looking down at her stomach, said, ‘Did you hear that, baby? You’re doing very well.’

      The midwife was looking slightly bemused and I felt I had to say something.

      ‘We’ve had a change of heart and we’re more accepting,’ I said.

      ‘So she’s going to keep the baby?’

      ‘Oh no. I didn’t mean that. But Faye has accepted it is better to talk about the pregnancy.’

      ‘Good. That makes life easier for us all.’

      Faye was ready and lying on the couch to have her bump measured even before the midwife asked her to.

      ‘Am I fat enough?’ she asked as the midwife read out the measurement.

      ‘Yes. That’s perfect,’ she said.

      ‘Are you going to put that jelly on my tummy now?’

      The midwife smiled. ‘The ultrasound gel? Yes, here it is.’

      She put on the gel and then ran the Doppler over Faye’s stomach until the steady clip-clop of the baby’s heartbeat could be heard. Beaming, Faye clasped her hands together in delight. ‘That’s my baby’s heart.’ Then she asked the midwife: ‘Can I hear the rest of my baby?’

      ‘There isn’t any more to hear,’ the midwife said kindly. ‘But you would have seen your baby on the monitor when you had your scan.’

      Faye didn’t say anything, but I knew from Wilma that she hadn’t seen the baby on the monitor at either of the previous scans, because she’d refused to look. There were no more scans scheduled, so I hoped she didn’t regret not looking and not having a print-out of her baby’s image to keep.