Page 20 of So Thrilled For You

. . . something really broke.

Nicki had sent me a private message first.

Hey lovely. How are things? It’s been too long as always. I thought about calling you, but I figured you’d perhaps want some time to react to this news and be allowed to feel whatever you feel without pressure, so I’m messaging you instead. I’m 13 weeks pregnant. I’m about to tell the other LWs but wanted to give you a heads up. I can imagine this news will bring up mixed emotions for you, and I love you and I really hope and believe this will happen for you one day soon. Lots of love xxx

I read it and reread it.

It was so thoughtful. So well considered. And yet I still found myself saying, ‘Oh fuck you,’ out loud.

It’s so easy to be magnanimous when you can get pregnant through fucking . . . osmosis, just by holding a Clear Blue test in Boots or something.

How did she know I wasn’t delighted for her? How dare she make that assumption? She has no idea what it’s like.Fuck you, Nicki, and your bulging uterus. Fuck you.

Then I started crying.

And I was still crying when Seth came home from work drinks five hours later. I showed him the message and all he had to say was ‘I see,’ and I knew he truly did as he was theonly one who’d gone through this hell with me. He cried a bit too, and we sat with our backs to the wall until past midnight, just steeping in our sadness like forgotten teabags. When we finally scraped ourselves into bed, we both lay awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep in our pain. It had hurt too much for too long now and it needed to stop hurting. Seth and I had become miserable and exhausted from years of false, expensive hope, prearranged lovemaking, invasive tests, and horrible success statistics where you slowly realise you’re the rule, not the exception. I had to let go.

‘I’m going to organise Nicki’s baby shower,’ I told him in the dark. ‘I’m going to make it the best baby shower the world has ever known.’

‘What? Charlotte, no . . .’ He turned over and kissed my shoulder. ‘It will hurt too much.’

‘I’m going to give her everything I ever wanted. I have to let go, Seth. We both need to.’

‘There’s still hope. Another round of . . .’

‘No.’ I shook my head, beyond resolute. ‘I’m organising her baby shower. I may as well put time and energy into a baby that’s actually going to exist rather than the false hope of one existing.’

He hugged me close to him and kissed the top of my head. ‘If that’s what you need to do then that’s what you need to do.’

We’d both cried until morning.

And now, here I am. Stuffing party bags for Nicki, with Nicki. Free of the jealousy. Free of the pain – apart from mild cramping in my stomach that Google reassures me is from implantation. It wasn’t my plan but the universe has rewardedme for my emotional maturity and graciousness under immense pain. And, wow, the relief. The relief that my bodycanget pregnant. It can produce a urine stream that turns two lines blue on an expensive stick of plastic. We didn’t even conceive through IVF! I literally manifested this baby through positive energy. And, if this party goes perfectly, if everything goes to plan, then I know that my baby will make it to full-term. Today has to be perfect, everything depends on it.

‘Well you’re amazing, Charlotte,’ Nicki tells me, reaching over and squeezing my hand. ‘I don’t know how you do all this, and teach, and also look so well-groomed all of the time. You’ve been so strong in the face of . . . everything.’

The white elephant loitering between us isn’t an elephant but Nicki’s straining stomach. She takes a few more bags off me and adds the finishing touches. Her voice shifts and she glances at me sideways as she adds confetti. ‘Did you . . .

err . . . see that article Steffi posted last week?’

She asks innocently enough but I can hear edge. I put down the bag I’m holding. ‘The one about being child-free?’ I ensure my voice is totally neutral.

‘Yeah, that one.’

‘I saw it.’

I start working again. I put a lollypop in the bag and hand it to her.

‘And?’ she presses.

‘And what?’

Nicki holds the bag and adds nothing to it, looking at me full-on now. ‘You don’t think it was a bit . . . insensitive?’

I refuse to nibble. Only good energy today, please, Nicki. ‘If it’s how she feels, I guess that’s how she feels.’

‘Really?After everything you’ve been through with . . . you know . . . you didn’t feel...?’

She’s surveying my face closely, looking for an entry point. I know I would make her day if I lay into Steffi right now, but I’m not going to. When all that Steffi stuff kicked off, Lauren and I made a solemn promise to never be drawn into it, knowing the Little Women would disintegrate if we did. I even made Lauren write the solemn promise out on paper and put it in my safe, that’s how important this group is to me. I’d really hoped everyone would be over it by now, but those two are determined to piss each other off. OK, yes, privately I admit, Steffi posting that article really messed with my frequency. I still wouldn’t have told that to Nicki.

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