Page 7 of Special Delivery
Poppy looked at her watch. Her appointment with Wenda wasn’t for another forty minutes but looking out the window she could see dark purple clouds steamrolling towards town. She didn’t fancy taking the car out in the peak of the storm, so she grabbed her keys and headed for the door.
The first raindrops had started to fall in giant, solid plops by the time she arrived at the hospital. Congratulating herself on her choice of clothing (a button-up denim pinafore, no chance of going see-through), she pulled her handbag over her arm and jumped out of the car. The fat raindrops were inescapable. They splashed into her hairline and slipped down her dress and into the curve of her Birkenstocks. The petrichor smell of wet earth filled her nostrils and the moisture tickled her tongue. After weeks of suffocating heat, it was glorious.
Poppy cupped her hands under her belly in a makeshift brace and jog-shuffled to the undercover hospital portico, careful not to slip. Her chest thumped with pain. If she’dknown she’d be attempting to run for the first time in months, she would have worn a sports bra.
The light inside the hospital was synthetic and bright compared to the darkening sky outside. Poppy ran her hands through her wet hair. Around her, men and women in different-coloured scrubs power walked past, holding clipboards and takeaway coffees. The cafe cart had a queue twenty people deep.
Poppy walked to the elevator and punched the up button. As the door pinged open, she felt a twinge in her lower back and grimaced. That would teach her not to jog in the rain while thirty-nine weeks pregnant.
Wenda met her in the reception area with a smile. ‘Poppy, pet! How are you? We’re getting to the pointy end now.’
Poppy smiled back. ‘Good, Wenda. Same as before. Big, heavy, not as sweaty as usual, though. This is from the rain.’ She pointed to her sodden dress.
Wenda chuckled. ‘Wouldn’t judge you either way, pet.’
They walked down to Wenda’s office, chatting amiably. Wenda was worried about her cats getting stuck outside in the storm. Her husband was driving home from Mudgee but she was less worried about him.
In the office, Poppy hoisted herself up onto the raised bed and began unbuttoning her pinafore, ready for Wenda to put the heart rate monitor on her stomach. Her back twinged again and she winced. How embarrassing she couldn’t even manage a light jog anymore without her body failing.
Wenda hummed to herself as she unlooped the cords of the heart rate monitor and strapped it around Poppy’s belly.
‘Do you feel that?’ she asked, gesturing to Poppy’s stomach, which had become hard and tense.
‘Feel what?’ asked Poppy, confused.
‘The contraction.’
‘Thewhat?!’ Poppy’s head swivelled from her stomach to Wenda and back again. ‘I’m having a contraction?!’
‘It’s either a Braxton Hicks or you’re on your way, pet,’ said Wenda gently. ‘You’re thirty-nine weeks and four days—I think this could be it.’
Poppy’s mind whirled. She wasn’t due for another three days.Shit!She hadn’t bought a breast pump yet. Or a cabbage! There was still so much to do. This baby could not come now. She wasn’t ready!
Wenda checked the monitor. ‘Have you been having pains in the lower back area, anything like that?’
Poppy groaned. She was a dense, fucking idiot.
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But I didn’t put two and two together.’ She groaned again. This was a disaster.
‘Now, pet, there’s nothing to worry about. You’re in the best place possible to be having contractions. Normally I’d send you home to wait until they were coming more frequently, but I think it’s best to keep you out of that weather.’ She nodded to the window. ‘Why don’t we organise a bed so you can settle in and relax before the big dance?’
Poppy nodded mutely.
‘Alright then, let’s get you organised.’
Like a zombie, Poppy followed Wenda through the ward. A blur of people in white coats and scrubs rushed past her, monitors beeped, lights flashed. Poppy had never been goodwith surprises but she’d had a few big ones recently. Surely she should be handling this better?
The labour room was wide and windowless, with a starchy white bed in its centre. A CTG machine and an IV drip stood ready in the corner and a shelving unit was stacked with towels and boxes of plastic gloves and surgical masks. Wenda began reorganising the shelves with the ease of a practised expert.
‘Uh, Wenda?’ A young brunette whom Poppy recognised as the ward receptionist popped her head through the door. ‘We have a call for you.’
‘Sorry, pet, I’m busy at the moment.’
‘It’s your husband,’ the receptionist said apologetically.
Wenda narrowed her eyes and turned to Poppy. ‘Make yourself comfortable, pet. I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
Poppy sat on the bed. The sheets were a blinding white, tucked under the mattress with pinpoint precision. She flicked open her phone and stared at it. There were people she could call, people she probably should call, but this moment felt private. She turned the screen facedown and looked around at the grey walls.So this is it, she thought bleakly.The big dance.
