"All right?" he asked as she emerged from the ladies almost twenty minutes later. She nodded, sitting heavily in a chair as she felt her stomach churn again. "Are you sure?" he crouched down in front of her, "you still look pale" "I'm fine" she snapped. Standing to her feet, leaning on the wall for support as the room began to spin. "Look, let me..." "No" she cut in. "I'm fine, I don't need your help. Now if you don't mind I'm due in theatre." "Need a hand?" "I've got all the staff I need, what I don't need is you getting in my way." She took a deep breath, steadying herself for a minute before walking in the direction of the theatres.
Several months passed, months in which she gained a promotion, and the extra workload that came hand in hand with the increased pay. Several months passed in which he became increasingly worried about her, the extra work meaning she'd barely had time to blink, let alone eat, and had consequently lost a lot of weight that she didn't have to loose in the first place. He'd not even bothered to voice his concerns, knowing she'd throw it all back in his face. He'd tried taking her a sandwich during the busiest shifts, but they were usually left uneaten on the desk.
She sat in her office, her diary open on the desk in front of her. Tapping her pen on the paper she couldn't help but panic. She took a deep breath, "you've been stressed" she told herself, "you've lost weight" "you're not..." She shook her head, no matter how much she tried to convince herself that there was a simple reason for her missing three periods, she couldn't help but keep thinking back to the pill she missed several months ago.
Almost another week passed before she decided to put her mind at rest, and show herself that she wasn't pregnant. "shit, shit, shit, shit, shit". She banged her head against wall as the second blue line began to stare up at her. She couldn't be. It must be a faulty test. The several other tests in the bin however all telling her the same made her realise that it wasn't a faulty test. She was pregnant, but there was no way she was going to be a mother. She couldn't, she wasn't good with other people. She was on her own and things worked fine that way, there was no one to let her down, and no one to get in her way.
Wrapping her dressing gown tighter around her body, she padded softly along the landing and down the stairs, grabbing the phone book and the phone, she curled up on the sofa, making an appointment at a clinic for her day off the following week.
She sat on a bench in the park, her coat pulled tightly around her body, she didn't notice the rain drops that had began to fall from the sky get bigger, mixing with the tears rolling down her cheeks. Her appointment at the clinic had been unsuccessful, a scan determining she was almost 23 weeks pregnant, more than half way towards her due date, no clinic in the country would perform an abortion on her. Now she was at a loss as to what to do next.
She stepped from the shower, catching self of herself in the full length mirror before she'd had chance to wrap herself in the towel warming on the radiator. She bit her lip, water running down her body and pooling by her feet as she ran her hands over her stomach, she'd not noticed before but there was a definite curve that she'd hardly noticed. She'd spent the afternoon reading pregnancy forums, and had discovered her baby, because that's what it was now, weighed around 500 grams, and was about 29cm long, and seeing her almost completely flat stomach, she couldn't help but wonder where it was hiding.
Careful dressing meant that the only person aware of her pregnancy was Jayne Grayson, and that was only because she'd had to sort out her maternity leave. She'd decided against adoption, deciding that she'd give the child the love and support she'd never received in her own childhood. It would just be her and her baby, they didn't need anyone else, especially not the baby's father. If she was doing this, she was doing it alone.
She was surprised at how easy it had been to hide her pregnancy, although she was glad she only had three more shifts to work, before her maternity leave started, 10 hour shifts were exhausting her, not that she'd let anyone else know that, she didn't want them to think she was weak. She gasped as she felt her stomach tightening, waiting until it had passed before standing from the chair and leaving the ward.
She slammed the cubicle door shut, leaning heavily against it, she took a deep breath and began to rub her stomach. She failed to stifle a groan, collapsing onto the toilet seat as her stomach tightened again "please" she whispered to her unborn child, "not now"