THE NINETEENTH

I lay my head down on my pillow, exhaustion making my limbs heavy. It is only eight o’clock, but after the week I have had, I feel shattered. I am alone, as I have been most of the week. Taylor has been preparing for his trip to South America, and so he has been leaving most mornings before I have woken up, and arriving after I have fallen into bed. I suggested that he stay in London, but he insisted that he wanted to sleep beside me each night. Our argument, still unresolved, has been the pink elephant in the room that we are both studiously ignoring while pretending everything is fine.

Taylor, however, did make it to my first midwife appointment. Taylor had arranged for a sonogram, even though you don’t usually have one until twelve weeks. But I guess that is the advantage of having a boyfriend that insists on private health care. As we lay there listening to the heartbeat of our baby, staring at the strange little blob on the screen, the tears rolled down my face. When I glanced a