Antenatal

We stand in the hospital car park, collapsing into one another.
I sag, my belly pulling me forward, my head bowed.

A thin voice from somewhere very far away says, "I just want my little girls back. I just want my girls."
The thin voice is mine.
I think.

The sunshine is frail, the air is cold and it burns the mixture of salt and phlegm in my throat and around my eyes.

He looks at me, confused.
He says, "It's still like yesterday to you, isn't it?"

Perhaps it is the proximity to the building. My daughters were born there. This baby will be born there. I'm worried I'll have to go back into that same room on the tour of the delivery ward to be held after this break is over.

It is not a pretty building. Squatting squarely on the horizon in grey concrete.
Sometime I can walk past and not even notice that it is there.
Sometimes I walk past and remark cheerily to Jessica, "Do you remember that building? You used to live there on your own when you were a baby. There's your room, behind that window. Mummy and Daddy used to come and visit you everyday? You and your sister were born there my darling. Do you remember?"
Sometimes it is just a place, just a building, tuned out alongside the rest of the surroundings.

But sometimes I feel like I can reach back through concertinaed folds of time and tap my former self on the shoulder. I trudge down the stairs. I once jumped down these same stairs, trying to persuade twin 1 to turn around for an ultrasound. Another spring. Tantalisingly close, just out of reach.
It's only been a year,
two years,
three years.

It isn't far away.
Perhaps not quite yesterday but . . . close.
I feel as though I've failed. Because I don't know how to fix myself, how to stop myself returning to this same worn out spot. To a memory that is so fuzzy that it is probably now half a fiction.

Perhaps it is because I'm still hoping to find a few more memories of that little girl.
Another image, another glimpse.
Perhaps I don't, in truth, want to stop going back.
I want to hang out in August 2008 forever, that month that held out so much happiness, that held my little girl's entire life. Why would I want to leave it?

Except for the fact that trying to stay there is ruining me.
And everyone else seems to be under the impression that it is 2011.

We go on the tour. We correctly identify forceps, ventouse, hospital gown, drip. We discuss the merits of TENS machines and epidurals. We count up the number of people who will be present if you have an emergency C section. Doctor, health care assistant, anaesthetist, midwife. One of the men is told to lie on the floor and he is then surrounded by people to illustrate how intimidating we might find this.

We are the only couple in the class with an older child. Nobody seems to think this odd. The beautiful young girl next to me is worried. I smile and say, "I wouldn't be doing it again if it were that bad would I now? Please don't worry."

I could never begin to explain the complex tangle of reasons, some of them surely dubious, that have brought me back to this building. I could certainly never tell her that I was also expecting a baby girl, born in this hospital, who died.

I feel so sure I could fix this, if only I knew how.
That I could leave it alone, pretend it never happened, that I could put it in one of those mental 'boxes' so beloved of my husband, so easy for him to open and shut at will. Never grasped that trick myself.
Or that I could just remember my dear little girl's short life and how much I loved her. Leave the rest to dust.

Walking up the stairs of the multi-storey car park after work, I catch myself thinking idly how pleasant it will be this summer.
When Georgina comes home.

Sometimes I wonder if I am now irreparably screwed up.