AOIFE
“SO, you’ve hit the twenty-eight-week mark,” the doctor mused, wiping the gunk off my belly when she was finished scanning me. “How are you feeling?”
“On the way over here, we drove past a field with a pregnant pony in it,” I told her, as she helped pull me off the examination table so that I could adjust my clothes. “I swear, that poor pony was wider horizontally than she was long vertically.” I blew out a breath and padded back to the desk. “So, yeah, I feel like that pony.”
“Aoife,” Mam chastised from her chair.
“What?” I huffed, lowering myself down on the seat next to my mother. “She asked.”
Smothering a laugh, I watched as the doctor flicked through my maternity folder, scribbling and jotting down notes as she went. “You’ll come back to see us at 32 weeks, and again at 36 weeks. After that, you’ll come bi-weekly until 38 weeks when you’ll come weekly until you deliver.”
Deliver.
Jesus, that was a scary word.
“Have you discussed your birth plan with a midwife?”
“Yeah.” I squirmed in my chair, feeling a sudden spark of panic rise up in me. “I’ve been through the plan.”
“And you’ve chosen your birth partner?”
“Me,” Mam interjected. “I’ll be going with her when she delivers.”
“No.” I rolled my eyes. “My boyfriend will be coming with me.”
“Aoife.” Mam’s eyes filled with concern. “We don’t know if he’ll be back by then.“
“He’ll be back,” I confirmed, turning my attention to the doctor. “Joey Lynch,” I said, pointing at my file. “You can jot that down. He’s my birth partner.”
