Page 30 of A Christmas Wish for the Village Midwife

‘You said that wouldn’t happen.’

‘I said it was unlikely. I have premature ovarian insufficiency, and sometimes – not often but sometimes – it resolves for a time. I never said never.’

‘Then if you’re happy to see if it pans out, what’s the difference? If you don’t mind getting pregnant naturally, then how can you mind if you do it with help?’

‘That’s the point – the help. I don’t know if you have any idea about the process, but it can be invasive and it can take over your life. Why would we want that? We’ve got so much else going on. And there’s the possibility… what if…?’

‘What if you lost it?’

‘I lost one baby. Who knows if it was something to do with my condition, that I might be faulty… no, not faulty, that’s the wrong word, but I’m struggling to find the right one. I might not be able to carry a baby to term; maybe that’s just how I’m made, and I don’t know if I could go through that again. It ended my marriage.’

‘That would never happen to us.’

‘I don’t think it would either, but the risk is too much, however tiny it might be. I can’t explain what it feels like to go through a loss like that, even if it didn’t split us up. Please understand that it’s hard, harder than anything I’ve ever been through, and that was when I wasn’t worried about conceiving, when it seemed like something that was natural and easy. So try to imagine how hard that would be when it had taken such an effort to get pregnant in the first place.’

He gave a short nod, and as they walked, she clung tighter to his hand, trying to make him understand through touch what she was failing to convince him of with words. The wind whipped around them, blowing her hair into her face and chilling goosebumps into her neck. He didn’t understand, and he couldn’t imagine what she’d described – how could he? He’d never been through it, though she never wanted to be too hard on him for that because he’d experienced his own tragedies, just as tough, even if they were very different. And she knew he wanted to understand, even if he was struggling. He’d told her when her fertility problems had come to light that he would always want to be with her regardless of what that meant for their future, and she’d believed that he’d meant it. She supposed, now that they were faced with the reality of his promise, that saying it and living it were two very different things.

‘Anything else you want, we can talk about,’ she said into the silence. ‘You want to get married? Let’s get married.’

‘Not like this. Not when it’s a consolation prize. Not when you’re saying it because you feel you need to offer me something because you think I’m disappointed in you.’

‘Are you?’

‘Disappointed? God no, how can I be? I love you!’

‘But you’re disappointed in the decision.’

‘I don’t know what I am. Like you said, time to process would be good. Now I know it’s what you want and it’s final, I suppose I’ll get used to the idea. And like you said, I have Billie and Louisa.’

‘We could do something different that would still involve children.’

He turned to her with a frown.

‘Remember when I told you about those foster families who came on the alpaca trek earlier in the year.’

‘The day you helped Victor out? You’re still messaging that woman?’

‘Linda, yes. Only sometimes, just to see how they’re getting on with their adoption plans.’

He was silent again, and when he eventually replied, it was slow and thoughtful, as if he was piecing together a puzzle as he went. ‘You want to adopt?’

‘Not adopt. Foster.’

‘But…’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think we have the sort of life that’s good for fostering.’

‘Why not? You said yourself we have all this time on our hands during the winter… you do, at least.’

‘But you don’t, and if we had a kid in the house, it would be me who does the lion’s share of the caring. I don’t think I’m cut out for that.’

‘But you’re cut out for it when it’s your own baby?’

‘That’s different. You know them.’

‘Not when they first arrive you don’t. You didn’t know what Louisa’s personality would be like – we’ve all discovered that as she’s got older.’

‘But you’d love your own,’ he replied.

‘I love Louisa, and she’s not mine. Love is sometimes earned, not automatically given because of blood ties. And in a purely practical sense, nobody is asking you to love a foster child. They’re asking you to care for them, and the way I see it, that’s different.’