Bump!

When I woke up I was pregnant. Which I suppose might have been OK if
I'd spent the previous evening in a silky sandwich with the man of my
dreams but I hadn't. And when I went to bed, alone, I most certainly
wasn't pregnant, yet now my navel was perched a good eight inches above
the rest of my body so I most certainly was. Not just a little bit
either. I was seriously pregnant.

So I did what any self-respecting, highly successful thirtysomething
woman of the new millennium would do. I closed my eyes and went back to
sleep.

Half an hour later nothing, and yet everything, had changed. Either I
had put on half a cow's weight overnight or the bump protruding from my
designer duvet was a baby. As the remains of the night's mist cleared
from my head I began to think more rationally. It simply wasn't
possible to go to bed one night a trim size eight with a much admired
belly button piercing and wake up the following morning the size of an
armchair.

After several minutes of huffing and panting and acrobatics I managed
to tumble out of bed and struggled into an upright position. Looking
down, the body that I had paid several thousand pounds in gym
membership for now consisted of a distended torso and two arms. I don't
know how I made it to the bathroom; my feet were nowhere to be seen.
Yet looking in the mirror I was able to ascertain two things: although
no part of my body had been snatched overnight, a sizable deposit had
been made.

Action was clearly required, starting with getting washed and dressed.
This was not the easy warm-up that I had envisaged. Luckily the shower
unit was made of sturdy stuff, as I bounced and skittered from wall to
wall, knocking lotions and potions to the ground with my
protrusion.

Then, of course, what to wear? It's not like I keep a handy selection
of maternity clothes in my wardrobe at all times just in case the Up
the Duff Fairy decides to pay a little visit. It was no to the Armani
trouser suit, no way to the Yves Saint Laurent skirt and goodbye to the
zip on the Gucci jeans. This was getting serious. At the back of a
drawer I uncovered a pair of purple velour tracksuit bottoms and a
men's pajama top, neither of which I can recall having seen before, but
both fitted fine and suited the surreal tone that seemed to be set for
the day.

However, it wasn't an outfit that was going to work in the City today
and therefore, I supposed, neither was I. I'd never taken a day off
work in my life but I figured I had a pretty good excuse today and
called my secretary to inform her that I wouldn't be in. She picked up
the phone with a mouthful of muffin and a trill, 'Good Morning, TWATS.
How can I help you?'

'Tina! Honestly. What kind of way is that to?'

'Oh Ms Twain, I am sorry. It just sort of popped out.' She excused
herself with what she must have though was a redeeming giggle but I
couldn't be bothered to finish my admonishment. After all, something
popping out seemed like a preferable situation to my one, where
something had just popped in.

When, three years ago, I had been invited to join Thompson and
Wainright as a partner, the youngest female partner of a City legal
firm yet, the boys had insisted on adding my name to the end of theirs,
and thus Thompson, Wainright and Twain Solicitors and its unfortunate
acronym was born. It had been an on-going crusade to stop junior
members of staff from using it, either with each other or with their
peers in rival firms, but today was not the day to battle with them. I
had my own battle of the bulge to attend to.

I briefly explained to Tina that I was suffering some kind of stomach
bug, which, after all wasn't too wide of the mark, and told her,
fingers crossed, that all should be normal tomorrow. Then, thanking
heaven for the on-set of winter for the first time in my life, I
wrapped myself in a full-length cashmere overcoat and waddled off to
see the only person who could possibly help me in my predicament. My
best friend Nora.

Nora works freelance, as the television critic for the London Herald.
Although goodness knows when she ever has time to watch any television,
she's always either out partying with London's post-watershed
glitterati or in bed paying the price. Which is where she was when I
rang her Notting Hill doorbell that morning. After an age of bobbing up
and down on the chilly doorstep, I saw haze of orange looming towards
the glass of the front door that transmogrified itself into Nora's
unruly titian curls as she opened the door.

My bladder and my tracksuit bottoms were both bursting so I didn't wait
to be invited in and barged past a bemused and rather green-looking
Nora towards the downstairs loo. Finished, I found her in the kitchen
rattling away with a caf?ti?re as if she'd forgotten I was there. She
gave me a quizzical look and pushed a cup of strong black my way.

'Nora? Oh God, Nora. Look!' I couldn't explain so I opened the front of
my coat to reveal the bump.

'Jayzus. Has someone burgled your wardrobe?'

'What? No. Oh, I see what you mean. No, no. Look at this.' She came
closer to examine and grabbed a handful of fabric and flesh. 'Oouch!
What are you doing?'

'What are you doing more like? Have you gone mad? Take it out. Give it
here and let me see.'

'What do you mean give it here?' What did she mean had I gone
mad?

'Oh my God, you've had a maternity implant. You absolute fashion
victim. Although I didn't really think that was your style, Kiki.' She
added doubtfully.

I really had no idea what she was talking about. 'An implant! This
isn't a bloody implant. I woke up this morning and ? what do you mean
implant?'

'It's the latest fashion. I saw it on the Roger and Julie show. You
know, what with Zara whatsit and that model Judo all with buns in the
oven, it's become very chic to have a designer bump. Loads of women are
getting implants to give off that: "look at me I can be barefoot and
pregnant year round and still manage a leading London fashion house and
look like I've stepped off the Cat Walk all at the same time" air.
Babies and bumps are the new black, darling.' She stopped twirling and
waving her arms around like demented debutante and peered at me a
little more closely. 'That's quite a big one though. You might have to
get your feet lengthened so you don't fall over." At which she roared
and gasped with laughter and spilled coffee over her Conran rug.

What on earth?? 'Nora, this is serious. I woke up this morning just
like this'. It took some explaining and quite a lot of riotous laughter
on Nora's part to persuade her that this was actually a crisis and not
a fashion statement or a practical joke.

'Well, you don't just get pregnant and suddenly get a bump. It takes
time. It takes? oh I don't know? months.' Oh the talk of the carefree
and single. 'Mind you,' she conceded, 'look what happened to Mandy
Martin in Up West. She didn't know she was pregnant and there she was,
nine months down the line, dropping a sprog on the living room
floor.'

That's the problem when your best friend is a TV critic; she relates
all the world's problems to soap operas. I was getting frustrated.
'Look, I am not Mandy bloody Martin. I have a double first from Oxford.
I'm thirty-four sodding years old. I? I live in Mayfair,' I was
struggling here and the picture in my head wasn't a pretty one, 'and I
am not FAT.' We both looked at my burgeoning belly but she had to admit
that I was right on three out of four fronts, even if the questionable
front was a large one.

So we set about trying to figure out what had happened and where to go
from here. And, like the two highly professional and intelligent women
that we are, we began to talk logistics. Designer maternity wear,
elective cesareans, you know the sort of thing.

Nora came to her senses suddenly. 'Oh my God! Mr. Jingle Jangle.'

Carl. Or Mr. Jingle Jangle as Nora had christened him when she first
met him, owing to the fact that you could always hear his jewelry
jangling before you could see him, and, because he insisted on paying
for everything, however small, with fifty pound notes, change
constantly jingled in his pockets. Carl had been my Convenient Male
Appendage for the past year or so. It was nothing serious and if I were
honest, I would prefer that to remain the case. Carl was one of the
City's hottest young traders, although his accent and attitude gave
away the fact that he was more at home in Bethnal Green Market than the
London Stock Exchange.

'It can't be Carl's.' Well actually it could, but it didn't seem
possible that Carl and I would be having a baby. Nora looked like she
was going to launch into a biology lecture. 'This just can't be right.
Couples like me and Carl - if you can call us that - they don't have
children.' But then I hadn't thought someone like me could wake up one
morning with an uninvited guest in her paunch either.

Nora came up with a brilliant suggestion. I should go and see a doctor.
But first, I would ring Carl and arrange for us to have lunch. Nora
raided her wardrobes to see if we could conjure up anything more
suitable than Alf Garnett's pajamas, and when I left the house twenty
minutes later, though I still looked like an extra from Spinal Tap from
the waist down, at least my top half was reasonably appropriate for
London's chicest gastropub.

I took a cab to Lombard Street and arrived at Posh to see Carl already
comfortably ensconced with a pint of lager and his mobile phone clipped
to his ear. True to form, he welcomed me by clicking his fingers at the
waiter and pointing in my direction. I had worried about his reaction
to me and my excess baggage but his lack of acknowledgement perturbed
me more. Perhaps I'd wildly over-reacted to a touch of wind.

The waiter's demeanor put an abrupt end to that comforting thought.
'Can I get you a drink, Madam?'
'I'll have a dry white wine please.' And boy, did I deserve it.
'And the baby, Madam?' he stared pointedly at my midriff.
I was puzzled but when he raised an eyebrow I realised my error. 'Oh,
right. Perhaps it'd better be a Spritzer then.' The other eyebrow
joined its partner. 'Um. An orange juice?' This was not fun at
all.

I wasn't sure how I was going to break the news to Carl. I'd sort of
expected him to guess when I arrived. Now my most pressing concern was
getting him off the phone long enough to make a stab at an explanation.
'Nice one mate, I'll give yer a tinkle later and we'll sort out the
readies then. Yeah? Yeah, mate. Sorted, talk later. Cheers. ' Finally
finished, Carl turned his attention to the menu and grunted a greeting
my way.

I pretended he'd enquired after my wellbeing and launched into my
revelation with, 'Great thanks. Yes, well sort of. I'm not sure really.
It's been a funny old day actually.' Gently does it.

That was as far as I got before the Bohemian Rhapsody chimed
electronically from Carl's nether regions. With a jingle and a jangle,
he retrieved the phone and proceeded to broker a multimillion-pound
deal while gesturing his menu choices to the smarmy waiter.

I ordered. I sat patiently. I watched London's richest and finest at
play. I finished my lunch. I went to the ladies and paraded my purple
velour bump back to the table in front of Carl, who completely ignored
it and carried on blathering and beeping. And then I got livid. I had
to be at Doctor So's in less than twenty minutes and at this rate he
was going to congratulate me on being the first woman ever to give
birth to a baby with a hands free attachment and a choice of ring
tones.

Searching in my bag for my purse, my fingers brushed the bottle of
Gucci Revenge that I always carry around with me, and I felt a surge of
rage. Heaving myself in to a standing position, I garnished Carl's
unfinished prawn cocktail with a healthy squirt of perfume and
instructed the waiter to blame it on the hormones as I left.

Furious, I lumbered out of the restaurant like a discombobulated
buffalo and set off in a taxi to Harley Street. By now I was beginning
to feel frightened too. It just couldn't be possible that I hadn't
noticed that I was pregnant, especially not for seven months or so. I
know I'd been busy at work but I would have surely felt sick or a kick
or something. I really didn't understand.

Children didn't figure in my ten-year plan. I had an outstanding
career. I would be the most sought after Mergers and Acquisitions
lawyer in London by the time I hit forty. My lifestyle of dinners at
The Holly and weekends on the Cote d'Azure was not that of your typical
earth mother. I didn't want a baby.

Dr So was one of the leading Obstetricians in Harley Street, according
to Nora, which in turn was according to Siren magazine. He was small
and wore red-rimmed spectacles and smelled of mouthwash. He reminded me
of an exotic bird. Next to him I felt like a large Canada goose with a
defective gizzard.

After an hour, a pee in a polystyrene cup and lots of prodding, it was
confirmed. I was indeed expecting a baby. Neither of us could explain
how or why it had chosen to announce its presence in such a cloak and
dagger manner but it didn't much matter now. Of course, I would need a
scan, but Dr. So estimated that I was about eight months down the line
and definitely past the point of no return.

There was something about Dr. So that made me want to cry, perhaps
because he was so kind and so very gentle. 'I can't have a baby,' I
wailed. 'My flat is full of white things and shiny surfaces and sharp
edges'. He nodded but said nothing and I realized I couldn't articulate
what I meant without sounding cold and hard-hearted. 'I just didn't
expect this in a million years. It's so unfair.' I was in full Cruella
de Ville mode now. 'There are thousands and thousands of people out
there who want? who, who? need children to make them complete but I'm
not one of them. I don't want a baby. I won't be able to give it the
things it needs. I need someone to love me and look after me. Not the
other way around...'

.
Dr. So stood up and gently indicated that my time was up. He smiled.
'This child will love you more than anyone else in the world. You will
love each other and you will look after each other. For the rest of
your lives. Why do you think this baby chose you?' He left the question
floating in the sterile air of the corridor and closed the door between
us.

I wandered home through the damp and dusky streets, watercolour shadows
from the streetlamps streaking the pavement, and I mulled over Dr. So's
words.

Under more usual circumstances it would have been a twenty-minute walk
back to my flat, but with my extra bulk and the weight on my mind it
was proving a bit of a marathon and I hauled myself onto an approaching
bus. It was the on-set of rush hour in the rain and people jostled for
space. I held tight my belly with my free hand to protect it from
elbows and umbrellas and briefcases. We were nearly home when a young
woman with tin cans on her ears and a mouth full of gum stood up and
offered me her seat with a gauche nod. I accepted gratefully.

'How far along are you?' Her enquiry was a mixture of shyness and
sisterhood.

'About eight months.' A strange feeling coursed through my body as I
said it. Now I realise that it was pride, and love, and excitement, and
a mixture of emotions that I had never felt before and can only
recognise now. At the time I just held you tighter and smiled at the
girl as she chomped her way off the bus.

At home I lit the fire, made a cup of tea and sat with you between my
palms, trying to imagine this life that had been growing inside me for?
well, for a day or for eight months, depending on how one looked at it.
I felt warm and calm. I was confused but strangely full of hope. Most
of all I felt overwhelmingly grateful. I bent over as far as I could
and put my mouth near where your head might be. 'Thank you for choosing
me.'