Free The Decision: Lizzie's Story by Lucy Hay

same kind of relationship with Mike for the next twenty years: together and yet not? I shuddered at the thought.
    My mother called the university as promised and before I knew it, I was out of the running. A few days later, they wrote to me: did I want to defer my place? I had no idea. Perhaps I wouldn’t even want to do that course anymore once the baby got here? Maybe I would want to do something else. Or perhaps I wouldn’t even want to go to university! Mum’s words came back to me a second time, “When in doubt, do without.” With a heavy heart, I ticked “no” on the reply slip and returned it in the enclosed SAE.
    Just three weeks after news of my pregnancy broke, there had been only two more fleeting meetings between Mike and I, before he needed to leave for uni. We tried to be as “normal” as possible, pretending our thoughts in that initial meeting had never happened. All of a sudden, we were at the train station saying goodbye. Things were strained between us and I wondered if it was the moment I would look back onas losing him forever, even though he handed me a card with I LOVE YOU printed on the front. Inside, was merely scrawled, “Forever, Mike x”, but I couldn’t believe the spidery handwriting any more than my own heart. Could he? I wondered how long we would limp on, then pushed the unwanted thought to the bottom of my brain and concentrated on the positive instead.
    We could make it. We had to. We were having a baby.
    Before long I was throwing up every day like clockwork between the hours of seven and eight am, causing the other girls to whinge I was hogging the cottage’s only bathroom. Even Hannah and the twins’ initial enthusiasm about my pregnancy was forgotten as they found the toilet occupied at the exact time they needed to use it before going to school. But Mum held my hair back and batted their complaints away. She even took to waking them early, but even that didn’t diffuse the situation, for Hannah in particular was not a morning person. She would sit at the kitchen table in pyjamas, legs crossed, a face like thunder, eating dry cornflakes out the box and sulking. True to form, Sal was amused by the state I found myself in, smiling and tutting in mock sympathy at the grey pallor of my face, delighted at the prospect that I would soon be larger than her.
    Snatched phone calls, wall posts on Facebook and text messages kept mine and Mike’s relationship alive, as did his neverending flow of cards through the post. I was touched as each one arrived, my name and address always enveloped by a wonky heart he’d drawn in biro, a SWALK on the back. Yet a selection of thoughtfully chosen stationery could not a relationship make. Despite this, I told myself that army families could survive a spouse’s absences of up to a year, or that Asian couples sometimes found themselves thrown together in arranged marriages, with little in common other than their parents’ business connections. Yet they still made it work!In comparison, Mike and I had the biggest connection anyone could ever have: a child. We had as good a chance as anyone… Didn’t we?
    My twelve week scan soon came however and Mike was nowhere to be seen, for he had first year exams. Mum accompanied me instead and she cried as she regarded the blurry blob on screen. For a moment I thought she was sad or ashamed, but moments later she was enveloping me in her bony embrace and telling me how proud she was of me. A little non-plussed by the sight of my baby on screen, hardly able to relate to the image, I accepted her words gladly, sure the same sense of love and belonging my mother had for us would come to me later.
    More time passed and Mike became just a voice at the end of the phone, as my parents took it upon themselves to be there for me, instead. My usually small frame expanded rapidly. I was carrying the baby high and felt bent over backwards by the weight of the pregnancy. The twenty week scan rolled around and it was