Sue had decided not to let Sarah know the time and date of her appointment; it was time she stood on her own two feet. She was very grateful for her friend’s help and support, but knew that the help had been above and beyond duty, that Sarah would get in trouble if she took too much time off work. Not that Sue’s workplace was being that amenable either. She’d had to use one of her holidays for today, but at least less questions were being asked this time. The appointment was early in the morning, so hopefully it would be over quickly, then she could spend the rest of the day preparing for her weekend away to take her mind off things.

Now she was sitting in the austere little waiting room with blank white walls and precious little reading matter, she was wondering whether she had made a mistake coming alone. She missed Sarah’s cheery irreverent banter and found the place oppressively silent. None of the other people in the waiting room would meet her eyes, some had been more organised than her and had brought books to read with them, others just stared at the floor or into space. A few were filling out forms. Not that she’d know what to talk about with them. “Hi, my name’s Sue. So how did you get knocked up then?” No, that probably wouldn’t have gone down too well as a conversation starter.

The receptionist moved towards her carrying a clipboard. “Hi, Ms Beresford. I’ve got a form here you need to fill out and give back to me before you see the doctor. Not all sections are compulsory, but I can assure you that it’s completely confidential – no information will be sent on to your GP unless you give us express permission. The section on medical history is particularly important so we do ask that you fill that part in to the best of your ability. If you have any queries about any aspect of the form, I’ll be just over there.”

“Thank you.” Sue took the proffered clipboard and pen. At least it would add some variation to the dull monotony. Perhaps that’s why they did it: boredom made you more thorough with the paperwork. She scanned her eyes down the form; there was nothing unexpected there: name, address, date of birth… whether she had any known conditions such as asthma or heart trouble… previous gestational history… name of GP… date of last known period. Lengthy, but not difficult. She picked up the pen and started to fill in the blanks.

At the end of the form, she stood up and stretched the cricks out a little before approaching the reception desk and passing over the clipboard and pen.

“Lovely, thank you,” said the receptionist. “If you could take a seat and the doctor will give you a call when it’s time to go through.”

Sue sighed and returned to stare at the walls some more. It’s a shame they didn’t even have a radio on for distraction purposes. It wasn’t really the place where you wanted to be left alone with your own thoughts for company, she was feeling morose enough as it is. It felt like the waiting room for a funeral parlour. Then again, her gallows humour kicked in, it sort of was one, wasn’t it? Snap out of it, girl. She looked around the room, looking for an idea to make time to pass more quickly. Sue remembered the game she used to play as a child, looking at passers-by and making up potted histories for them. She glanced at the person sitting opposite who was engrossed in a cheap paperback. The woman looked vaguely schoolteachery, maybe taking special needs classes. Got swept off her feet by a handsome Italian waiter but the cad dumped her and travelled back to his homeland on news of her pregnancy. Hmm, she was no good at this anymore, her imagination was out of practice. She glanced around the room looking for better inspiration.

Over in the corner was a girl who couldn’t even be sixteen yet. Either that or she just looked young and naive to Sue’s thirty year old eyes. She lost the stomach for the game, the girl looked really lost, had no-one to accompany her. Sue no longer wanted to dwell on the personal tragedies that had brought each woman here. Better to be bored.

“Ms Beresford?” A dark haired woman in a white coat was standing in the doorway. Probably the doctor. “Could you come this way please?”

Sue picked up her belongings and followed the woman into a side office, nerves threatening to overwhelm her. There was no turning back now. She just hoped that this doctor was more friendly than her own.

The woman gave her a reassuring smile. “Do sit down. My name is Dr Guthrie and I’m just going to go through a little about what is going to happen today and at your next appointment. It shouldn’t take too long, but you may as well be comfortable!” She paused until she saw that Sue was settled, then continued. “Firstly, please interrupt me at any point if you have any questions or concerns, I do have a tendency to run away with myself!” She grinned at Sue, then glanced quickly through the form completed earlier. ” I can see that you’re not quite sure when your last period was. That’s not a problem, but I would be more comfortable if you were to have an ultrasound dating scan. That will enable us to decide which procedure is most appropriate for you.”

“Will that mean a delay?” Sue asked.

“No, not at all. We have those facilities here. You’ll need to make sure you’ve drunk some fluid first for us to be able to get a clear image, but the wait shouldn’t be very long. We’ll do that for you this morning then we can discuss your options. You will also have a blood test as part of our routine screening. Any questions at this point?”

“No… I don’t think so. You’ve been very thorough.” In reality, Sue felt rather overwhelmed with information, but at least when little input was required from her it made things easier.

“Now, by law, I have to discuss with you what your reasons for abortion are. If you would like further counselling, we have that service here, but you are under no obligation to go for counselling if you are comfortable with your choice. It is entirely your decision.” She paused.

This was obviously the point where Sue was supposed to contribute to the discussion. She took a deep breath. “I’m sure. I don’t need extra counselling. I’m not in a permanent relationship right now,” that wasn’t strictly true, she knew, but it was not as if Peter was in a position to be able to support them in any way. “This pregnancy wasn’t planned, as I said in the paperwork I actually have had the coil fitted, it would be disastrous timing for my career and I really don’t feel I’m ready for motherhood at this precise moment of my life.” Or any moment of her life, she mentally added.

The doctor wrote “risk to mental health of woman” on the paperwork, signed it and passed it over to Sue for her signature. She smiled when the paperwork was passed back. “I know it’s a pain, but it’s what we’re required to do. A second doctor needs to see you and ask the same questions, so how we do it here is after your blood test and scan you’ll see a different doctor to discuss your options. However, if you’d prefer, you can ask Dr Bentley to sign the forms and then return to me for the discussion – whatever would make you most comfortable. You won’t offend anyone, I promise.”

Dr Guthrie stood up prompting Sue to do the same. The doctor shook Sue’s hand. “Good luck, Ms Beresford. You’re in good hands. Now, let me show you back out to the waiting room, then I’ll inform the nurse you’re ready for the blood test.”

Great. Back out to the white walls room for more waiting. Dr Guthrie indicated a water fountain in one corner situated next to a very plastic looking pot plant. “Help yourself to water. We recommend about a pint before an ultrasound.” Then offering a final friendly goodbye smile, left Sue to it, calling the next patient through.

In the event, she didn’t have long to wait before it was her turn with the nurse. In fact, she’d barely had time to force her quota of water down her throat. The girl was young, but took the blood sample as if she were an old pro, which thinking about it, she probably was. As she labelled the phial she asked, “are they sending you for an ultrasound next?”

Sue nodded confirmation while rolling her sleeve back down.

“You’ll probably have a half hour wait then. They like to make sure all the water has gone through your system. Of course, you’ll be desperate for a pee after about ten minutes.” The girl grinned conspiratorially.

Of course, now the thought was in her mind, it was all Sue could do to stop herself running for the nearest loo. Back in the waiting room, she managed to rummage around and find an out of date magazine to waste a few minutes with. Unfortunately, the first article she came to was a description of how to build your very own garden water feature, which wasn’t very helpful.

It felt like an eternity rather than thirty minutes before she was called in for the ultrasound scan. Sue lay down on the couch with her tummy exposed, trying not to feel like a piece of meat while a different nurse put some warmed gel on her stomach.

“Don’t worry,” said the nurse, “this won’t take long, then you can go take that much needed trip to the toilet!” She winked. Her banter sounded practised as if she’d given it to many women, reassuring them in the clinical atmosphere. “Right, I’m just going to put this funny looking device on your tummy and move it around a bit which will help me see what’s going on. Just try to relax.” She moved the instrument around, eyes fixated on a monitor that was angled so that she could see it, but so that Sue could not.

“Um, could I take a look please?” Sue didn’t know what had made her ask, didn’t know she was going to until the words came out of her mouth.

“Are you sure? We don’t usually have the monitor visible to patients.” The nurse looked confused at the break in procedure.

“Yes. I’d like to see.” The monitor’s angle was changed so she could look at what was inside her. Sue squinted, trying to work out which bits were which. She noticed that the nurse didn’t volunteer any information about which part of the small blob on the screen was leg, which was head. That was fair enough, she imagined that the nurse’s job was to make the whole process as neutral as possible. “It looks like a little alien!” Sue murmured.

The nurse laughed nervously and twisted the monitor back so that Sue could no longer see. “Right, just keep still for a moment for me so I can take these measurements. That’s it, lovely.” She motioned for Sue to get up and redress. “I’ll take these notes straight over to Dr Bentley. You won’t have a long wait.”

After a brief dash to the toilet, Sue was ushered into another small office. She tuned out most of the duplicated information gathering and recap of procedure, responding on autopilot at the required places and waited for the doctor to get to the point.

“… with you being slightly under nine weeks pregnant and considering your excellent medical history, my recommendation would be the abortion pill. We will give you some tablets to block the pregnancy hormones now, and then at your next appointment early next week we’ll give you a different set of tablets which will cause a spontaneous abortion about four to six hours later…” the doctor continued. Sue gave her consent and a short time later she was holding a small packet of pills.

She never knew what it was. Whether it was the long waits in the run up which had given her more time to think than she had given herself since finding out she was pregnant, a sudden kick of catholic guilt, seeing the alien fuzzy blob on the monitor, or having the reality of holding the pills that would do the deed in her hands. She lifted her head and met the eyes of the doctor.

“I’m not sure I can go through with this.”