I turn to look at Sid, to see if he sees, to share the excitement, to—Sid’s expression is grim. His mouth is a straight line, his eyes pinpoints. He glares at the radiologist.

‘No. Can you just tell me the age of the—the foetus?’ Sid asks rudely.

The radiologist looks at Sid sharply, somewhat surprised.

‘Around ten weeks,’ he says brusquely. ‘Baby due in November.’

Despite my protests, Sid insisted the doctor see me today. I am feeling fine now but I’m back to lying on a bed. Apparently I need more medication for the nausea.

I look around the room; there’s another bed here but so far I’m the only one. The walls are covered with pregnancy-related posters—posters on vaccinations for mothers, the right food and recommended exercises. There are some posters warning people not to ask for sex-determination tests. There are promotional posters from various baby-related brands, a poster declaring this as a registered abortion clinic and one promoting breast-feeding. The best posters though are the ones with photographs of babies with dark hair.

In seven months I’ll have my own little dark-haired baby with a gummy smile.

The nurse walks in with a tray that has a small plastic cup and a sheet of paper on it. She puts the tray on the table next to my bed. She pulls out a pen from her pocket.

‘You will need to sign this,’ she points to the paper and puts the pen on it. ‘Then you take these two pills. Tomorrow you come back same time for the third pill,’ she says.

She starts walking away when she suddenly stops.

‘Oho, I nearly forgot,’ she says and pulls out a sanitary napkin from her pocket and keeps it on the tray. ‘You won’t really need it before tomorrow, but just in case there’s some spotting,’ she explains.

What does she mean by spotting?

‘Excuse me, nurse?’ I call out to her.

The nurse turns and looks at me quizzically.

‘Why do I need this?’ I ask, pointing at the napkin. ‘Is this medicine going to make me bleed? I can handle the nausea really, but I don’t want to take any medicine that might harm my baby,’ I tell the nurse.

The nurse frowns at me. ‘What are you talking about? What nausea?’ she asks.

‘These medicines you’ve given me,’ I say and point to the tablets. ‘These are to stop my morning sickness. But if there’s any chance they might cause me to bleed—I mean that’s what I’ve read—that bleeding in pregnancy means there’s danger to the baby …’ I say hesitantly.