“Your AED dosage seems to be working well for you, if you’re two years seizure free,” she says, “and this medication isn’t associated with birth defects, so there really shouldn’t be too many problems. I’d like to do an EEG and an MRI scan first, though. Are you happy for me to do a referral?”

“Yes.”

She taps away at her keyboard.

“We would keep you on your current medication, but since pregnancy itself causes a good deal of stress on the body—nausea, tiredness, et cetera—you’d need to monitor your health quite closely to avoid any triggers.”

I try to swallow, but my mouth’s too dry. Eventually, I manage to ask a question.

“Would my AEDs affect the baby’s development?”

“Not these particular ones, although there’s always a slight risk.”

I nod. I know she has to tell me all this and, of course, I expected it.

“You don’t have to rush to make any decisions. Why don’t you go home and discuss it with your partner, then come back and see me when you’re ready?”

“What would happen if I was already pregnant?” I ask her, and immediately feel like an irresponsible teenager.

Dr. Ahmed’s dark almond-shaped eyes flicker. She rests her hands in her lap and asks if that’s a possibility.

My voice, when it comes, is barely audible. “Yes.”

“How late are you?”

I look somewhere beyond her right shoulder. “About a week, I think.”

“Have you done a test yet?”

Now I really do feel like a fool. “Yes, but the second line was quite faint.”

Dr. Ahmed smiles. “Shop-bought kits are very accurate these days. It’s rare to get a false positive. I’ll arrange for you to see the community midwife in the first instance.”

She turns to her screen and starts tapping away at the keyboard. “Don’t worry,” she says. “Most women with epilepsy go on to have perfectly normal pregnancies and healthy babies.”

That’s right. I am a woman with epilepsy. Not an epileptic.

On the bus home, my bag stuffed with leaflets and with Dr. Ahmed’s reassuring words still echoing in my ears, fear and excitement surge through me in equal measures. The timing stinks. All my plans about going to university will have to be put on hold, at least for a year or so, and God knows what Ross and my parents will say.

But the decision has been taken out of our hands now. And Dr. Ahmed says they’ll monitor me really closely, that I’ll be well taken care of.

I watch the same streets go by through the fogged windows, but now everything looks different, more vivid and meaningful. As if I’m seeing it with brand-new eyes.

19

Ross stares at me in astonishment.

“What do you mean, you’re pregnant? Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I did one of those predictor tests.”