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By Mark Nethercote, August 30, 2011 10:00 am

Thursday 2nd September 2010

One year ago.

I walk down the footpath, staring at my feet as I go.

Each step, as I get a little bit faster, I realise how angry I am, how hurt I am.  What the fuck did I do wrong?  What the fuck did we do to deserve this?

I’m scared, and I’m angry.  We’re both doing everything right.  We’re both doing everything we can.  Each day, I pop a multivitamin, a vitamin D and two fish oil tablets.  Suse has her acupuncture, her Chinese herbs, and her specially compounded B6-free powder.  I’m exercising frequently and keeping alcohol intake to a minimum.  We’re eating right.  We meditate together, several times a week.  I’m ejaculating every couple of days to wash out my spazzy sperm.  And this week, I’ve stopped to build up the bank.

I’ve read all their material, I know what’s going on.  I’ve devoured the starter pack, the manuals, the pamphlets, and the drug information.  I even started reading the wax-covered book that Suse loved, getting through the chapter about the IVF kid that died, and the next one about the couple who took nineteen tries with donor eggs and donor sperm.

And then I stopped.

I don’t need to read hard luck tales to understand the risks.  I know what can go wrong.

I know the fucking risks.

Each night, the alarm goes off for an injection.  Each morning, the alarm goes again.  Last night, exactly thirty-eight hours before the egg collection, we gave the last injection.

And tomorrow, at exactly nine in the morning, we go to the bookie to collect.

We’ve been good.  We’ve played by the rules.  We’ve done everything we should.  And yet, there’s only four.

Fucking four.

I’m tired, and I’m scared, and I realise as I walk that I don’t want it to be like this.  I don’t want some lab-rat to decide what kid I get.  I don’t want these odds.  I want it to be real.  To be natural.  To be loving.  To be normal.

But what choice do I have?  What choice do we have?

I don’t want it to be like this.

* * * * *

I open the door, slamming it hard behind.  I sit down, running my hands through my hair.  There on the couch sits the brown paper bag, stuffed full of drugs.  Sticking out of the top, in a clear plastic bag, is the specimen container, readied for tomorrow.

I take it and hold it in my hand.

It’s short odds we’ve got.  Four.  Shorter than we thought, but betting has closed.

Game on.

Tomorrow, we try to make a child.

Again.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, August 16, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 16th August 2010

One year ago.

In America, they do things a little differently.

When you first tell the world that you are pregnant – so my Texan sister-in-law tells me – you announce the names.  You tell everyone what you plan to name the child if he is a boy, and what she will be called if she is a girl.  For the entire pregnancy, everybody knows.  No secrets.

In Australia, we’re a little less open.  Here, we keep it under wraps.  We hold the surprise until the child is born.  That way, if you miscarry like us, people remain unaware of your favoured names.

It epitomises the differences in our cultures;  them hanging it out for all to see, us holding our cards close to the chest.  And while at times I could be accused of being patriotic to the point of jingoism, on this one, I think we’ve got it completely wrong.

Because as of today – two hundred and ninety-seven days after we first announced we were pregnant – not a single person knows what we plan call our children.

* * * * *

Meantime, today, Natalie Basingthwaighte gave birth to a baby girl.  Natalie is probably a lovely woman.  Except to us.  Twenty years from now, people may not remember who she is.  A lot of people won’t know who she is right now.

Let me tell you who Natalie is.

She’s the woman who stole our little girl’s name.

Harper.

Harper Rain Sinclair McGlinchey.

She can keep the Rain, and the Sinclair.  And even the McGlinchey.

It’s the Harper bit I’m miffed about.

* * * * *

We’ve got nine days until injections start.  Three weeks until egg collection.  Almost four until implantation.  And nearly six before we find out if we’re pregnant.

So all in all, best-case scenario, it’ll be a year before we name our little girl Harper.  Even longer if it’s a boy.

There’ll be a hundred little Harper’s in Day Care by then.

Bloody Natalie.

I guess I’d better get those forms off to Shelley quick smart.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 27, 2011 10:00 am

Friday 25th June 2010

Gestation: 39 weeks

One year ago.

Tonight is a full moon.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  Technically, the moon is full between 8.10am and 3.30pm tomorrow.   But unless we want to perform our ‘Ritual for Fertility’ under the searing sun in the middle of the day, we need to do it tonight or tomorrow.  And tonight is our last night on the island.

So we decide to do it tonight.

After dinner, we head back to our beachfront bure and get the things ready.  The ritual came packed in a cardboard box with a curved lid;  like a disposable coffin for a rat.  Inside it sit two candles, a small bottle of oil, a sewing needle, a bell, some horsetail herb, some stallion hair, and a piece of rose quartz.  All on a cushion of hay bale.

There is no way this little baby is getting back in through customs.

Suse picks up the box and turns to me.

“Do you think I’m crazy for bringing this?”

“Not for bringing this,” I reply, by now my standard answer.  She smiles.  “Honestly, I’m happy to give it a go, honey.  After everything that’s happened, I’m happy to give anything a go.”

* * * * *

We prepare in silence.  Suse finds a plate for the oil, setting everything out just right, while I visit reception for a lighter.  We take our little rat coffin, and a sarong, and we head out into the evening air.

Malolo Lalai is the closest of a chain of islands known as the Mamanucas, which sit to the east of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji.  A number of films have been made in the area, including ‘Castaway’ and ‘The Blue Lagoon’.  It is the epitome of a tropical oasis.  As we walk along the beach tonight, I can’t help but feel like we are in a sound stage.  There air utterly still, the water laps quietly at our feet as if the ocean motor has been turned down to low, and the lone palm tree – the one from my runs – leans out at an impossibly sweeping angle, appearing to be too perfect, too flawless, as if made of papier-mâché.  This evening it is very warm;  the heater has been left on high.  As I look up, I realise that there is a thick cloud covering the entire sky, blanketing us in.

“I can’t see the moon, honey.”

“That’s okay,” Suse says, slinging an arm over my shoulder, “it’ll arrive just in time for the ceremony.”

I keep looking up.

“It’s dense,” I say frowning, “there’s no break in sight.

She grabs me by the hands, swinging me so I face her.

“There will be,” she says.

And I believe her.

* * * * *

We sit in the sand, just beneath the palm.  Its leaves sway softly, a hint of air now beginning to move.  We plant the candles in the sand, and sit cross-legged, opposite each other.

I take the piece of paper and unfold it, happy to be in charge of the instructions, feeling comfortable in this role.

I can do instructions.  They’ve never freaked me out.

So I take my place, looking down at the piece of paper.  I squint hard.

“It’s too dark under that thick cloud,” I say frustratedly.

“Have you got your phone?”

“Yep.”

“Use it as a torch.”

As I fish around in my pocket, suddenly the words light up.  I look above to see realise that the moon has crept out into a clearing;  the only clearing in the entire sky.

I just nod, as I clear my throat.

I no longer question my wife’s intuition.

“Circle of divine light be around me,” I say.

“Circle of divine light be around me,” Suse repeats.

“Spirits of the air whisper to the sky.”

“Spirits of the air whisper to the sky,” she repeats.

“And to all that bears fruit.”

“And to all that bears fruit.”

“Ask Mother Earth to hear me.”

“Ask Mother Earth to hear me.”

We take the oil and pour it into the bowl.  In turn, we inhale the aroma.  We strip off our top halves.  I take the bowl, dipping my fingers in the oil, anointing Suse below her belly button, over her heart, on her throat, across her forehead, and on her crown.  She repeats the process with me.

She then takes the green candle, carving a star into it, symbolising surrender to the spiritual realm.  She draws a ring of oil around its centre, and then she replants it in the sand.  She goes to light it, but as she does, a gust of breeze comes up, blowing out the flame.  She closes her eyes for a moment, and tries again.  From this point on, the air is still.

Just like that, the sound stage fans are off.

* * * * *

Suse rings the bell.  The overhead lights are dialled up, as the moon emerges into full view, illuminating all below.

She then takes the orange candle.  Into it, she carves the symbol of Ceres, the Greek Goddess of harvest.  She also covers this in oil, and lights it, before again planting it in the sand.

The wind remains off.

I hand her the horsetail hair and the stallion hair. She takes the first in one hand, and the second in the other.

And then we complete the incantation.

Call me superstitious, call me weird, call me whatever you want – but it feels to me like transcribing what we said in the final part of the incantation ain’t that smart.  I’m not sure exactly what we’re dealing with here.   And, as we’re not pregnant as I write this, I’m simply not going to jinx it.

Suffice to say that we both said that we’re ready and waiting.

Which we are.

And like I said, call me weird all you want.

I just want a kid.

* * * * *

As we finish, at the exact moment that we are complete, the wind picks up, blowing both candles out.  And just a few second later, the moon falls back in behind the clouds, completely blanketed once more.

“Look at that,” I say.

“Just like I said,” says my bride.

She strips off her bottom half, and walks slowly towards the water.  I follow her, taking her hand as we walk happily into the shallows.

And there we ablute, in the bath-warm water, on this perfect sound stage in the South Pacific.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 24, 2011 10:00 am

Thursday 24th June 2010

Gestation: 38 weeks, 6 days

One year ago.

We bump into the smiley man from Queensland later that day.

“Did you hear about Kevin Rudd?”

“No?”

“Ousted by his own party.  A political coup.  Blindsided.  The quickest prime ministerial demise in the history of Australian politics.”

“What a shame,” I say, sarcastically, “after every thing he did for the health care of this nation.”

“Apparently that’s the reform of which he’s most proud.  Helping to improve the system for all.”

Not IVF.

Not fucking IVF.

It’s exactly that sort of blinkered thinking that got him ousted.  Pissing off people without even realising.

Moron.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 23, 2011 10:00 am

Wednesday 23rd June 2010

Gestation: 38 weeks, 5 days

One year ago.

So again today, I run.  After realising yesterday how much I am reading into things, I try to drop it.  I try to stop reading into things, but it’s hard.  Because one thing remains constant.

Each day I run, each day in the parching, drenching afternoon sun, I run along the beach, each day clocking a time slower than the day before, each day feeling more and more sapped by the dropping sun.

And one thing remains constant.

As I double back, sprinting home through the spongy sand, my feet sinking in quicksand, I look out at the horizon.  And each day, each and every day, I see a solitary boat – a different one each time, and yet a solitary boat – directly under the light of the sun, infallibly dissected in half by the sun’s ray, slicing vertically through the water, spreading it’s shimmering beam into the azure waters below.

A singleton ship.  Out on the horizon.  Every single day.

In those same waters that our pink and blue boats sailed.

And only the pink boat floating on.

Continuing on, well after we left.

One thing remains constant.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 22, 2011 10:00 am

Tuesday 22nd June 2010

Gestation: 38 weeks, 4 days

One year ago.

Each day, I run.  And as I do, I make a choice.  I make a choice about my family, and what it will be.  It goes like this:

‘I choose the end result of a healthy, loving happy family.’

Running is my form of meditation.  I’m not like other people who can be still in meditation.  I get my meditation – my sense of centredness and presence – only when my brain is oxygen-deprived enough that I can no longer think at a million miles an hour.  It’s as if strangling me is the most effective way to slow me down;  hypoxia is quickest way to send me into alpha waves.

Sweating it out as I churn along the beach, I concentrate on my breathing, and I concentrate on my choice.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

There is a school of thought that says the universe is there for the taking, for each of us, wholly ready to provide.  That in essence, our lives are already mapped out, all the major steps already predefined;  like a massive dot to dot of life.

And, let’s say, if this is the case, that there are only about fifteen to twenty dots in total.  The rest of it – all the bits in between – is ours to choose.  We can get as creative as we want with the path.  We can do whatever we want with that line from point to point.

But understand that these points are predestined.

No point sweating them.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

However, there is a caveat to this.  And that is, that we can move the dots.  We can shift them around the page like a set of counters.  So in essence, we can move everything.  We can change everything.  Nothing is set in stone, other than birth and death.  Everything else, everything in between, is fluid.  If we can move the dot that makes the neck look crooked, we can change the complexion of the whole picture.

We can move the dots by changing the nature of our thinking.  Physics dictates that all energy will flow along the path of least resistance.  If the things that are most important to us are along a well-worn path that runs downhill – then the universe can’t help but to let it flow to you.

And me.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

So I choose my family every day.  I choose it every time I run this beach in Fiji.  I choose it every time I run around the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, every cold winter’s day when my breath is steamy and the air hurts on its way down, every time I deprive my brain of enough oxygen that it becomes as ingrained as a pathway in my consciousness.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

I make that choice, I burn that thought, I repeat it.  I stretch the creative tension like wires in my brain, connected by neurotransmitters, by dopamine firing off.  Each and every day, I do the same.

Bang, bang, bang.

As a synapse of belief, and of thought, that is constant and unchanging and there – physically there – a physical thought, that once started as a belief, but through conditioning, through thinking, through visioning that thought and imagining my family on a daily basis, has actually become as a neuronal connection in my white matter, it has become a fixed synapse.

In doing that, it becomes more true than not.

A fixed truth.

How can it not?

* * * * *

Today, as I run along the beach, I repeat my mantra.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

On this day, today, I struggle with this logic, my artistic brain at the tender mercies of my scientific mind.  It sits there in a headlock, a vicious half-Nelson that leaves my weak little pansy artistic mind panting.  Today, it is at the mercy of my brutal, beefed-up, loved-up, greased-up scientific thoughts, obliterating this philosophical waif of consciousness into a million smashed up thoughts.

And yet I continue.  I root for the underdog.  I cheer for the pansy.  I keep thinking about my family.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

As I run, I take in the world around.  I look at the beach, the children in the surf, and then I start to see it differently.  As I head along the coast, I see a plane, a solitary aeroplane, perched at the edge of the landing strip.

A singleton.

But then I notice its twin engines.  They start up, flicking over;  once, twice, and then whirring to life.  As I watch it, I see in the distance a second plane, a second twin-engine plane, coming in low and fast, flying in from out of the glare of the sun.  It is close, less than twenty metres ahead, on this island, the brother to its twin sister, already whirring, already fired up, already ready to take off in flight.

It’s twins.

The plane lands with a jolt, a puff of dusty air spewing up behind it’s wheel, on this strip – uncordoned – that I am to run over to get to the next part of the island.  As I go, the sister slows to a stop, and the brother continues in an arc, following his bigger sister’s path in, disappearing to a dot;  the same size as she was when I first spotted her, back out towards the sun.

As I continue, all I can see is twins.  Another couple, walking towards me.  Hands linked, twins.  Then a family, with two boys the same height, the same sandy hair.  Twins.

My scientific brain threatens to go into overdrive, yet the sweat of the day saps me of cogent thought, and my dream starts to grow.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

I follow the crest of the beach out.  As I go, the story changes.  This time, as I reach the rocky outcrop, the place we sailed the boats from four days ago, I again note the lone palm.

A singleton.

There it sits, all on it’s own, reaching out over the water, threatening to lean down and scoop it up and drink it in.

I turn and look, the light of the day fading.  There in the distance is the sun, shimmering on the deep still water, and on it, right on the brim of the horizon, right on the edge where it threatens to tip off the edge of the world, is a boat, sailing along, like a ridiculously beautiful postcard.

Another singleton.

I turn and head back, picking up speed.  There again I see one half of a couple I’ve seen from earlier in our travels.

Singleton.

And out of the bushes comes her partner, to join her, to grab at his hand and cup him in her arms.

Twins.

I look back out at the lone sailing boat, the lone sun above it, only to notice, up to its right, balancing, almost laughing at me, subtle in comparison, is the moon – bright and pale in this early evening light.

Twins.

I pick up my speed, the sun diving lower, the light starting to fade, the sweat coming harder, pooling in my eyes.  I cross the landing strip, my limbs getting heavy, the sand getting softer, the blood failing in its quest to provide oxygen, and in doing so, the clarity of the message, the choice I have made coming ever closer.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

I sprint the last berth, past another singleton, another set of twins, yet another set of twins, then a singleton.  And then in the distance, I can see it, my target, my finish line;  the end of my run.  I pick it up even faster, the sting of the sweat in my eyes, my calves cramping, and I push even further, pull even deeper, and I sprint, hard up the sand, to my finishing post, to my point, hanging there, like a bird perched on the edge of a branch.

I touch it as I arrive, panting, an outstretched hand.  It is Suse.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

Twins.  Singleton.  Who cares?

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

I’ve already got one.  My wife, the second half of my self;  my own twin, my own singleton.

And so I realise:  fuck the symbolism.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters is this:

The other day we released the spirits – two spirits – in a ceremony in the ocean, to let them know that we are now ready.

We are ready.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 21, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 21st June 2010

Gestation: 38 weeks, 3 days

One year ago.

We sit there, in the back of the speedboat, drinking in the afternoon sun.  As we head out towards the coral reef we wind our way along the waterline, passing the island’s main resort – twenty times the size of the one at which we’re staying.

As the boat picks up speed, we pass a ten-year-old boy.  One arm is waving, the other is pushing straight down into the water, holding something under.  His mother, without even looking, yells something incomprehensible between drags on her cigarette.  With that, his arm goes slack, and a smaller boy comes up gasping, arms flailing like a stabbed octopus.  Again, without looking, we hear the mother shriek:

“Good boy, Jy-dyn.  Good boy.”  I’m don’t know the spelling, or whether the boys were named Jy and Dyn.  I can only guess.

Jy looks pissed.

Dyn just looks waterlogged.

I look back at Suse, a grin across her face, before noticing the couple facing us, shaking their heads, the man mock-wiping at his brow.

“We left our little blighters back in Queensland with their Victorian aunt,” say the smiley man, just portly enough to lend his face an inviting quality.  “They love her, and she loves them.  We paid for her plane ticket.  And she pays us back many, many times over.”  His wife chuckles, never taking her eyes off her feet.  Her eyes are grey, deep bags under each.  She looks like Dyn would if Jy repeated his tricks for twenty-four hours straight.

“Happy to be away?” I ask.  She nods deeply.

“Well, hang on,” says the husband, “don’t get us wrong.  Have you got kids?”

“No, we haven’t,” I say, jumping in quickly.  “And we appreciate this time while we don’t have them yet.”

“Oh, it’s fantastic,” he continues, championing the cause.  “I love my kids.  In fact, having them was the single most amazing and life-changing thing we ever did.  Wasn’t it, Darl?” he asks, without waiting for a reply. “Kids bring a life to you that you just can’t imagine until you have them.  It is absolutely amazing.  No – in fact, I’d say it’s magical.  Absolutely magical.”  He stops for a moment.  “You guys should consider it.  You really should.  Don’t be put off by what we say.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t,” I say.  “We will.  When the time’s right,” I finish, completing the lie.

Suse and I smile, and look out to sea in unison, our body language sealing the conversation dead in its tracks.

Before the virtues of family life can be extolled any more.

* * * * *

Four hours later, we are in the restaurant, looking out over the palm-scattered lawn to the beach beyond.  The tropical breeze brushes against our faces as we sit by the light of the torch, like we’re on the luxury couple’s honeymoon-version of ‘Survivor’.

Through the darkness emerges the smilingly pudgy guy.

“How are you, guys?”

“Great,” I say, resisting the urge to lean over and pinch his cheeks.

“Look.  I’m sorry about what I said to you before,” he says apologetically.  “The second we were on our own, Michelle went through me.  She said: ‘It may have been magical for you, but it wasn’t for me.  For me, it was bloody hard work.  I didn’t sleep right for years.’   So I’m sorry.  When I said they were magical, I really should have said that they are bloody hard work.  That’s what I really meant.  Not magical.  Hard work.  That’s what I should have said.  So sorry about that.”

He stops, looking slightly confused, as if trying to remember a second part to his message;  one that has since flown the coop.  “There was something else,” he mutters.

Suse and I look at each other and smile, acknowledging that thing which Michelle saw that her husband did not.  There’s something in the sisterhood – maybe in the way that Suse and I sat in the boat, maybe our reactions, maybe the whiff of parental pheromones leaking out of our every pore – I don’t know.  But there was something that caused her to see.  To see the elephant in the room.  To understand where we are in our plight.  And as the brains behind the mouth, to demand a public broadcast of the not-so-pleasant side of the equation.  If even just to take the sting out of the barb, just a little.

The man continues to stand for a moment, squirming in his undies, his palms finally rising up in contrition.

“Nope.  It’s gone,” he says, almost to himself.

“That’s okay,” Suse says, “we’re under no delusions.  And like we said, when the time comes, we’ll be in for as much of a shock as anyone is, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he says, benignly.  “Anyway, I just didn’t want to… you know… My big mouth, and all that.  I just wanted you to… you know.”

“Thanks, mate,” I say.

He turns, a slight furrow on his brow, and walks away.  He falters on his fourth step, like he’s about to turn and add something, before deciding better.  As he disappears into the blackness of the night, he scratches as the back of his rich brown hair, formulating his story, ready to pitch to his wife, about just how little he’d managed to fluff his meaningful, yet unnecessary apology.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 20, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 20th June 2010

Gestation: 38 weeks, 2 days

One year ago.

“Do you like them?”

I look up.  There Suse stands, wearing only a bikini.  The comment is ripe for misinterpretation, if it wasn’t for her solemn expression and the origami in her outstretched hands.  In each palm sits a paper boat;  folded crescents, like upside-down party hats.  They have been painted with watercolours, pink for one, blue for the other.  The paint lines trace along the folds, making them look like international envelopes, each with a large heart in their middle.  And each of the boats holds a flower as its cargo.

“They’re boats.  For the spirits.  One for the boy, and one for the girl.”

I look up at her to see a content expression on her face.

And my chest fills up, with all of those things that you don’t realise are missing until they return.

* * * * *

We pack a bag, both wearing swimmers.  We close the door behind us, taking in the perfect day outside. Where the unblemished sky hits the water is hard to tell;  the palm trees dot the manicured grass like a game of tic-tac-toe.

We walk across the plush lawn carpet and onto the soft sand, heading down to the water’s edge, where our feet sink into the waterlogged sand puddles, the lukewarm shallows splashing up the backs of our legs as we go.

“We’re heading for those rocks,” Suse says, pointing.  Wordlessly she hands me the blue boat, small orange flowers its cargo.  In her hand, she holds the paper vessel with pink pin-striping, a rose-coloured heart painted on its hull.  In it sits a pink bougainvillea.  “It makes sense that you hold the boy boat,” she says.

We walk on further, our feet slapping along the water’s edge, in the quicksand;  in the most-fun part.  I look ahead at the rocky outcrop to which we are heading.  From it springs a solitary palm.  It reaches out over the water, which spreads beneath it as a turquoise blanket;  there as a soft landing, should it ever decide to fall.

“It came to me when I was meditating,” Suse says finally, “that those spirits from my previous pregnancies – the ones that didn’t complete – are still with me.  I need to let those spirits go.”  We walk on some more.  I look across at her face, her beautiful face;  at the first few freckles that already beginning to emerge in the sun.  “I need to let them go, to really let them go, ceremonially, so that they can return to me – to us – now that their real father is here.”  She looks at me and smiles.  “And we need to do it in those waters up there.”  She points, again, at the teal waters over by the edge of the dark rocks.

As we stroll we link our free hands.  The paper boats remain in our other hand, held out ahead;  guiding us forward, in perfect symmetry.

“When we went to see that clairvoyant,” Suse continues, “she told me that there would be something.  That a little ritual would come to me.  And that it would come to me while we were here, in the love waters.  And that I would know when it came.”

She looks across at me, her eyes smiling along with her mouth, a contentment in her face that I haven’t seen for a very long time.  We walk on in silence through the water.  As we get closer, we can see a group of snorkelers rounding the corner, right at the point.

“Oh, no.”

“It’s okay,” I say, “they’ll move on.  It will be perfect.”

As we get closer, the snorkelers get caught in a rip.  They wash along, ever towards us.  They remain oblivious to our presence, sliding right on by, never even aware.

By the time we reach the rocks, we are again alone.

* * * * *

Suse looks at me, taking the boat from my hand.

“I need to do this,” she says.  “I’m the one who needs to let them go.  When that is done, they can return.”

As she finishes saying this, her head falls slightly, a self-deprecation, a solemnity;  a reverence for this moment.  She turns, and walks slowly out into the shallows of the Pacific, a folded piece of paper in each hand, delicately painted with a heart, each housing a flower.

I watch my wife as she gracefully wades, riding the small waves out, further and further.  And then she stops.  She remains still for almost a minute, looking down.  And she first lets go of the pink boat, watching it as it goes.  It floats off to the left, falling on its side.   Her whole body turns towards it as she quietly watches it float away.  She repeats the act with the second, the boy boat.  It repeats the act, yet disappears from view more quickly.

She stands for a moment watching them, the mother of these spirits, as she lets them free.  And I stand for that moment watching her.

And all the time, something else watches us.

Then she turns, and my mermaid swims back to me.  As she gets closer, she smiles.

“The boy sank,” she says, her nose wrinkling up.  Then she lets out a light giggle.

“Bloody boys,” I say.  We both laugh.  “That’s okay.  He’s not coming first anyway.  He’s just mucking around on the bottom of the pool, waiting his turn.”

I take my wife in my arms, her slender arms looping over my shoulders.

“Do you want to say anything?” she asks.

I stop for a moment, waiting for self-consciousness to kick in.  But it never comes.

“In letting the spirits of this boy and girl go,” I start, “these spirits that have been with Suse since they were last in bodily form are now free.  And with that, they are finally free to return, when they are ready, to us, so that they can be ours, to share as ours, two halves of us, our spirits that are already there.”

She hugs me tightly.

“We’re ready when you are,” she whispers.  “We’re ready.”

Suse keeps her arms slung around my neck, but makes a quarter turn, so we can both watch the little pink boat and its flower, bobbing up and down on the lapping waves;  the spirit of this little girl that we are now ready to receive.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, May 30, 2011 10:00 am

Tuesday 1st June 2010

Gestation: 35 weeks, 4 days

One year ago.

“I bought a spell,” says Suse, a wry smile on her face.

“Right,” I say.  It’s a safe answer when you don’t know quite how you’re supposed to react.   It says: ‘I heard what you said, and I have no judgements.’  Or that’s how it’s meant to sound.

I find myself saying ‘right’ quite a bit these days.

“It’s a ritual for fertility.  It’s meant to be done during a full moon.”

“Right.”

“We’ll be in Fiji when it’s the next full moon.”

“Right.”

“So we can take it with us.”

She looks at me, and I realise I’m frowning.

“Great.  That’s great, love.”  I pause.  “But… do you know what’s in it?  It’s not going to get us arrested, is it?”

“No.  It’s just got some herbs and things.”

“Exactly.  That’s exactly what I mean.  We’re taking a box labelled ‘Ritual for Fertility’ into another country?”

“We’ll be fine.”  Suse pauses for a second.  “Do you think I’m weird?”

“No more than I did before, love.”

“No, for getting the spell.  Do you think I’m weird?”

“Honey, after what happened with that soothsayer on the weekend, I don’t think anything is weird anymore.  I’m willing to try anything.”

“You’re happy to try a spell?”

“Sure,” I say with a little hesitation.

“You’re happy to take it to Fiji?”

“No, not particularly.  But that woman did tell us that this holiday was going to be a very healing time for us.  I think we need some healing.”  I sigh.  “So why not?”

* * * * *

What does it say about our situation, when a spell now seems as likely to work as the saliva and basal body temperatures that we performed religiously just two months back?   As humans, are we just in need of ritual?

Is science now our ritual?

We all require some sort of order, something to believe in, something to hang our hats on.  Science hasn’t worked for us thus far.

So, as a good scientist that I am, I’m willing to experiment.

I look at the box, a small cardboard coffin.  It has an A4 piece of paper around the outside, with the heading, ‘Spellbox’.  I won’t read the instructions, lest to mention that it has horsetail herb, stallion hair, a bell, a green and orange candle, some oil, and a sewing needle.  And an incantation.

I’m curious to open it, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to yet.  I’m not sure what the rules are.  After all, the moon isn’t full, and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a thunderstorm anytime soon.

And the golden hair band around it looks pretty darn symbolic.

I’ll leave it be.

For now, I’ll leave it be.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, May 23, 2011 2:36 pm

Monday 24th May 2010

Gestation: 34 weeks, 3 days

One year ago.

I walk into the room.

“Hey, bro!” says my Texan sister-in-law from the bed.  My younger brother stands to her right, a proud glow across his face.  “Come over and say ‘Hi’ to your new nephew!”

I close the door quietly, and walk over.  There wrapped in blankets, in her arms, is another perfect bundle.  This time, a boy.

“You’re the first one here again!” she continues.

“I guess that’s the advantage of working at a hospital eight-hundred metres up the road.”  They both laugh, happy and exhausted.  The fading evening light falls on the street outside.  There is a hiss from the oxygen tank on the wall, breaking the silence of this room;  one that, only hours earlier, was nowhere near this quiet.

“You want a hold?” says my sister, her voice hoarse.

“Sure.”  I take him from her, wrapped loosely in a blanket, his feet threatening to poke out.

“The Paediatrician wrapped him like that,” she adds.

“Right.  I understand why he’s almost falling out of his blanket then.  You need a midwife to wrap properly.”

“No shit,” she says, “you should’a seen the midwife baby whisperer before – wrapped him and tapped him to sleep after he’d been wailing away for the first six hours.”

“A bit of a change from last time?”

They look at each other and smile in the way that second time parents do.  It’s something unmistakable – a bond, a shared experience known only to them;  the fear of the untrodden path, and the sheer joy of taking those steps in the upbringing of their first child.  This look holds a mix of emotions all at once – love and knowing, anticipation and trepidation, lethargy and excitement, at choosing to take on this monumental assignment.  All over again.

I’ve seen this look with my older brother, just two weeks ago, and now again with my younger brother.

“After about the fifth hour, we looked at each other,” says my brother, “and wondered what we’d done.”

“Yep,” says my sister, “until the baby whisperer came in, and it’s been all good since then.”

I look down at my sleeping nephew in my arms.  He lies there, quietly slumbering.  He takes a deep breath, sighing, before settling deeper into my arms.

And my heart gently breaks.

* * * * *