Baby Roulette

Red Meanie Monsters

Bella had just finished skimming her way through her daily commuter newspaper only to engage herself in another ‘How Does She Manage To Do It?’ piece of journalistic fodder. Predictably, there was a photo of a mid-thirties woman in a city suit with a blonde manicured ‘I’m in control’ look. The second photo showed the woman at home, slightly more tousled and barefoot cooking fairy cakes under the adoring gaze of her husband and beautiful children. As the train clinked along Bella imagined an article featuring herself as the centrepiece, ‘How Does She Manage Not To Do It?’Bella would take centre stage looking hormonal and bloated with an air of desperation. Maybe the photographer could add a few IVF syringes to replace the fairy cakes, a desperate looking husband and maybe a woeful baby-replacement cat to complete the happy picture.The train ground to a halt and Bella tossed the paper to the floor leaving the happy, smiling family crumpled on the ground.Bella dashed to Starbucks for a pre-menstrual comforter hot chocolate and peach muffin combo. Clutching her comforters Bella headed to the office with a planned en-route have-I-failed-to-conceive-again knicker check in the train station loo before facing the daily onslaught at work.Bella had been stuck in the same job for eleven years, managing travel for colourful characters within a music company. Everyone around Bella thought her job was glamorous and exciting. If you call being available 24/7 for a group of highly-strung assistants barking orders at you to deliver the impossible then I guess it was.The artists were just names booked on planes and hotels. Bella never met them nor even spoke to them. Bella downloaded an email from the assistant to the latest signing demanding an explanation as to why her artiste had not been seated in 1A from London to Paris. Bella could never work out if the travel bookers had selective deafness or amnesia. She had gone to great lengths to explain at the time of the booking that the seat had already been taken probably by someone more important or a regular punter with a silver smurf badge or whatever the latest executive card scheme was. Diplomatically, Bella left out the bit about someone potentially being more important and the smurf badge.After eleven years of seat 1A tantrums Bella had learned to be gracious in the face of abuse and fired off a standard thank-you-for-your-feedback email complete with the appropriate grovel paragraph inserted from her sizeable collection.In Bella’s draft folder she had completed a range of truthful replies mostly addressed ‘Dear Assistant From Hell’, on the basis that Bella would be fired for pressing ‘Send’. These remained stored in draft for perusal on day one of period days. In fact most of the draft emails were written on day one of period days.Bella was burned out by the demands of the assistants from hell and their darling artists, despite having grand dreams of finding another job and sending all of her draft emails on the last day, Bella remained a loyal and compliant employee. Deep down Bella couldn’t face going to the market and trying to sell herself to a new employer. After two years of trying to conceive their much longed for child, anything else that required energy and focus seemed impossible other than on New Year’s Eve after copious amounts of gin and champagne.Bella suddenly snapped into action when her phone started trilling, cue, “you are a useless bloody travel agent, I could do better on the Internet, I cannot believe your voicemail telling me Alicia’s favourite hotel suite is full in L.A.”Bella grabbed her stress ball, a smart purchase by husband Alex, and made soundless thumps with it against the desk. Just at the point when the assistant screeched the obligatory “So what are you going to do about it?” Bella’s period cramps started. Bella’s overriding need to get rid of this woman and visit the loo to confirm her latest failed conception attempt prompted her instant ability to bullshit.“I have arranged a superior suite at the Beverley Hills Hotel for the same price,” at the same time Bella flicked through the latest celeb magazine and randomly picked a hot USA starlet and added the pièce de résistance, “Holly B just stayed in the same suite and the celeb pack has already moved on from the property you previously selected.”Cue the assistant from heaven, “Darling you are a total star and always are.” Bella switched off the parting platitudes and kissing sounds as she scrambled for some organic tampons to stuff down her skirt to take to the loo.Bella couldn’t decide which would be less stressful - checking her knickers for confirmation of failing to get pregnant again or composing another apology email to placate the last assistant when she discovers that one previously mentioned starlet has never stayed at the alternative hotel and the hottest celeb pack are all at the other one, that’s why it’s full. Writing responses to complaints before she had received them; bloody hell not even her highly-strung boss could accuse her of not being proactive.Bella’s phone beeped with a text message. Which bloody idiot wanted to harass her next? Bella saw the message was from Alex and read on.  It was the normal tentative enquiry about her failure to conceive again hidden under a veil of innocence, ‘have the red meanie monsters arrived?’ he tactfully enquired. Bella sloped off to the loo, validated the invasion of the monsters and texted a message back confirming the invasion. An instant ‘I love you’ message beeped back at her.In truth Alex’s innocent sounding text message translated to ‘do I really have to do a sperm test or have we hit the jackpot?’ For two years Alex had managed to convince her it was only a matter of time. He was right, it was only a matter of time before she dragged him to the doctors or packed his bloody bags.Bella and Alex’s eight year marriage had managed to survive Bella’s screaming clients ringing at all hours of the day and an average of four “sorry I’m late and there’s nothing in the fridge” nights a week. A takeaway kebab with an industrial strength gin and tonic normally repaired any potential rift.Bella looked at the simple ‘I love you’ message on her phone again. Would he still love her? What if they went through all the dreaded fertility tests and the net result was that Bella was the one guilty as charged of being unable to provide her loving husband with the child they had been dreaming of for the last eight years and trying to conceive for the last two?An ominous email pinged up on Bella’s screen entitled ‘Totally Unacceptable’. Apparently the pre-ordered triangular buckwheat pillow had not been available as requested during the stay in New York arranged for one of their more established artists (i.e. washed up old has been). The subsequent lack of sleep induced by the absence of the pre-ordered buckwheat-pillow meant she couldn’t give the public what they wanted at the launch of her third greatest hits album, hence only 30 people had bothered to ask for signed copies.Bella wondered if the hotel had access to her ailing record sales and had shipped all the buckwheat out to more successful artists they were likely to see again.Totally Unacceptable. The fact she and Alex couldn’t manage to conceive this month on their second year of infertility anniversary, that was totally unacceptab