Stuart was silent for a moment, then looked sidelong at me. ‘There could be another way,’ he said slowly.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Niamh doesn’t know who the dad is, so I’m assuming she was planning to leave that section blank on the birth certificate.’
‘I guess.’
‘What if… what if she put me down as the baby’s father?’
I whipped around to face him so abruptly my laptop fell to the floor with a crash. ‘What?’
‘She can’t put you as the mother because she’s clearly the one having the baby. But if no one knows who the father is, who’s to say it isn’t me? And if I’m on the birth certificate, I’m the baby’s legal parent. We wouldn’t need to adopt the baby because it would be mine, anyway.’
I drew my knees up to my chest and considered Stuart’s proposition, the implications running through my head as I examined it from every angle. He was right. If he was on the birth certificate as the father, no one could stop the baby from living with us.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘I can’t work out if it’s insane or brilliant.’
He smirked. ‘It’s insanely brilliant.’
‘Niamh would have to agree,’ I warned him. ‘And she would have to give us her word that she was abandoning all claims to the baby. Otherwise there’s nothing to stop her changing her mind and taking it back one day. Can we trust her not to do that?’
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ he said, throwing off the duvet.
‘Stu, it’s nearly midnight!’ I cried, taken aback by the blazing fervour in his eyes. ‘You can’t ask her now. You’ll have to wait till tomorrow.’
Niamh’s reaction was unequivocal. We may as well have been opening the pearly gates to heaven and ushering her inside.
‘It’s a brilliant idea!’ she cried. ‘You’re so clever.’
Blushing, Stuart said, ‘What will you do after the birth? Do you want to carry on as our au pair, looking after Nate and the baby?’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ she said.
‘But you’ll want to be involved in the baby’s life?’ he asked.
‘I think that would be a mistake, don’t you?’
I breathed an inward sigh of relief. ‘I agree. A clean break would be best all round. Will you go home to Ireland?’
She smiled shyly. ‘What I’d love to do is train to become a children’s nurse. The University of Greenwich has a great course. I was thinking of applying.’
‘Good for you,’ I said, impressed. I paused, not wanting to burst the bubble, but knowing I had to ask the question. ‘What if you change your mind? What if you decide you want the baby after all?’
‘But I won’t.’
‘Not now, maybe. Maybe not even in two or three years’ time. But what about when you’re older and settled in a relationship. How do we know you won’t change your mind then?’
‘I’ll sign something if it’ll give you peace of mind.’
‘You want me to draw up a contract to say the baby is legally ours?’
She didn’t hesitate. ‘I do.’
I wasted no time in trawling the internet for sample adoption agreements and drafted a contract in which Niamh agreed to pass all parental responsibilities to Stuart and me.
I hadn’t a clue if it would be legally binding in a court of law - the contracts I’d cannibalised had all been from the US, not the UK - but it went some way towards dispelling my fears.
The day Niamh signed the agreement, I handed her a buff-coloured envelope.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘A little gift from us.’
She ripped it open and her eyes widened. ‘Five thousand pounds? I can’t take this!’
‘You can, and you will. And there’ll be another cheque when the baby’s born.’
‘I’m not doing this for the money. You’re helping me out. I can’t keep this baby, not after what happened.’
Our eyes met. ‘I know. Think of it as a thank you. A fresh start. A gift to help fund your nursing degree.’
Her fingers trembled as she replaced the cheque in the envelope. ‘Thank you, I will.’
Summer slipped into autumn, and Niamh started to show. There were maternity clothes to buy and antenatal appointments to attend. At the twenty-week scan we found out she was expecting a girl and told Nate he was going to have a baby sister. He was beyond excited.
We also told our families, who were surprisingly open-minded about our unconventional adoption. Melanie and Bill were harder to convince. Melanie told us in no uncertain terms that she thought we were making a terrible mistake. Bill remained uncharacteristically silent. I put their reactions down to their own hang-ups about having children and I ignored them, knowing they’d come around to our way of thinking sooner or later.
As Niamh’s mid-March due date drew near, I allowed myself to get excited about the birth. We decorated the nursery in palest pink and spent hours discussing names, settling on Imogen, Immy for short.
I re-registered with a couple of nanny agencies and was scrolling through CVs one day when Stuart sidled into the room.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said.
‘Always dangerous,’ I joked.
‘How would you feel if I gave up work to be a stay-at-home dad when the baby’s born?’
‘But you love your job.’
‘You love yours more,’ he said. Which was true. I’d never had the slightest desire to be a full-time mum. ‘What’s brought this on?’
‘I don’t want another Astrid in the house, telling me off for having my feet on the coffee table and nagging me to wash my hands before tea. Imagine how nice it would be to have the place to ourselves.’
I had to agree. Niamh was so quiet she virtually faded into the wallpaper, but you could never truly relax when she was around. And money wasn’t an issue. Stuart made thirty-five grand a year as a senior ecologist, counting dormice and surveying bats. FoodWrapped made ten times his annual income every quarter. I was happy to be the sole breadwinner and Stuart would make a
