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‘Whoops,’ I said, skulking deeper into my chair as Gareth gave a light slap of discipline on my arm, trying to control his own laughter.

‘So, you know, I knew someone who had a girlfriend who worked at one of these places. Said the official name of the room where you tug yourself off is the sample room, but they all call them the wank rooms.’

‘Ewww,’ I groaned. It was my turn to give him a soft slap as he quietly tried to smirk to himself, only to realise that he may have to venture into the wank rooms himself in only a few minutes.

‘He told me that they want to make it look as close to a bedroom as possible,’ Gareth continued.

‘What, like some kind of Pavlovian trick?’

‘Isn’t that a dessert?’ Gareth said, tilting his head slightly.

I scoffed. Gareth, for someone so finely tuned into the way people worked, lacked so much general knowledge.

‘Anyway, that place must just be filthy,’ he murmured to me. ‘Think of how many babies have started their journey right there in that room.’

I couldn’t tell if Gareth was just bored or if he was trying to be his remarkably goofy self to make me feel less anxious about everything. But I also knew that whatever his motivation, this was his personal challenge: to try and gross me out. I wasn’t having it. I was un-gross-outable.

‘So, they stick up a poster of Pamela Anderson, secret stash of Nuts magazine, and maybe a race-car bed to really nail the message home?’ I asked.

‘Who reads Nuts any more, Grandma?’

The mum whose child I had made cry rotated her head slowly, looked us both dead in the eyes, and then changed her gaze to look directly at me as if to say, Please, control your man.

‘Sorry,’ Gareth grunted, even though the mum was still glaring the sharpest of daggers at me.

He didn’t wait a moment to let the embarrassment subside before turning to whisper to me, like a schoolboy at the back of the class that just couldn’t help himself, ‘So, what kind of porn do you think they’ll have in there? ’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Gareth, will you shut up!’ I snarled at him playfully.

‘Mr and Mrs Donoghue?’ the nurse said, and I could hear the sounds of collective relief from the rest of the room when we stood up to be escorted to the doctor.

We were led through a sterile corridor and into a generic hospital room. The only change they had made was that it had been furnished with a few stock photos of happy families hung up on the walls, which I figured would be salt in the wound if someone left the appointment unhappy.

Dr Patel joined us a few minutes later, and we had polite preliminary discussions.

He listened intently as we told him about the many trials and tribulations we had encountered in trying to get pregnant.

He did his best to reassure us, but I couldn’t help but feel like he said these things to everyone.

This was just him reciting lines he had been performing his whole career.

‘This happens to a lot of couples.’

Well, duh.

‘You’re doing the right thing by being here.’

Well, of course. We didn’t think worshipping an emu god would be the next logical step.

‘There are a lot of solutions to the problems couples face while trying to conceive.’

Yes, we know about IVF, which is not exactly cheap. Just say what you mean, Doc. Enough with all the fluff.

‘In twenty-five per cent of couples, fertility problems can’t be explained, but don’t let that worry you.’

That one did hit a little deeper, and made me try to tone down my internal monologue. We must have been his last couple at the end of his day, and he was still taking the time to try and explain all the details and reassure us as much as possible.

‘Even if we don’t get the result we want, this doesn’t mean you can never have kids. A lot of couples receive diagnoses that make them feel like they’ll never be able to conceive naturally, and then a year later, bada bing, bada boom , we have a little one on the way. So please, do not fret, okay?’

I nodded and reached out for Gareth’s hand.

The tension of the moment had been overridden by the fact that this well-respected, sixty-something doctor had just uttered the words ‘bada bing, bada boom’.

Gareth grabbed hold of my hand and wrapped his fingers softly around mine.

He wasn’t as hyperactive as he had been in the waiting room; the reason we were actually here had slowly begun to sink in.

‘Did you bring the sample, Gareth?’ the doctor asked with a beam. He was asking for Gareth’s cum with the most wholesome of smiles, and somehow, it wasn’t creepy. I was in awe of the sheer audacity of this man.

‘Oh, I was meant to bring it from home?’ Gareth asked.

‘Yes, the receptionist should have said. Not to worry, though. I’m sure there will be a sample room going free. I’ll just grab someone,’ the doctor said as he strolled to the other side of the room to call for a nurse.

‘Damn it,’ Gareth said to himself, realising he was now about to face the terror of the wank rooms by himself.

‘Just think of me in a ponytail,’ I said softly to him. ‘And a tight sports bra?’

He gave me one last look and nodded, determined to succeed, as a rather attractive, well-proportioned nurse opened the door and escorted Gareth out.

He’d better still be thinking about me as he’s tugging it, I thought.

‘Shall we get started?’ the doctor said, and I gave a silent thumbs up as I hopped onto the seat, pulled up my shirt, and placed my feet on the stirrups while he prepared the probe.

‘As you probably know, this will feel a little cold,’ the doctor said as he spread the gel across my belly and began to scan.

I took a look at the murky grey images that were swirling around on the screen in front of him.

I had no idea what he was looking for, so tried to judge by his subtle facial reactions how it was going.

‘So, what do you do for a living, Francesca? Anything interesting?’

He was making small talk.

‘I’m a social worker in child protection – I mostly deal with foster kids. You?’

The balls on this doctor to just give a gracious and tender laugh back to me, and not look at me as if I hadn’t said the most idiotic thing he had heard today.

‘I always wanted to be a painter, truth be told, but my mother ushered me into the family profession. Although your work does sound very rewarding.’

‘It is,’ I said, carefully studying the man to distract myself. He had the most excellent skin. As he squinted his eyes to look more intensely at the monitor, I tried to gauge any nuance from his reactions.

There was a silence, which may have only lasted a few moments, but I felt the need to fill it.

‘How are my tubes, Doc?’ I asked.

‘From what I am looking at here, Francesca, you have very healthy ovaries and your fallopian tubes don’t seem to have any abnormalities, which is a very good sign,’ he said, removing the probe.

‘Oh, I bet you say that to all the girls,’ I quipped.

As he began to tell me about an HSG – to the layperson: an X-ray to determine if my fallopian tubes were blocked – I heard my phone vibrate on the side.

It could be Gareth, maybe needing a bit of motivation, I figured.

I tilted the phone up to take a precarious glance at the caller ID. It was Angus.

‘I’m so sorry, I need to take this,’ I said, and before Dr Patel had a chance to say anything, I scooped up my phone and pressed it to my ear.

‘Angus? What’s wrong? What’s happening?’ I asked frantically, trying to yank my shirt down and scramble out of the chair.

‘Fran, I’m fine. Don’t worry,’ Angus said on the other end of the line, cool as a cucumber. ‘Calm down. You always panic.’

I wasn’t convinced. He never rang me first.

‘Angus, tell me what’s wrong, right now.’

I heard him take his signature long, exasperated sigh before he began to speak.

‘Look, just come over when you can, okay? I have something to tell you.’

Angus was the world’s worst communicator, so if he was reaching out to me, it must be something important. ‘No, tell me now. What is it?’ I snapped. I saw the doctor’s eyebrows leap up his forehead, and he scooted off in his chair, making himself busy on the far side of the room.

I heard Angus sigh again, the longest and most elongated sigh I’d ever heard in my entire life, as if he was making sure every little ounce of carbon dioxide was removed from his lungs.

‘I was looking through the papers today, and I found Abe. Abraham Clark.’

‘What?’ A surge of panic, anxiety and glee began to flow around me, my heart beating faster again.

It was that same feeling that had coursed through my body when I’d seen O’Neill there on the day we moved in, watching us from his garden as he watered his potted plants.

I could still see that image, burnt into the hard drive of my brain, of him attempting a half-smile, half-grimace, as we hauled our stuff into the house.

And now I felt overwhelming dread, like it was all going to happen again.

An urgency, a deep, crushing kind of panic, that I needed to fix.

The door to the consulting room opened, and there was Gareth, holding the door in one hand, clasping the cup sheepishly in the other.

He spotted me just as I put down the phone, and his face dropped to a scowl.

The doctor, in all his saintly composure, must have picked up on this as he tried his best to defuse the situation with a smile.

‘Record time,’ he said, as the door slammed shut with a thud.