Week 42 - Waiting

The boy likes to keep everyone waiting, it seems. Bloody Prima Donna

12 days he has kept us waiting. 12 interminably long days and nights. People have actually stopped phoning to ask if he has arrived yet, and have taken to sending accusatory texts and emails, suggesting that we have neglected to inform them officially of the arrival of the first born. As if.

All is well, it must be said. He is still bouncing about, using his mother’s bladder as a trampoline. We had the standard post-natal appointment with M’s consultant last week (the first time, incidentally, that we’ve met a doctor all through the pregnancy – interesting!) The doctor was reassuringly relaxed. From tomorrow, M will go into the hospital every other day for a routine scan, just to make sure that mother and child (is he a child yet?) are doing well. They won’t begin to discuss an induced birth for another week or so. And they do say that a late baby is a healthy baby.

I suspect the lad has figured that he is on to a good thing where he is; food and drink (after a fashion) on tap, warm place to sleep, etc. The stuff he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to secure.

At work, my colleagues have stopped asking whether he has turned up yet and instead proffer suggestions about what we could do to hurry things along.

I’ve kept a list. Raspberry Tea, Castor Oil, long walks, Pineapples, Epsom Salts, a spicy Curry, Red Wine. All of the above are supposed to help. Oh, and sex. How could I forget that? Everyone delights in suggesting the last one. Even the midwife had a laugh at my expense suggesting that. I embarrass easily, it seems. Anyway, it’s nice to know that I still have a use…

Now that I think of it, the last three suggestions sound like the stuff one would do to conceive a child, rather than hurry him along into the world. A nice fun way of book marking the pregnancy?

M, unlike me, is relatively untroubled about the delay. Instead, she floats about on a cloud of serenity. When I ask her how she can remain so relaxed, she reminds me that a majority of first time mothers have the baby after their due date (someone paid attention during the ante natal classes, clearly). She is also convinced, for some reason, that the hospital dates were a bit off and that her due date should have been this weekend. And then, she suggests that the lad might turn up on my birthday.

I’m not too sure about the last. I’d rather have my birthday all to myself, thank you very much.

The problem is that I am possessive. Very possessive. When I was a kid, I used to search all visitors, adults and children, when they left our house to make sure they weren’t taking my toys away with them. My birthday is one of the few things that is mine and mine alone, and I am not entirely sure that I want to share it.

Mind you, my birthday is the day before my mother’s, so maybe there is some strange synchrony in my household when it comes to birthdates.

But he would be a nice birthday present, no?

(I like to think that I was the best birthday present my mother ever received. Of course, it might have been the exact opposite; my sister likes to point out that I put my mother in hospital on her birthday. Not a very charitable thing to say, I think.)

So we wait.

I’m not very good at waiting. I become irritable, I start to fidget and find unwholesome uses for the time on my hands. Which, of course, is of no use for either M or Lieutenantjohnmcclane.

I can’t even pretend to be preparing for life after birth; this would be trying to prepare for a complete unknown. In any case, I’ve always been a last minute kind of guy, so trying to prepare for life after birth would be contrary to long held principles of procrastination and postponement (why do today what you can do tomorrow, etc…)

I had the option of starting my paternity leave at the beginning of last week, but decided against it. If I were at home all day every day, I’d just get under Dr M’s feet and make both of us nervous.

Not that I’ve done anything at work for at least a week, mind. It’s impossible to concentrate on anything. (I assume that my boss isn’t reading this. If she is, I may be out of a job).

So we continue to wait. Because there isn’t anything else to do.

I’m 35 today. M is 12 days overdue.

Comments

[disa]

hi there,
happy birthday! hope you have a good one - with or without a 'special' birthday present! bit of a scare on sat with maya's water bottle, eh? thought i'd faint but she looked really calm and happy - a good sign for when the real event comes!