Page 2 of Did My Love Life Shrink in the Wash?
‘How about Spike?’ he asks.
‘Dog’s name.’
‘Ted?’
‘Bundy.’
‘Noah?’
‘Too biblical.’
‘Henry?’
‘Too… royal.’
Will puts his head on my pillow and looks up at me like a forlorn cat.
‘Adolf?’
‘Wanker.’
‘That’s a terrible name. You can’t call a baby Wanker.’
I laugh. He puts his hands in mine and pulls me up in the same way you see whales being released back into the sea.
‘C’mon. Midwife’s orders. Let’s go for a shuffle.’
I decided to have this baby in a hospital because I just wanted to go down the easiest route possible. At my NCT groups, there was a mix of women who touted around birthing pools, home births and hypnobirthing but I always took a more practical approach: I don’t want fuss, I don’t want a baby in a bath, if I ask for drugs then give them to me, let’s get this baby out. Zero expectation would mean that no one would end up disappointed if it all went wrong. My sisters birthed babies in a variety of ways: Meg had the emergency C-section as her little Eve was upside down, Emma had her girls in posh hospitals with birthing centres where they gave away free pyjamas. I opted for my local hospital that provide extras like birthing exercise balls, free hot drinks and dimmer switches but you have to bring your own slippers and snacks. I bought said slippers from Primark. As for the snacks, Emma told me to bring glucose tablets for energy in case I have one of those eight-hour inductions but I haven’t eaten those since I did cross-country running when I was eleven.
I look down now and the slippers are the wrong size. My feet look like bricks they’re so swollen. I toddle along next to Will, who looks like he’s taken his pregnant girlfriend on a walk. The walk is supposed to push things in the right direction, downwards I suppose, so we’re doing as we’ve been told. I spy a rainbow of vending machines and stop. Ice cream. It’s been nine long months of Will getting to know and understand how pregnant ladies must be fed so he rustles around in his pockets.
‘Are there any fancy ones?’ I ask. Now is not the time to fob me off with a crappy fruit-based lolly.
He looks at me, bemused. ‘They’ve got Magnums: white, normal or nuts?’
‘Nuts. Get three. One for the baby.’
‘The baby might like white chocolate.’
‘I know the baby likes nuts.’
‘Do we get a sense of which football team he might support?’ he asks.
I smile. ‘He’s a Gunner. I feel it. Can we call him Thierry? Bergkamp? Tony? A combination of all the Arsenal legends, perhaps.’
‘It’s like you want me to leave you to birth on your own.’
We find a window bay to perch ourselves on. It’s silent, bar the crack of chocolate, mainly due to nerves about all that unknown territory we are throwing ourselves into. When they say a baby isn’t planned then you start to realise what that really means. It means the sketchy blueprint that was once life is being totally rewritten, with all control and free will lost. When I got pregnant it was scary as crap, but all Will and I knew was that we liked each other enough to bring a baby into the world. I drop a bit of chocolate on my bump and am grateful it’s there to catch it. See how useful the baby is already? I retrieve the chocolate and pop it in my mouth. Will looks over and laughs. I wasn’t going to waste that. He then hugs me, the only way you can hug a pregnant woman: with your body arched out to the side.
Wait. I think Will may have squeezed so hard a little bit of pee came out. I pause for a moment. Something definitely just happened. Like someone’s fired a water pistol up me. Have my waters broken? I stare at my feet. Not the tsunami I expected but I clutch Will’s hand and he instinctively knows it’s time; there’s a look in his eyes like a rollercoaster is just setting off. We’re having a baby.
‘It’s just a show, my dear. You’ve got a while to go yet. Any pain and you can have a paracetamol.’
I glare at Maggie the Midwife. Surely stuff leaking out of you is a warning that the baby is on his way? The curtain closes. I was told that the drugs would be stronger, like stuff I wouldn’t be able to get in Boots. A period-like pain stabs at me and I bend over the bed.
Will gets his phone out and sets it to timer mode. ‘What exactly am I timing?’
Neither of us know. Will abandons the phone and starts massaging my back. I inspect my knickers again. Blood.
