D-Day
Now the ante-natal classes and the scans were over, we could concentrate on preparing for Delivery-Day, May 20th.
The rooms were re-arranged, the bits and bobs were bought (even the buggy) and we were left waiting (im)patiently for the birth.
But first, back to that buggy. I never knew that shopping for one thing would be so difficult, but this proved to be a mammoth task. The more we thought about it, the more criteria we came up with, namely...
1) Cheap - Didn't seem worth spending a fortune on something we wouldn't be using for very long.
2) Portable - Whatever it was, it shouldn't weigh a tonne. We had to use Public Transport so would have to cart the buggy on and off numerous buses over time. It'd be no use buying a tank of a buggy.
3) Easy to use - Sounds obvious, but we saw buggies that had fancy one-handed folded mechanisms. Easier said than done, judging by our feeble attempts!
4) Car seat included - Although we don't have a car, the baby could be transported in a car sometime, and we'd need, by law, a car seat. In fact, we were told by the Hospital that we weren't allowed to leave with the baby unless we had a car seat (I think they're assuming we'd drive or get a taxi home)
5) Four/six wheel, not three wheel - Looking at the three-wheelers, we decided that they looked more like fashion accessories than good, functional buggies. The wheels were huge, complete with inner-tyres (i.e. susceptible to puncture...) and would be brilliant for traversing the moors of Devon or Cornwall, but maybe a bit too much for the streets of Brighton. Also, we'd never fit one on a bus without taking up too much space, earning the sorts of disapproving looks we'd seen before.
In short, what we needed was a "travel system" (a sort of all-in-one buggy), and we concentrated on looking for one of those. First, we started at the local Mothercare, where there was a very reasonable system for sale which included a change bag, rain cover and other bits and bobs (that we probably didn't need).
We checked out various websites and I drove my workmates mad by continually asking if they could recommend a good buggy. We even went to a huge shop in Haywards Heath where an entire floor was devoted to just buggies. After "umming" and "ahhing" over things, we looked at one another, thought a collective "sod this for a game of soldiers" and left. Well, Michele bought some blankets, just so it wasn't seen as a wasted trip.
Thanks to luck, fate, or some trick of irony, we ended up going back to the local Mothercare and buying the very first travel system we saw. As Americans say, go figure.
The girls there put it together for us (not that I'm incapable, just that they assured us it wouldn't be any bother) and I ended up wheeling an empty buggy to a nearby taxi rank. It was the first time I had pushed a buggy, and it was a weird feeling....
As the time approached, Michele went on Maternity leave from work, and received lots of lovely presents and cards from her workmates. She started this on May 1st, reckoning that she had about three weeks before Junior made an appearance.
As the weeks went by, my work colleagues could sense me getting edgier by the minute, and made special allowances. I was due to spend the day in another hospital working on their x-ray machines with one of my colleagues, but she suggested that I didn't come, just in case the baby came early. A very nice thought, and one that was greatly appreciated.
I had set up several sweepstakes for when the baby was born, the sex (as we still didn't know), the weight, and date/ time of arrival. There's always someone who puts a late date in there, and I was hoping against hope that he wouldn't win, as that would mean a late baby.
It finally came round to the 20th May, a Saturday, and my workmates had all wished me well on the Friday, thinking they would not see me for another three weeks (I had booked two weeks paternity leave, one week of annual leave). I was expecting something to happen at night; you know, that scenario when the wife wakes the husband up in the small hours and breathlessly says "Honey, I think it's coming!". Nothing like that happened on Friday night, and Saturday morning came just as uneventfully.
What do you do when you're waiting for something like this to happen? Play scrabble? Have a cuppa? Talk about world politics? I couldn't remember Dr Stoppard saying anything about the actual waiting in her book. We sat there in the lounge twiddling our thumbs, exchanging the occasional nervous glance, trying not to ask aloud what was screaming in our heads - where was this baby, then?
By the evening, we decided to stuff it all and go out for a meal (the "last supper", I called it) and we went to a local place we often eat at. It was fairly quiet for a Saturday, and we sat in the back section, enjoying the change of location and the fact that we were doing something "normal" that "normal" people do, "normal" meaning "not due to drop a sprog at any moment". I very unselfishly gave up watching that night's Dr Who so we could have an early meal. It was the least I could do.
You can't ignore a pregnant woman's bump. It's too obvious (unlike, say, an ingrowing toenail) and people will react to it, mostly nicely. Throughout the later stages of pregnancy, especially, people had given way to Michele, allowing her to go first through doorways, giving her the best seats on the bus etc. - the milk of human kindness in action. Whatever the reaction, you just can't help noticing a pregnant bump and, if appropriate, commenting on it.
"So when are you due?" asked the waiter as we finished our meal and paid using those new portable credit card reader things.
"Oh, today", answered Michele.
The waiter took a step back. "Oh, really?" he nervously asked.
We assured him we were ok and he went on to tell us about how he was "a little bit late" himself. It was all very pleasant and we had a lovely meal, but I bet that waiter's wages that he was standing there thinking to himself, "Please don't let this lady's waters break on my shift...!!"
The rest of the evening went quietly, with Michele having a bath to relax herself.
As we settled down to sleep, we both sighed inside - the due date, which we had concentrated on and worked towards, had come and gone with no sign of the baby.....
The rooms were re-arranged, the bits and bobs were bought (even the buggy) and we were left waiting (im)patiently for the birth.
But first, back to that buggy. I never knew that shopping for one thing would be so difficult, but this proved to be a mammoth task. The more we thought about it, the more criteria we came up with, namely...
1) Cheap - Didn't seem worth spending a fortune on something we wouldn't be using for very long.
2) Portable - Whatever it was, it shouldn't weigh a tonne. We had to use Public Transport so would have to cart the buggy on and off numerous buses over time. It'd be no use buying a tank of a buggy.
3) Easy to use - Sounds obvious, but we saw buggies that had fancy one-handed folded mechanisms. Easier said than done, judging by our feeble attempts!
4) Car seat included - Although we don't have a car, the baby could be transported in a car sometime, and we'd need, by law, a car seat. In fact, we were told by the Hospital that we weren't allowed to leave with the baby unless we had a car seat (I think they're assuming we'd drive or get a taxi home)
5) Four/six wheel, not three wheel - Looking at the three-wheelers, we decided that they looked more like fashion accessories than good, functional buggies. The wheels were huge, complete with inner-tyres (i.e. susceptible to puncture...) and would be brilliant for traversing the moors of Devon or Cornwall, but maybe a bit too much for the streets of Brighton. Also, we'd never fit one on a bus without taking up too much space, earning the sorts of disapproving looks we'd seen before.
In short, what we needed was a "travel system" (a sort of all-in-one buggy), and we concentrated on looking for one of those. First, we started at the local Mothercare, where there was a very reasonable system for sale which included a change bag, rain cover and other bits and bobs (that we probably didn't need).
We checked out various websites and I drove my workmates mad by continually asking if they could recommend a good buggy. We even went to a huge shop in Haywards Heath where an entire floor was devoted to just buggies. After "umming" and "ahhing" over things, we looked at one another, thought a collective "sod this for a game of soldiers" and left. Well, Michele bought some blankets, just so it wasn't seen as a wasted trip.
Thanks to luck, fate, or some trick of irony, we ended up going back to the local Mothercare and buying the very first travel system we saw. As Americans say, go figure.
The girls there put it together for us (not that I'm incapable, just that they assured us it wouldn't be any bother) and I ended up wheeling an empty buggy to a nearby taxi rank. It was the first time I had pushed a buggy, and it was a weird feeling....
As the time approached, Michele went on Maternity leave from work, and received lots of lovely presents and cards from her workmates. She started this on May 1st, reckoning that she had about three weeks before Junior made an appearance.
As the weeks went by, my work colleagues could sense me getting edgier by the minute, and made special allowances. I was due to spend the day in another hospital working on their x-ray machines with one of my colleagues, but she suggested that I didn't come, just in case the baby came early. A very nice thought, and one that was greatly appreciated.
I had set up several sweepstakes for when the baby was born, the sex (as we still didn't know), the weight, and date/ time of arrival. There's always someone who puts a late date in there, and I was hoping against hope that he wouldn't win, as that would mean a late baby.
It finally came round to the 20th May, a Saturday, and my workmates had all wished me well on the Friday, thinking they would not see me for another three weeks (I had booked two weeks paternity leave, one week of annual leave). I was expecting something to happen at night; you know, that scenario when the wife wakes the husband up in the small hours and breathlessly says "Honey, I think it's coming!". Nothing like that happened on Friday night, and Saturday morning came just as uneventfully.
What do you do when you're waiting for something like this to happen? Play scrabble? Have a cuppa? Talk about world politics? I couldn't remember Dr Stoppard saying anything about the actual waiting in her book. We sat there in the lounge twiddling our thumbs, exchanging the occasional nervous glance, trying not to ask aloud what was screaming in our heads - where was this baby, then?
By the evening, we decided to stuff it all and go out for a meal (the "last supper", I called it) and we went to a local place we often eat at. It was fairly quiet for a Saturday, and we sat in the back section, enjoying the change of location and the fact that we were doing something "normal" that "normal" people do, "normal" meaning "not due to drop a sprog at any moment". I very unselfishly gave up watching that night's Dr Who so we could have an early meal. It was the least I could do.
You can't ignore a pregnant woman's bump. It's too obvious (unlike, say, an ingrowing toenail) and people will react to it, mostly nicely. Throughout the later stages of pregnancy, especially, people had given way to Michele, allowing her to go first through doorways, giving her the best seats on the bus etc. - the milk of human kindness in action. Whatever the reaction, you just can't help noticing a pregnant bump and, if appropriate, commenting on it.
"So when are you due?" asked the waiter as we finished our meal and paid using those new portable credit card reader things.
"Oh, today", answered Michele.
The waiter took a step back. "Oh, really?" he nervously asked.
We assured him we were ok and he went on to tell us about how he was "a little bit late" himself. It was all very pleasant and we had a lovely meal, but I bet that waiter's wages that he was standing there thinking to himself, "Please don't let this lady's waters break on my shift...!!"
The rest of the evening went quietly, with Michele having a bath to relax herself.
As we settled down to sleep, we both sighed inside - the due date, which we had concentrated on and worked towards, had come and gone with no sign of the baby.....
posted by Mark Powell | 3:20 AM
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