Goodbye, Pert Breasts: The Diary of a Newborn Dad

They’ve all gone to pot, our timescales. I don’t know if I’m coming or going. I spend my minutes in a wide-eyed stupor as I look fleetingly around the room, knees huddled by my chin.

OK, so maybe I’m being a bit melodramatic; but we’ve had to tell people two weeks early. I’m not actually bothered about it, I just thought I’d turn my hand to some gripping writing. Turns out I’m ace at it.

But yes, the cat’s out of the bag. The beans have been spilt. My mother-in-law guessed that Jess was pregnant using her mother’s intuition and her eyes (Jess’ bump is getting big. I hope it’s mostly fluid, otherwise I’m expecting a gargantuan beast of a baby in a few months’ time. Boy, I would not like to push that out). Jess was caught off guard, and the truth was revealed. For the sake of fairness, we told my family as well. This is pretty much how it panned out.

We went to my mum’s house first. We brainstormed vehemently during the twenty minute journey, concluding that the best way of delivering the news was to give her a birthday card signed “from Ben, Jess, Isaac and your second grandchild”…it was her birthday a couple of days earlier, you see. We weren’t just buying her a birthday card out of the blue; that would have frazzled her already ageing brain and probably plunged her into Alzheimer’s. She read the card and initially had quite a mellow reaction.

“Oh, it’s another crossword scenario, is it?” she said, with a grin on her face. Don’t get too embroiled in the crossword thing; it’s how we told her about Jess’ pregnancy with Isaac, and is a long story.

It was only when my youngest sister read the card and started whooping like some kind of startled jungle monkey that my mother joined in, obviously spurred on by her now-gasping daughter. Seeking refuge from the living room – which by this point sounded like the depths of the Amazon – I went upstairs to ring my dad.

Just as I told him the news, the line went deathly silent. I had images of my father clutching his mobile, his jaw on his lap, breath wheezing in grandfatherly pride. Instead, it turned out to be a dropped signal, as he came back on the line mid-sentence. Oh well – my dad never was one for thespian reactions, but he was still thrilled.

How I imagine my dad looked, but without the Asian-ness.

Next, I rang my other sister, who was settling in at uni.

“Hi, are you sober?” I open with, chuckling at my own inimitable wit – although I was being a bit serious, despite it being only six in the evening. Freshers week, you see. Anyway, I tell her the good news, and she screams for nigh on three whole minutes.

Next, we drive to Jess’ sister, who is recovering from knee surgery and was just about conscious enough to congratulate us. Finally, the grandparents, who are excited but in a calm way, so as to stave off heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, that kind of thing.

At around ten weeks you’ll be invited to a ‘booking in’ appointment with your midwife, which for us was down at the local hospital. During this meeting they’ll give you your green notes, which is a booklet which contains everything relating to the pregnancy and is, perhaps unsurprisingly, green.

Just a warning: during this appointment they ask endless questions, about pretty much everything to do with your life. Questions such as “Do you have or have you ever had herpes?” and “Is the child Ben’s?” – which made me listen intently. Fortunately, it is.

There was one point during the incessant questioning where I could hold back no longer. The midwife was listing foods that Jess should keep away from: swordfish, shark, peanuts, pâté…and then she mentioned soft cheese. She reeled off Brie, Camembert, ticking each one off on a podgy finger. She was just about to carry on, when I took my chance.

“You’re partial to cheese-CAKE, aren’t you?” I say, turning to look intently at Jess; who looks back, po-faced and rather confused.

“I-erm-not really…” she whispers, leaning in to my Cheshire-cat face. I know full well that she’s not a big cheesecake fan, but continue nonetheless.

“Is that safe…cheesecake?” I say, looking at the midwife, who has a bewildered expression.

If it isn't, we're suing you.

“Umm…yes…” she says, slowly, probably assessing my mental history in her own mind as she eyes me up and down. I sit back in my chair, arms folded, smug expression.

The midwife, after weighing Jess and measuring her height, packs her off to pee into a tiny tube; leaving just us in the room. I think of possible conversation topics, but she is scribbling intently on Jess’ forms, obviously faking to avoid talking to me, so I let her scribble. After a few minutes Jess returns, proudly clutching a small vial of golden liquid, and plonks it triumphantly on the midwife’s desk. Her complacent expression is soon drained when the midwife explains that she is now going to take a blood sample – Jess has quite the phobia of needles, often passing out whenever approached for an injection. When we were pregnant with Isaac and she had blood taken, it took fifteen minutes of sitting down in the hospital corridor and three Crème Eggs before she was able to walk to the car.

This time, however, she was very brave. She told me afterwards that she managed to stave off unconsciousness by thinking about the route she was going to run the next day. She was an avid runner before we got pregnant but stopped when we found out, as we weren’t sure how much exercise she could have. It turns out, that exercise in moderation is fine, half an hour tops though. After taking what seems to be about twelve tubes of blood, the appointment is over and I usher the slightly woozy wife to the door.

“Come on you.” I say, soothingly. “Let’s go get you some cheesecake.”

Your baby has now begun to ‘breathe’ the amniotic fluid, and it also urinates – which is absorbed into your partner’s system and comes out when she pees. Her blood volume is also increasing by 40-50%, which is why you might be able to notice veins beneath the skin that you hadn’t seen before. These will return to normal following birth, but be sensitive to the fact that your mrs might be panicking that her chest looks like a road map and shower her with compliments.

Oh, congratulations by the way: your baby (measuring about an inch now from crown to rump) is no longer an embryo but officially a foetus – and no longer has a tail. Result!