Today is the day my baby is meant to emerge into the world, and so far there's been no sign. Not even a slight wobble. To say my wife is frustrated would be a supreme understatement.
For those of you not in the know I'm here to inform you about the 9 months fallacy. See a baby's gestational period is actually measured in weeks, with the baby due to pop out in week 40. Though to be even more confusing, a baby is technically term at 37 weeks, but full term at 40. Now if you're a lady with a wee parasite in your belly weeks 37 to 40 feels like about 6 months. Your bump is solid, the little wriggler is moving constantly, and your back feels like it's going to explode under the pressure. At night you can only sleep on your side, and if you stay on one for too long your leg starts to hurt like buggery. On top of that the weight of the alien on your bladder means you have to go to the toilet every 10 minutes. So people who go on about not sleeping when the baby comes, while right, have vastly underestimated what it's like before.
Now as someone who wakes up whenever a fly farts, this also means I've not been sleeping. This isn't me asking for sympathy, I know how lucky I am that a beautiful woman let me impregnate her that I'm fine with it all. The point I'm making is, by the time the squirt arrives you're already exhausted. Not to mention all the normal life stuff that needs to be done while you're in this situation.
Anyway, slight digression. The point of my post is to talk about the baby coming, or lack there of. See from 37 weeks you're on standby. You know that the little blighter could emerge at any moment, so any slight change can send you into overdrive. "Honey my stomach's gone hard and not stopped" "I've got the runs" "My belly's shifted!" All of the above will convince you that the time is now. Unfortunately it isn't. The body's just preparing itself, and the poor midwives on the other end of the phone are going to have to spend another 20 minutes calming you down. So you make it to 40 weeks and you're ready to have it out. But there's no sign.
From 37 weeks we tried everything to kick start labour. We were told the baby was engaged, and it was big and healthy; so we weren't taking unnecessary risks. Though if we had it didn't help anyway. You'll read online the various techniques to kick start labour and I can reveal now they're all bullshit. In the past 3 weeks my wife has ingested Pineapple, Raspberry Leaf tea, and spicy food by the truckload. We've walked about and done lots of the sex, but my baby has stood firm. I'm not that surprised that sex didn't work, because if I saw a giant pink sausage coming towards my front door, I'd stay in. Obviously when I say giant, I'm talking in scale to the baby.
I'd heard about the sexual kick start before we'd had a baby, and made all the jokes about a small hand reaching out and grabbing it. What I didn't realise until I read up was that it isn't the motion of the ocean (or the sun in the sky) that makes bubs appear; it's the man's sticky mess. Now here's the science bit, the baby's being held up by the lady's cervix (entrance - tee hee) which is all hard (like a carrot as a midwife in our anti natal class described it.) The Toni Braxton Hicks contractions a woman has during pregnancy act as a way of softening the cervix. Hopefully "ripening the carrot into a nice soft plum." When you do sex on a lady your love wee acts as a fabric softener on the cervix, thus helping the baby to pass through. Now this science could only have been written by a man, but I want to stand by it for obvious reasons. My favourite addendum to that is a Scientist who, at a pregnancy seminar, gave a speech stating that semen reacting with the gut is far more efficient; so women show blow their fellas to make their baby come. Either way, ladies you have to make your baby cum, to make your baby come.
So nothing's worked and we've got to our due date. My wife has battled through 40 weeks of pregnancy, and Baby Zee is still happily ensconced in Camp Mummy. So today I'm going to take a different approach to coaxing out the little beggar. Initially I suggested to Mrs Z that I should tie a Farley's Rusk to a bit of string and dangle it in front of her groin. She then pointed out that the baby has no knowledge of Rusks yet, so this would be futile; but could I go out and buy her some Rusks because I've now put the idea in her head. My first idea thwarted by baby ignorance I took the only path I could think of, music.
Unfortunately despite playing it against belly and downstairs lady parts; my child remained in their Womb Lair. Later I hope to make the wife jump up and down, scare her with my face and make her eat a chilli (actually did that yesterday, but another try can't help.) So here's me signing off, hoping that this post acts as a baby kick start. See Sod's Law dictates that if I publicly go on about how the baby isn't coming, it'll appear just to make me look like a prat. Here's hoping.
Z
Late addition thanks to Nathaniel Metcalfe.
