[b]I guess the trouble started when my sperm reached her egg. That’s not to say it wasn’t planned. We had the calendar out, the calculator and everything. We checked all the moon cycles going. At least, she did; my wife, my dreamer wife.
I sort of knew I was ready to be a dad. At least I felt it was time. I was thirty two. I didn’t want to be some old bloke wheezing around the slides and swings, pretending to be dynamic. I didn’t really think about it much. I was too busy with work. I was made redundant at thirty which was a real blow. I thought it only happened to fifty-year olds. After a few months of unemployment, I set up my own internet business selling pet insurance. Yeah, it sounds silly but you’d be amazed how many people want to protect their darling moggies and woof-woofs.
My dreamer wife (her name is Hazel and she hates it when I call her Purple Haze or Hazy with occasional wind) talked of nothing else but babies for a whole year, every evening, every weekend. She kept saying it would be nice to have a little boy, a little me running around the house and I started to believe her
After obsessively keeping my sperm as far away from a womb as possible, I took the plunge. It wasn’t easy. The act, as always, was a doddle but it took three months before I managed to hit the bull’s eye; three frustrating months where, in the end, I struggled with getting an erection. It didn’t help that Hazel had Facebooked half of Nigerians to say we were trying for a baby. It was like wheeling our bed onto the X Factor stage and asking M.I for an opinion, ‘nothing beyond karaoke in the bedroom with this act’.
It was a bloody relief to score a goal in the end and that sense of finally getting the job done tricked me into thinking the job was finally done. It was only just beginning.
We had set off in the Starship Enterprise to the galaxy of swollen ankles, nausea and unexplained bleeding. Hazel’s body changed. Her hands and feet would swell but this was nothing to the growth of her breasts. They were wonderfully full, almost bursting. I was not allowed to touch or explore her new body. Part of me didn’t want to because it wasn’t really Hazel anymore but another part of me wanted to on a very basic animalistic level.
We were in a new galaxy but everything was manageable; except for the hormones. No one prepares you for the hormones. In month two, I woke one morning to see Hazel sat upright in bed staring at me.
‘What’s wrong? Are you okay?’
‘Are you okay?’
‘What do you mean?’
I was conscious of my morning erection. When a woman is pregnant, your dick becomes offensive. ‘Get that old shotgun out the house before it goes off.’
'I had a horrible dream,’ said Hazel, ‘You were lying where you are now and wheezing and coughing. You ended up choking to death.’
‘Well, I’m alright now,’ I laughed.
‘It was very real, REX.’
‘Dreams tend to be.’
‘It scared me.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m fine.’
She held me tight. I was thrown by the way she looked at me, like someone who had returned from the dead. I mean it was just a silly dream, right? If a dream is vivid, it doesn’t mean someone is looking into the future, does it? It’s just the pregnancy. She’ll be fine when the baby’s here.
In month three, I developed a nasty rash around my penis and balls. The doctor said it was stress-related but Hazel said it was syphilis and would eat its way into my brain, eventually killing me. I was just worried my willy would dry up and drop off but, luckily, the rash cleared up with some ointment.
In month four, I got a sore throat that felt as if I’d swallowed razors. It turned into laryngitis. Hazel was convinced it was throat cancer. I couldn’t argue because I couldn’t speak. I frantically scribbled down reason and logic but she refused to read the notepad. I had cancer and that was that. Luckily my voice came back but she still suspected it was malignant. I kept checking my throat, armpits and balls for lumps.
In month five when I got back from a meeting, I opened the front door to find Hazel stood waiting for me. Her eyes were red.
‘You made me jump.’
‘Thank god you’re back. I was worried you’d lost control of the car on a roundabout, flown through the windscreen and sliced your head off.’
‘Ssh. Calm down. I’m back in one piece.’
But what if her hormones gave her a heightened sense of awareness? It was easy as a man to palm it off as a female thing but what if she had a sixth sense of my impending doom? I tried not to think about it.
I kept a cool head and humoured her until month six but then something bad happened. I reversed out of the drive and ran over a black cat. It didn’t have a collar so there was, luckily, no owner to approach. As I looked at its soft body under the wheel, I felt a tear on my cheek. I hadn’t cried for years and managed to stop myself from blubbering by slapping my cheek. It was the stress but I took it as a sign, a bad omen. I didn’t tell Hazel what had happened and dumped the cat in a bin down the street.
In month seven, I went to switch on the gas cooker.
'Stop,’ she screamed, ‘don’t touch it.’
‘What is it?’
'Just…just don’t do it. I’m…I just know that if you touch it you’re going to blow up.’
‘But you used it this morning.’
‘I know, I know but I…you need to trust me on this...if you switch it on you’ll be blown to pieces.’
Did she want me to be blown to smithereens? Was that it? Was it a subconscious desire to kill me off? Was my job of donating sperm done? Was she like a preying mantis? She was confusing me. I thought I was calm, in control but she was getting me stressed. She clutched her stomach.
‘Are you alright.’
‘He’s kicking.’
‘How do you know it’s a he?’
‘Because I want a boy.’
I didn’t touch the cooker. Soon, I was banned from all electrical appliances in case I set myself on fire or, by extension, blew up myself and my pregnant wife.
It got out of hand by month eight. I’d just enjoyed a particularly relaxing crap (my last safe haven) and was flushing the toilet when the door rattled.
‘Get out, get out. You’ll drown. The system’s breaking.’
The system was definitely breaking. I was banned from flushing the loo and using the shower and had to wash in the sink. I feel ashamed that I went along with this but when a woman is pregnant she becomes Mother Earth and you contradict her at your peril. Plus, the guilt was too much. Women are the card sharks of guilt. You can argue all you want with them but you’ll always feel bad. It would get back to normal after the birth. It would be fine then.
Soon, I was like some fairy tale princess avoiding the prick of sharp objects, the pea under the mattress. I started to fear the outdoors, the unpredictable noises that seeped through the window. There are so many ways to get hurt. I felt tiny and weak. I was supposed to be looking after her but she wouldn’t let me.
In the ninth month, she woke me at three in the morning.
‘Is it time?’ I asked.
‘Don’t ever leave me.’
‘What?’
'Promise you’ll never leave me now that I’m fat and ugly.’
‘Come on honey, you’re not ugly. You’re beautiful, now go back to sleep.’
‘But I’m fat?’
‘No. You’re not fat. You’re pregnant.’
‘So I am fat then. It’s not just my stomach that’s big. It’s my arse and everything.’
'Hazel, I love you dearly. You’re gorgeous but I need to sleep. I really need to sleep.’
‘I thought as much. You’re suffering from concussion. You banged your head earlier.’
‘I’m just tired.’
‘Don’t close your eyes. Stay awake.’
'For Christ’s sake, stop it. I’ve had enough of this. I need to bloody sleep,’ I shouted.
She started to cry. I stayed with her for two hours, reassuring her that I wasn’t concussed. I managed to sleep after she’d dropped off.
On the following day, while I was trying to quietly put together the baby cot without her knowing, she rushed in to the spare room.
'Don’t do it. The side will collapse and break your knee cap.’
She fell to the floor. Her water had broken. I checked she was alright then headed for the door.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Getting the bag and car keys. We need to get to hospital.’
‘You can’t drive. We’ll end up crashing into a bus stop and dying on impact. I’ll drive.’
I tried my best to dissuade her but she ended up screaming and asking if I wanted to kill my son before he was even born. She drove and she drove fast. Her revs were affected by her contractions and we narrowly avoided three accidents. I was ashamed. I should have stopped her driving but didn’t want to upset her and cause her to give birth in the car. Besides, all this madness would soon be over.
She banned me from the delivery room in case I accidentally tripped and electrocuted myself on the machines. I’d really wanted to be there to witness the birth but didn’t want to raise her blood pressure and put her at risk.
Well, she was right about one thing: we had a boy. We’d half discussed names but not reached a decision. He was named after her father. We hadn’t even discussed this.
I smiled and looked down at Edward who was wrapped in a soft blanket, lying in a plastic cot that looked like a large Tupperware box. I felt fantastic, strong without kidding myself I was macho. Fear of the outside and electrical appliances was forgotten. I had my boy to play with and I was complete.
As I lifted him to my chest, he was snatched away by Hazel.
‘Be careful. You nearly dropped him. Imagine his soft head hitting this hard floor.’
I barely got to hold him from then onwards and, when we got home, realised I was in the way. I could jump in the bath with a plugged-in toaster for all Hazel cared. I tried to talk to her about it but she told me to ‘grow up’. Maybe I’m being immature and selfish. After all, we’ve got a baby to look after, adult commitments.
I guess it’s time to sleep. I’m lying on a mattress in Edward’s room looking up at the luminous spinning mobile. His cot is waiting to be put together and he’s in bed with Hazel. It’s best that I sleep in here for the moment so that I don’t disturb him with my snoring and fidgeting. Hazel said I woke him more than once on our first night. She’d also read something about babies being squashed to death from parents rolling onto them. I said he’d be better off sleeping in his cot but was asked in a whisper if I really wanted him to have a cot death.
It’s only temporary. We’ll get back to normal in a week or two. Her hormones will sort themselves out once she stops breastfeeding.[/b]
