nothing I can do about the fact a baby is going to push its way out of my body sometime very soon. The absolute certainty of it is brain-freezing.
Still, I’m not due until the eighth, and that’s over a week away, so I should be fine right?
Yeah, right…
Most women are fortunate enough to have their waters break in the confines of their own home.
Me, I choose to do it in front of hundreds of people, with a husband flapping like an injured crow.
We’d been wandering around the gigantic shopping centre for half an hour and I was already starting to flag. Even the rather cute red cardigan I’d just picked up in Monsoon for half price wasn’t keeping my mood buoyant.
My head ached, my piles were itching like mad, my ankles were throbbing, and my enormous floppy tits felt red raw.
HUGE floppy tits they are.
Engorged with more milk than the dairy aisle at Tesco.
I feel like somebody should string a cow bell around my neck and herd me into the nearest pasture.
I waddle through the shopping centre like a great barge drifting down river, surrounded by faster, more agile yachts.
I see teenage girls prancing around in tiny jean shorts and leggings, and I hate them. Hate them and their young, thin healthy bodies. I’m only in my early thirties but being pregnant makes me feel like a fifty year old fat man on the brink of a heart attack.
There’s something exquisitely frustrating about only being able to move at a slow pace. I can understand why obese people always have red faces now. It’s not because they’re out of breath, it’s just because they’re pissed off they can’t get to the donut stand any quicker.
Jamie is doing what all men do in situations like this: trying his hardest to contain his impatience, and failing miserably.
‘Where do you want to go now?’ he says, circling me like a small moon. ‘Dixons? Primark? John Lewis?’
‘I don’t know! Why do you keep giving me choices? You bloody choose.’
‘I don’t know. Wherever you want really,’ he tells me, jiggling up and down on the spot and obviously chaffing at my stately pace.
This is one habit of my husband’s I could cheerfully beat out of him.
He always leaves it to me to make the decisions about this sort of thing. I came into his life purely so he could abstain from any decision making - thus leaving more room in his brain for Playstation 3 games and Top Gear.
‘I guess we could look round John Lewis,’ I sigh and begin to change direction. I’m like one of those oil tankers that need five miles just to turn around.
‘Yeah, okay, that sounds good. Maybe we could get mum and dad a coffee machi – Oh! The Apple shop’s over there!’
…and there goes any chance of us finding a present in the next hour.
‘Go on,’ I groan like a parent with an over-excited seven year old. ‘You go in and I’ll catch up.’
Jamie grins, kisses me on the cheek and is lost in the never-ending crowd in an instant. I rub my back for the millionth time that day, and once again change trajectory to bring my bulk on a close entry orbit with the clean, white edifice that is the Apple store.
Inside, Jamie is stroking an iPad like it’s his first born.
His soon to be real first born is moving around to get into a more comfy position, causing her mother to wince with discomfort as she wobbles her way past the Genius Bar.
I hate going into this shop for the plain and simple reason I don’t like being around objects that have been fondled by thousands of people.
The build up of bacteria and germs on each and every iPad, iPhone and iPod in here would be enough to knock out several invading armies of Martians.
If the influenza virus was going to throw a party it would do it in the nearest Apple shop.
I look at Jamie rubbing his fingers over the iPad and resolve to not let him get near me until he’s submerged his hands in neat Domestos for ten minutes.
I try not to imagine the microscopic creatures crawling all over me, so instead
Still, I’m not due until the eighth, and that’s over a week away, so I should be fine right?
Yeah, right…
Most women are fortunate enough to have their waters break in the confines of their own home.
Me, I choose to do it in front of hundreds of people, with a husband flapping like an injured crow.
We’d been wandering around the gigantic shopping centre for half an hour and I was already starting to flag. Even the rather cute red cardigan I’d just picked up in Monsoon for half price wasn’t keeping my mood buoyant.
My head ached, my piles were itching like mad, my ankles were throbbing, and my enormous floppy tits felt red raw.
HUGE floppy tits they are.
Engorged with more milk than the dairy aisle at Tesco.
I feel like somebody should string a cow bell around my neck and herd me into the nearest pasture.
I waddle through the shopping centre like a great barge drifting down river, surrounded by faster, more agile yachts.
I see teenage girls prancing around in tiny jean shorts and leggings, and I hate them. Hate them and their young, thin healthy bodies. I’m only in my early thirties but being pregnant makes me feel like a fifty year old fat man on the brink of a heart attack.
There’s something exquisitely frustrating about only being able to move at a slow pace. I can understand why obese people always have red faces now. It’s not because they’re out of breath, it’s just because they’re pissed off they can’t get to the donut stand any quicker.
Jamie is doing what all men do in situations like this: trying his hardest to contain his impatience, and failing miserably.
‘Where do you want to go now?’ he says, circling me like a small moon. ‘Dixons? Primark? John Lewis?’
‘I don’t know! Why do you keep giving me choices? You bloody choose.’
‘I don’t know. Wherever you want really,’ he tells me, jiggling up and down on the spot and obviously chaffing at my stately pace.
This is one habit of my husband’s I could cheerfully beat out of him.
He always leaves it to me to make the decisions about this sort of thing. I came into his life purely so he could abstain from any decision making - thus leaving more room in his brain for Playstation 3 games and Top Gear.
‘I guess we could look round John Lewis,’ I sigh and begin to change direction. I’m like one of those oil tankers that need five miles just to turn around.
‘Yeah, okay, that sounds good. Maybe we could get mum and dad a coffee machi – Oh! The Apple shop’s over there!’
…and there goes any chance of us finding a present in the next hour.
‘Go on,’ I groan like a parent with an over-excited seven year old. ‘You go in and I’ll catch up.’
Jamie grins, kisses me on the cheek and is lost in the never-ending crowd in an instant. I rub my back for the millionth time that day, and once again change trajectory to bring my bulk on a close entry orbit with the clean, white edifice that is the Apple store.
Inside, Jamie is stroking an iPad like it’s his first born.
His soon to be real first born is moving around to get into a more comfy position, causing her mother to wince with discomfort as she wobbles her way past the Genius Bar.
I hate going into this shop for the plain and simple reason I don’t like being around objects that have been fondled by thousands of people.
The build up of bacteria and germs on each and every iPad, iPhone and iPod in here would be enough to knock out several invading armies of Martians.
If the influenza virus was going to throw a party it would do it in the nearest Apple shop.
I look at Jamie rubbing his fingers over the iPad and resolve to not let him get near me until he’s submerged his hands in neat Domestos for ten minutes.
I try not to imagine the microscopic creatures crawling all over me, so instead
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