Read Love... And Sleepless Nights MAY 2012 Online
Authors: Nick Spalding
Heart rates increasing, we watch Narinda take another pass.
Finally, she lets out a short laugh of satisfaction and focuses in on one point. ‘There we go, there’s your baby.’
…and indeed, there it is.
The child growing inside me.
The blob that will one day become a child, anyway.
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ Jamie asks in a dreamy voice.
‘Too early to say, Mr Newman,’ Narinda tells him.
It’s wobbling.
The tiny peanut shaped foetus is moving about.
Aaarrgghh! There’s a person inside me moving around!! Aaarrgghh!!
Why did no-one bloody warn me?!
All you ever hear about is doe-eyed mothers listening to the heartbeat for the first time, and getting all misty eyed while they gaze at the creature lurking in their womb on a small, hazy television screen.
They don’t mention the bizarre feeling that comes with realising there’s a living thing floating around inside your body, taking up valuable real estate and nicking half your food.
There’s a word for things that do that: parasite!
Aaarrghhh!!
‘Wow. That’s so cool,’ Jamie says.
Well, he bloody
would
, wouldn’t he?
He loved Alien - and all the sequels. It’s not him that this thing is going to erupt from in a few months and proceed to systematically murder everyone on board ship!
…okay. I have to get a grip here. I’m just having a pregnancy panic. This isn’t the first and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I’m giving birth to a baby… not the Alien.
I take a few deep breaths as I study the image on screen. The foetus jiggles again making my heart race, but the more I look at it, the more used I become to the concept that I have a living, breathing human being inside me.
‘Would you like to hear the heartbeat?’ Narinda asks, knowing full well what the answer will be. Jamie and I both nod – him a little more enthusiastically than me if I’m being honest.
‘This is the part I love the most,’ the sonographer says happily, turning up the volume.
It’s like listening to the sound of the universe…
The measured ‘thump-thump, thump-thump’ is almost hypnotic. It fills the room – and it fills my entire body.
I look at Jamie. This time the child-like expression on his face is beautiful. He looks completely awestruck.
I’m sure I look exactly the same way.
‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’ Narinda says in a calm voice.
It takes me a few moments to form words. ‘Yes,’ I tell her, mouth as dry as the
thump-thump
of my baby’s heart. I could listen to it forever.
‘It sounds like the start of an AC/DC song,’ Jamie says, doing his usual brilliant job of ruining a perfect moment.
‘What?’ both Narinda and I say at the same time.
‘Yeah! You know… da-dah, da da-dah, da-dah, da da-dah.’ He starts miming playing the drums. I start to consider divorce proceedings.
Then, to compound matters, he starts to sing.
‘
The video game says play me…
’ It’s an awful screeching voice, like a cat having its testicles squeezed in a vice. ‘
Face
it on a level, but it takes you every time on a one-on-one…
’ he continues, until he realises we’re both staring at him. ‘You know... it’s Who Made Who, isn’t it? Great song.’ Jamie points at the ultrasound screen. ‘Even the kid likes it.’
I look back at the screen and yes - oh good God in Heaven yes - it looks like one tiny arm is raised above the rest of the body.
My unborn foetus - still too small to even have an identifiable gender – has one arm aloft in a fist-pump.
I’m going to give birth to a heavy metal fan.
Narinda turns the volume back down with a huff.
I can’t blame her attitude. She’s probably not used to having what she obviously perceives to be a magical moment reduced to an excuse for a fully grown man to play air drums.
‘Your baby looks perfectly healthy at this stage, Mr and Mrs Newman. The heart beat is strong and regular.’ And in the key of C apparently. ‘I detect no problems, and am happy to book you in for your next scan in a few weeks, when we should be able to identify the gender, if you want to know it.’
Don’t bother Narinda. It’s obvious from the fist-pump I’m having a boy.
‘Thank you very much. It’s very nice to have our minds set at rest, isn’t it Jamie?’
Jamie doesn’t answer.
He’s sat there with his eyes closed, humming the first few chords of Who Made Who under his breath, fingers twitching rhythmically in his lap.
‘Jamie!’
‘What?’ he exclaims, startled out of the rock concert going on in his head. ‘Oh yeah, er…
yeah
. Minds definitely set at rest. Thanks very much for your time.’ He beams at Narinda, then looks back at me. ‘Hey Laura,’ he says, pointing at my stomach. ‘That stuff looks just like the gloop from the Alien movies doesn’t it?’
Somehow, Jamie manages to make it out of the room without the transducer inserted into his backside.
This once again displays my sometimes superhuman levels of tolerance.
The drive home is a thoughtful one… for me at least.
Rather inevitably, I’m subjected to AC/DC’s greatest hits.
As Jamie headbangs along to the caterwauling noise, I sit back and think about what’s just happened.
An involuntary hand goes to my belly as I remember the sound of the baby’s heartbeat. A wonderful feeling of contentment passes through me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still absolutely terrified about the whole thing…
We can’t afford a baby, I can’t imagine the damage it’s going to do to my vagina; and having a child changes your life in ways you can’t even begin to contemplate.
But that heartbeat is undeniable… and
amazing
.
This is going to be a rollercoaster ride that I won’t be able to get off.
And like a rollercoaster ride, it’ll involve a lot of vomit and will end with me screaming my head off.
Love you, miss you, and have a new found appreciation for the twelve hours of labour you went through with me Mum.
Your contemplative daughter,
Laura
xxx
Tuesday 11 June
In recent days I have been thinking only of the things I will now never be able to afford, thanks to my inability to control my semen distribution.
I read a horrifying statistic once – back when I was young, single and didn’t care about such things – that a child costs upwards of £200,000 to bring to adulthood.
Two hundred grand.
That’s a three bed semi-detached, people.
…or a Lamborghini Diablo for the weekends and a second hand Porsche 911 for the drive to work.
…or several luxury cruises round the world, a year long cocaine binge, and a daily blow job from a high class escort girl for several months.
I’m not saying I would ever have actually
purchased
any of these wonderful things, but just the mere fact I no longer
can
makes me sick.
I’m trying my hardest to be positive about the pregnancy, I really am. But when your offspring is still a couple of inches of cells inside your wife’s uterus, it’s a little hard to focus on how adorable, intelligent or good at mowing the lawn they are likely to be in years to come.
All I can dwell on is the downside.
Mainly the raping my bank account is going to continually endure - but also the fact I’m going to have to take on the responsibility of bringing up a child in this strange, challenging and 18 certificate world.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you’ll know that Jamie Newman and considered, thoughtful, adult behaviour are about as far apart as Katie Price’s legs.
How the hell am I supposed to convince a child that I have anything worthwhile to contribute to their existence?
Laura is the exact opposite of me, of course. She’s built for this stuff.
Running your own shop for years builds an innate ability to plan and organise; skills she’s putting into good use with the pregnancy. There must be some German in her family background, as the Teutonic way she’s going about this thing is hair-raising to say the least.
She’s already booked in the midwife appointments months in advance, can recite the timeline of a pregnancy down to the nanosecond, and has started putting together a birth pack for the trip to the hospital.
She also likes to regale me with graphic, stomach churning descriptions of what’s happening to her body. It’s putting me off sex good and proper.
I have a feeling this is deliberate.
Laura positively glows with all those hormones floating about inside her body, making her look about as sexy as it’s possible to be without a soft focus lens and a Barry White soundtrack. I basically want to fuck her every second she’s awake.
…actually, scratch that, I’d probably insert my penis into her mouth while she’s sound asleep if I thought I could get away with it.
The stories about giving birth she likes to terrify and disgust me with (accompanied by the God-awful pictures she’s pulled off the internet) are her way of quelling the Newman horn long enough for her to get on with her day without me hanging off her leg like a rutting hound.
We’re now way past twelve weeks into the pregnancy, which means the threat of miscarriage has diminished considerably. I didn’t even know this until Laura happily announced it a few days ago. The fact that she could have miscarried hadn’t occurred to me.
…I’m terrible at this, aren’t I?
It’s customary after that particular milestone to start telling friends and relatives about the newest member of the human population.
We thought the best way would be to arrange a couple of impromptu get-togethers at our house on consecutive nights – one for friends and one for relatives. Anyone who couldn’t attend would get told via Facebook.