Be My Baby

Neil Humphreys

Description

When two lines appear on the pregnancy test kit, Humphreys' world is turned upside down. He is excited but clueless and urgently needs some directions. After all, his biggest responsibility to this point had been a pet hamster and he lost that twice. From the moment his doctor tells him to book an obstetrician's appointment, he knows he is out of his depth - he doesn't know what an obstetrician is.Humphreys deals with parents who mock his sex drive, midwives who question his usefulness, friends who share only horrific birth stories, strangers who rub his wife's belly and folks who seem to know everything there is to know about pregnancy (but often don't have kids of their own). And there's that troubling dream about her giving birth to a plastic toy lizard made in China.How will he deal with his parental insecurities? What's the secret to being a decent dad? Will he drop his baby at the birth? Both funny and poignant, Be My Baby is a frank account of Humphreys' quest to be a good father. Every parent will identify with his journey and perhaps begin to realise what they themselves put their mummy and daddy through, even in the womb.

Informations

• Publié par: MarshallCavendishM
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814484398
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright 2009 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
Cover and illustrations by Lock Hong Liang
Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Request for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: [phone], Fax: [phone]. E-mail: [e-mail]
The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no events be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Other Marshall Cavendish Offices
Marshall Cavendish Ltd. 5th Floor, 32-38 Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8FH, UK Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 10591-9001, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited
National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Humphreys, Neil.
Be my baby / Neil Humphreys. - Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, c2009.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978 981 4484 39 8
1. Fatherhood - Humor. 2. Pregnancy - Humor. 3. Humphreys, Neil - Humor.
I. Title.
HQ756
306.87420207 - dc22 OCN255864329
Printed in Singapore by Times Graphics Pte Ltd

Acknowledgements
Just a couple of days after hearing the good news, my mother called and suggested that the road to fatherhood had the makings of a book. With a hollow laugh, I dismissed the idea as impractical. I was about to become a first-time father, for heaven s sake. Where would I find the time?
Several months later, I called my mum to inform her that the book was almost finished and to thank her for such an ingenious idea. I still don t know where I found the time.
I am also indebted to Chris and the rest of the gang at Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) for being so loyal and supportive. Mei Lin sent adorably polite emails telling me to hurry up and Hong Liang produced a wonderfully zany cover while Katharine was always on hand to rein in the self-indulgence and minimise the swearing.
This journey began with one mother s idea and finished with another s bravery. This book could not have been written without its inspirational central character. My heroic wife agreed to let me follow her around for almost nine months with a notepad while asking daft questions like So how many times did you pee last night, mate? Was it six or seven?
Thanks, Tracy, for just about everything really.
for the little heifer ...
Friday, 5 October 2007
Two lines. There they were. Two lines. Oh shit. Two lines. Surely, it was a dream sequence. Two lines. I was treading water in slow motion. The bathroom took on surrealist qualities. True, I had just watched my wife pee on a plastic contraption but that only added to the slightly out-of-body experience. I had never watched my wife urinate on a plastic contraption before, but then it would prove to be a day of firsts.
A moment earlier, she had passed me the oval-shaped, white plastic contraption. It reminded me of a fried egg-a fried egg that someone had just peed on.
Lay it flat on the top of the toilet, my toilet-bound wife ordered.
Why have I got to take it? It s covered in piss, I replied petulantly, clearly taking the shine off the potentially beautiful moment for my wife.
It s got to be left face up and flat to get a more accurate reading, said the lady on the throne.
With a theatrical sigh, I took the still warm plastic contraption, held it at arm s length in such a way that it suggested it was radioactive and rested it on top of the toilet. I love my wife dearly, but there is a line. Well, actually, there were two lines. I noticed them almost instantly. My facial expression at this sudden development clearly betrayed me because my wife began jigging up and down on the toilet and shouting, What? What is it? What have you seen? What does it say? You ve looked at it before me, haven t you? I told you not to do that. Well, what does it say then?
She often does this. Argue with herself and win.
Er, I saw something but I genuinely don t know what it means.
Sad but true. She had read the instructions before taking aim. I hadn t.
Well, what does it say? my excited wife cried, craning her head left and right and waddling slightly from side to side like a disoriented penguin. I can t see it.
Two lines have come up, I replied with all the casualness of a man who hasn t read the instructions.
In which window?
What do you mean which window?
Is it in the square window or the round window? Are the lines in the same window or is there one in the square window and one in the round?
Round windows? Square windows? What is this? Bloody Play School ?
Don t mess about. Give it to me.
For the second time in two minutes, I handled a urine-stained plastic contraption, lifting it from the back of the toilet. My indomitable wife snatched it from my tentative grasp and stared at it for several seconds. Then she smiled. Now, I know she was sitting on a toilet with most of her clothes around her ankles and holding something that now had a distinct whiff of piss, but she had never looked more beautiful.
Neil, I m pregnant, she said softly.
And we both burst out laughing.
That was when the surrealism kicked in. It was not real. Or at least, it didn t seem real. I had waited for this moment, rehearsed this moment, for years. I met my wife fifteen years ago. I ve known her half my life. When she came down the stairs of our Year 12 common room and offered me some of her strawberry lip balm, I had a vague idea that we d probably end up being in this situation at some point in our lives. Perhaps not fifteen years later. Having grown up in Dagenham, on a Greater London council estate, some of my peers ended up in this situation fifteen minutes later. I had anticipated this moment for several years because I m sentimental. That s why we still have that almost-empty Body Shop jar of strawberry lip balm in the house. And it smells worse than the plastic contraption that my wife was holding in her hands.
She was pregnant. My wife was pregnant. She was not going to have a baby though. Don t be ridiculous. She was just pregnant. That was all. I could not connect the dots. There was a chemical malfunction in my brain and it was refusing to compute. I d waited for this moment for fifteen years and now that it was here, it was literally too mind-blowing to digest. Instead it played with me; it toyed with me. We giggled like cheeky cherubs and danced around the bathroom to Judy Garland-once my wife had pulled up her trousers.
The recriminations followed the dancing.
I told you I was pregnant, didn t I? my wife said, after slumping onto the sofa to rub her belly for the first time. My God, it would not be the last.
Yeah, you did.
I can t believe you forced me to paint the fence last weekend.
My wife often speaks in such absolute, melodramatic tones, intimating that I had held a gun to her temple and screamed, Paint the fence, woman, or I ll blow your head off.
How was I to know you were pregnant? Besides, I only asked you to help with the paint touch-ups. It s not like I had you up a ladder with a roller.
Well, I knew I was pregnant. I just had a feeling.
And missing your period was a fairly big clue, I suppose?
All right, smart arse, but I did tell you I was pregnant.
She had. But I was sceptical. Even the two lines were not yet conclusive proof. I need a weatherman to tell me when it s raining.
I m not being all doom and gloom but we ve waited a long time for this and I want everything to be confirmed first. I want to make sure that everything is perfect, insisted my tedious voice of reason.
It s true. I did. Throughout the pregnancy, I wanted everything to be as perfect as possible. On the road to fatherhood, I turned into Mary Poppins.
You re such a miserable sod sometimes, my wife pointed out.
You know these pregnancy tests are not foolproof. Let s take another one tomorrow and then we can be totally sure and see the doctor.
All right, but I m not going through all that supermarket nonsense again.
Saturday, 6 October
I admit that I did behave like a nervous schoolboy sneaking a crafty fag behind the bike sheds yesterday. I was only buying a pregnancy test kit but you would have thought that I was surreptitiously picking up some gear from a crack den. Checking over both shoulders, I skulked down the aisles for several minutes, taking a disturbing level of interest in underarm deodorant, while waiting for an elderly man to make a final decision on the colour of a toothbrush. Finally satisfied that the middle-aged chap further down the aisle was distracted by a three-blade razor special offer, I swooped.
There was more than one option. Suddenly, I was eighteen and buying condoms all over again. I hadn t bought condoms for ages. Obviously. In fact, long ago I vowed to never buy them again; there were too many colours, options, sizes and materials to choose from. Condoms present more choices than just about any other item found in a supermarket aisle even though everyone knows that most teenage boys would remove a testicle with a three-blade raz