Ah kids - they make the world go round. Congratulations Easty. My kids are all old and smelly. I miss em when they were bright-eyed and beautiful. Those were the best days of my life. I hope all goes well. If I recall correctly my first took about 20 hours from the onset of labour to delivery.
I remember I didn't want to have kids. Not that I had anything against them I just didn't feel compelled to have any. Marg and I were living a boring pointless life of quiet desperation. It was sort of like a trudge across the Simpson Desert - one day much the same as the next. You get up in the morning, pull on your boots and set one foot in front of the next until night-fall, only to do the same thing the next day and the next, in the sure knowledge that you'd never actually get to the other side before you die.
Anyway we were getting on, and one day Marg came to me and said "DD, my biological clock is winding down. If I don't have a baby soon I wont ever be able to have one". In my optimistic way, I took that to mean it was time to think about the pros and cons of parenthood, not “We’re going to have a kid”.
So we sat down and thought about the pros and cons. If we take the cons first it turns out that they fall into 2 broad classes. There are the moral cons and the pragmatic cons. The way you tell the difference is that the moral cons all start “Is it right to…” and the pragmatic cons all start “Are you prepared to…” What naturally follows from that is a long list worthy of an H G Nelson rant. Here is just a small sample:-
Sample moral cons:-
Is it right to bring a child into an overpopulated world fraught with war, famine, pestilence and disease, a world threatened with a global environmental crisis, a world where drugs and guns flood the class rooms and paedophiles stalk the playgrounds, a world where kids with tats and metal in their face die in the gutters with syringes hanging out of their arms – a world where fat thieves grow rich on the sale of body parts from starving urchins, a world where anxiety, hatred and greed are the principal motivators, a world of sham drudgery and broken dreams …. etc etc bla bla bla
Sample pragmatic cons:-
Are you prepared to feed, clothe, educate, and entertain a child of the new millennium, a bottomless pit of consumption? Are you prepared to care for that child responsibly? You can’t just flit off to Maui and leave the kid at a pet motel. Parenting requires a one hundred percent commitment, and its required for a period that corresponds eerily with what our legal system chooses to regard as a life sentence.And what of the dangers? Childbirth is a medical procedure and the death rate due to medical errors is ten times the road toll. What if the childs less than the full quid or disabled? As the girl guide said to the boy scout, "You say you are prepared but then you'd say anything…".. etc etc
The PROS on the other hand were much simpler. There were two of them. Number 1) – kids can be kinda cute. And 2) Prophylaxis - Breast feeding is a prophylactic against breast cancer and child bearing is a prophylactic against cervical cancer or something.
I should say that I was not overly impressed with either of the pros. However somehow, In the face of all the perspicuous overwhelming indications to the contrary we reached a decision to try for a child. Maybe it was hypnosis. Maybe it was lust. I don’t know, but try we did.
A couple of weeks after that we decided to take a trip to Canberra to visit friends, and take in our nations capital. We thought we’d get a bit of skiing in too. I had the idiot notion that it might be fun to ride down there on my bicycle. So off I went, Marg to follow in the car a couple of days later.
I started early and got to Byron Bay by night fall, a little weary and with sore knees. The next day I was up and off to Yamba. When I got there my knees were worse. On I went like that from day to day slower and slower covering less and less distance in more and more time until I hobbled into Kempsey unable to continue.
I phoned Marg –“Hi, can you come and pick me up? I’m crippled.”
“Oh you poor dear, I’ll be right down. And guess what, I’ve got some good news that’ll cheer you up …”
I couldn’t guess.
“I’M PREGNANT”
“…………………………………………………………..” (long stunned silence)
“DD, I saiiiiid I’M PREGNANT” (said with venom worthy of Miss Piggy)
“ Ahhhhhhhhh..h ..h ……” (a sigh of utter defeat) “That’s wonderful dear”
As my long and boring life flashed before my eyes I briefly contemplated my impending demise. There I stood, looking down the barrel at a life sentence, and what’d I ever do. It was just a harmless f**k for God’s sake. Where’s the justice?
Anyway, the next day Marg arrived and I went quietly into custody, as opposed to running away which I couldn’t do because my knees were ruined.
In the weeks and months that followed my knees got better as Margaret got bigger. Pretty soon she had a belly like Ularu. It even had a brown line down the middle where the tourists walk. Her breasts were like rocks with veins in them and her hair and eyes shone like a poster for Hitler youth. She exuded robust health and radiated vigour and beauty. They were good days. Nothing much untoward happened except for two things - 1) morning sickness, which didn’t trouble me in the least, and 2) nesting urge, which was an AFFLICTION.
Marg said “I want you to put this what-not shelf up across the window.”
“But that’s just a bit of chipboard. It’ll sag”
“Look. Just DO IT”
“but but…”
“JUST DO IT”
“Oh …eerrr ok” . measure, saw saw saw, hammer bang bang bang ….….sag.. sag... sag
Then there was the bathroom – “I can’t bring up a child with a bathroom like that” and later after the bathroom had been ripped out – “ I’m not bringing a child home to a house without a bathroom”. I couldn’t win.
The funniest one was when I arrived home from work to be greeted by Marg who said “I think we should put carpet in the bedroom” .
“Err .. ok” I said guardedly.
“Good. The carpet layers coming first thing in the morning. You’ll have to paint the skirting boards now”
“But the paint wont dry in time”
“Look, just paint”
“but but”
“JUST PAINT”
So I painted.
The next morning the carpet layer arrived bright and early.
“Where do you want it mate?” I showed him. He stopped and stared at the freshly painted skirting boards amazed and appalled. “You’ve painted the skirting boards” he said as if he meant to say “You utter f**kwit”. All I could do was look at him beseechingly. “Nesting urge” I said lamely. “OH!” he exclaimed with total understanding “You POOR bugger” and he went ahead and bashed the smooth edge down in the happy knowledge that he wouldn’t be blamed for the damage. The skirting boards still bear the scars to this day.
So on we went like that happily engaged in pointless endeavour until the onset of labour. We didn’t want to risk being late so we had everything ready to go, bag packed, route mapped, car ready, etc. The labour pains worked like a starter’s gun. Off we went.
When we got there the admissions nurse asked a few pertinent questions and then said, “Just go and sit over there. It may be a while”. Three hours later we were still sitting there confident in the knowledge that we weren’t late.
Every now and then, more to reassure us that we hadn’t been forgotten than for any practical reason, they asked us the frequency of the labour pains. When they finally got close to the magic number they started taking the vital signs etc and moved Marg to a delivery ward (which is a euphemism for an operating theatre) to check her dilation, something you can’t do in a public waiting room. Briefly I thought “Here we go” but no, it was just more of the same but in a different room. As glacial as it was things did, slowly but imperceptibly, pick up pace. Every now and then something interesting would happen like the insertion of the drip, or the popping of the membrane. Then they said “hmmm… I think we should hurry this up a but” and dropped something that has an effect like cs gas into the drip. Then the anaesthetist put a gigantic needle into Margs spine. “Just a little prick dear” he said looking at me. I was already too buggered to care and we were only half way there. But the pace was picking up. It was like Ravel’s Bolero, all slow and dreamy to start with but ever so slowly, inexorably building to a cataclysmic crescendo sometime in the near future. As we approached the fated moment the room seemed to fill with people in white coats and each intently engaged in some particular task. Dum da da dum went the Bolero in my head as Marg let out a heartfelt “Oh GOD” and squeezed my arm in a death grip. As the timpanis boomed and cymbals crashed I said “Here bite on this piece of medical apparatus and let go of my arm”. “You BASTARD” she said with feeling and squeezed tighter as I collapsed on the floor. “He’s crowning “ said the doc from between Margs legs. “Hey wait” I said getting up. But no, there was no waiting for me. He slipped out like he knew he was between his mothers legs and really didn’t want to be there. .
The doc held him up all new and squirmy and covered in vernix. He waved his little legs and waved his little arms, and he made a little speech –“Hello everyone. I bring greetings from the warm wet world”. (he he), No he didn’t. That was just a fantasy but it was that sort of occasion. They spirited him off to a secret place to count his fingers and toes etc. My sister who is a nurse assures me that that’s when they implant the alien communication devices. If true it could explain some things that only came to light much later and will be the subject of another story another day.
They brought him back all cleaned and wrapped up looking his best and gave him to me for a bit of bonding. I have to admit he didn’t look like much more than an interesting responsibility. I gave him to Marg and they got on just fine. I went home to bed.
I came back the next morning surprised to find Marg all bright and chipper like nothing had happened. I on the other hand was sore and sorry. Childbirth is a curious business. It really is painful – sympathy pains, bruised arm. I was a wreck. I have a theory that difficult birth is selected for in the Darwinian sense. Imagine a primitive woman walking down the track whistling and singing and heavy with child. She squats momentarily by the track and drops a baby onto the mossy verge as easy as you please. “Aren’t you a dear little thing” says the new mum. “You stay here. Mummies going to pick some berries” and off she goes to do just that. A couple of hours later she remembers the baby “Now what did I do with it?” she wonders. Meanwhile the child has been carried off by a sabre tooth dingo. “Never mind” she thinks, “I can have another one. Its easy”, however that particular bucket of genes never makes it to the gene pool. Now consider an alternate scenario. Primitive woman walking down the track as before but this time she’s not whistling and singing. No she’s moaning and groaning. “Oh GOD” she cries “Aghh THOR” (she invokes the ancient god of child birth) “ Give me STRENGTH” and on the point of collapse she squats and with a lot of panting and biting on sticks she gives painful birth to a baby boy. She pauses to collect herself and gather her strength. Then she picks up the miscreant child, the cause of all her pain, and says “Ok mister, YOU’RE coming with ME”. And so the painful genes survive. Its natural selection.
Willy, for this is what we named our newborn, was doing everything right. He started feeding later that day and went on to establish what came to be the habits of a lifetime namely nosh and sleep and grow. As he grew he became more beautiful. He eventually got to a point where he was so ***** adorable that people would stop us in shopping centres just to admire the little cherub, and we fell head over heels in love with him. Jesus that was good. Anyway, Will was such a hit we had two more. Sometimes I regret that we stopped at three, but we wouldn’t have been able to do them justice. Love’ll only get you so far. You have to eat too.
So Easty, welcome to the club. Have some more. Have a whole bloody tribe if you can afford it. It’ll be great.
