Sam Binnie - The Baby Diaries

Me: How did this happen?

Thom: Oh Keeks. When a man and a woman love one another very much –

Me: Thom, please! Really !

Thom: I don’t know, Kiki, these things sometimes happen, don’t they? I do love you very much, if that helps.

Me: I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. [whispering] This is ridiculous.

Thom: Shall we go to bed? Sometimes these things feel better in the morning.

Me: [staring at him]

Thom: Sorry, I don’t mean it like that. I know it’s not going to go away, and I know that no matter how much I say I love you and I support you and I feel for you, I know that it’s your body and I can only begin to imagine your panic and your fear. But I do love you, and loving you also involves knowing that sometimes you deal best with things by vanishing in a cocoon of sleep to work out what you have to do. Is that true?

Me: Yes.

Thom: Right. So let’s do one decision at a time. Would you like me to make you a drink before bed?

Me: Whisky.

Thom: Uh …

Me: OH GOD I CAN’T EVEN DRINK. Oh God! How much have I drunk in the last month? The last two months? OH GOD I DO NOTHING BUT DRINK.

Thom: Kiki. It’s fine. Let’s forget about the drink and just get into bed.

So we did just that. I amazed myself by falling straight to sleep – as Thom said, it’s how I cope with most things, but it meant it was an extra struggle this morning, having a mini version of the click-clunking remembering all over again. Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant. It still doesn’t make any sense. Yes, we both want kids very much, and yes, we look forward to having them, but now? Right now? I have just got my promotion, Thom has just started a mind-bogglingly poorly paid job, and we’re not ready for this. I feel so strange.

At work today, Alice noticed something was wrong, but only asked me once. She kept her distance for the rest of the day in the nicest possible manner, her excellent breeding (or lesbian superpower) knowing exactly when to press me and lavish me with attention, and when to leave me in peace. Alice, my best friend in the office, is head of Publicity here at Polka Dot Books and a far nicer, better and more capable person than the company deserves. Since Tony began his ridiculous absence, his mother Pamela (who also happens to be the founder of Polka Dot and its major shareholder) has tried to keep out of the office most of the time, wanting to believe her son knows what he’s doing. But we can all tell she’s worried the company will go down, even with people like Alice working here. Thankfully, this not being one of Pamela’s rare visiting days, I managed to get my head down and do work for most of the day; at lunchtime I had to get out of the office, so took my sandwich round the corner to window shop, and found myself in front of the giant Topshop on Oxford Street, facing the maternity wear entrance.

They had some lovely clothes. Gorgeous slim-fitting jeans with fatty pregna-panels in the sides, fabulous tops to show off pregna-busts and delicious high-waisted dresses. Not to mention the mini-me baby clothes: t-shirts and sweaters with the wildlife of the season embroidered on the front, so the infant can be just as sharp as the mother. Could I live like this? Is there hope? I started walking back to the office feeling better, feeling hopeful. Maybe we could do this. It’s not the seventies anymore: I wouldn’t have to wear huge frilly tents and give up my job. I could be like Rachida Dati, returning to work at the French government five days after having this baby. Only, not the French government. And not five days. Women do this all over the world, all the time. And this wouldn’t just be my baby. It would be Thom’s as well. And who’s going to make a better baby than me and Thom?

So I went to the beautiful stationery shop below our office and bought this diary. I had a sudden urge to keep a record of everything, all our decisions and mistakes and joys. It felt like the first good step in a long road ahead. But I felt good.

Then I left the shop and almost tripped over a woman screaming at her child.

Woman: Didn’t I tell you, Nicholas? Didn’t I say no?

Boy: [incoherent screaming]

Woman: No, don’t keep crying. Pull yourself together and answer me.

Boy: [screaming, but down a notch or two] I … want …

Woman: Nicholas, if you don’t behave right now, not only will Daddy be hearing about this, but you can forget about your skiing lesson with Joshua on Saturday.

Boy: [silent for a moment, weighing up the options, screams recommencing even higher and louder than before]

Woman: [crouching down next to him] Please, Nicholas, please, darling, just calm yourself down. What it is you’d like, Nicky?

Boy: [sensing his advantage, ups the screaming again]

Woman: Calm down, darling. You know Mummy loves you. Calm down. Shall we go back to the shop to get you the little car?

Boy: [pulling back the screams a little] Ye-ea-aah – [hiccupping sob]

Woman: Alright, darling. You were very good last night, weren’t you? You only got out of bed four times! I think you deserve a nice little treat, don’t you, darling?

Wait. I’d forgotten. OH GOD I hate children.

So my mood overall was unchanged this afternoon, and when I came home. Thom saw my face and pulled me into another big hug as I walked through the door, and took me to the sofa where he sat me down and smiled at me.

Thom: Do you know what I thought today, as I tried to convince a room full of thirteen-year-olds to not show one another photos of women’s breasts while I talked about Jane Eyre ?

Me: Nope.

Thom: Whether it’s now, or whether it’s in a few years: our kid is going to be brilliant.

Me: Ha! I thought the same thing today. Just before I stumbled over a woman being emotionally blackmailed by her four-year-old.

Thom: You know we don’t have to be like that, don’t you? You can pick your parenting style: we can be Aloof Edwardian Parents. Or Distant Army Parents, who only see their children once a year. Or Caveman Parents, who feed any spare kids to their pet dinosaur.

Me: That’s the Flintstones.

Thom: I hardly think the Flintstones would feed a child to a dinosaur .

Me: [silence, thinking] We could be alright as parents. Maybe.

Thom: Maybe we could. But maybe … you’re too chicken to have a baby.

Me: [laughing] If ever that ploy was going to work on me …

Thom: Kiki, we will do whatever you like. For now, I’ll make us something to eat.

I sat, and I thought. God, if we can deal with Thom’s redundancy and Dad’s heart attack and my previously-very-badly-paid-and-very-high-stress job, all while planning a wedding that took over our lives, we should be able to manage a baby. Thom’s baby. And we might just be OK parents.

Me: [calling to the kitchen] Go on, then. Let’s have a baby.

Thom: [running back in] Wooohoooo!

Me: You can’t make noises like that in a labour ward. And I’m not telling my mum.

Thom: Christ. We have to tell people about this, don’t we?

Together: Shotgun !

Me: I called it. You can tell them.

So I’m happy. But I still blame you, Paris. I don’t know how this is your fault, but it is.

TO DO:

Grow baby

Have baby

Raise baby

November’s Classic Baby

Mrs Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a Brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces. She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs Darling’s guesses.

Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.