Sam Binnie - The Baby Diaries

For M and F,

Singers in every weather

Table of Contents

Title Page SAM BINNIE The Baby Diaries

Dedication For M and F, Singers in every weather

October 31st

November 2nd

December 1st

January 1st

February 1st

March 1st

April 2nd

May 1st

June 1st

July 2nd

August 1st

September 5th

October 3rd

November 2nd

Check list for hospital

Birth Certificate

Birth Announcement Card

Acknowledgements

Babies, and all that jazz

Morning Sickness

Spreading the News

Maternity clothes

Baby Showers

Gifting a pregnant

Choosing a name

Oh God, now the baby’s arrived and it’s in my house

A million dilemmas

Finally, my attempt to make this whole parenting thing easier on everyone

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Have you ever had that feeling you’ve forgotten something? Something nagging away at the back of your mind – until just the right movement in your memory triggers something else, which knocks another thing down, and like some Indiana Jones death trap, you can feel the clank-clunking of motion in the hidden rooms of your brain, gradually bringing the forgotten memory swinging like a battering ram into your conscious mind. You know that feeling?

That’s what I had yesterday.

I’ve been so busy since the wedding. Tony, my boss and head of Polka Dot Books (purveyors of fine supermarket fiction and glittery celeb books) was as good as his word with my promotion, promising me four new authors before disappearing off on a three-month ‘travelling sabbatical’ to God Knows Where, declaring he needed a break to ‘replenish his business strategies’. Of course, I was delighted that he’d kept his promise – even though that was more his mother Pamela’s doing – but soon realised why things had played out that way when I started trying to get details about them. Two were new, so their failure was liable to blow up in my face, one was an author I’d dealt with briefly and reluctantly and the final one I couldn’t get any details on at all.

Thom’s been settling into his new life as a trainee teacher: to no one’s surprise, he’s loving it. But as his enthusiasm has spilled over into our evenings, we’ve spent a great deal of time together marking papers – him, clunky essays on Wuthering Heights , me, swathes of mostly unreadable fiction: thirty-somethings who always dreamed of writing, aiming for Heathcliff and hitting Cliff Richard. So we’ve been dog tired, and when we’ve had time off we’ve been with my parents (with half an eye on my dad to check he was taking care of himself after his heart attack earlier this year), my nearly-new niece Frida, or our friends (those we hadn’t had to un-invite from the wedding). It was still great to be spending any time together where we weren’t arguing about money, or the importance of decorative accessories, or the social rules of such a complex endeavour as a wedding. But something kept nagging at me. Did we pay the register office? Had we thanked everyone? Was anyone still locked in the primary school reception venue? None of these nudged anything, although I worried at it like a tongue at a wobbly tooth. It would give eventually. And when it did, I just had to hope I didn’t have a huge apology to make to anyone.

Then, yesterday morning, Thom and I were comparing our weeks. Thom said he had me over a barrel, since I spent my time lunching authors and picking my favourite colour for a book jacket, while he was at the coal-face, earning every penny trying to hammer basic English in the heads of his students.

Me: You love it really.

Thom: I might love it, but I’m a hell of a lot more tired at the end of the day than I ever was making spreadsheets all day. Surprisingly.

Me: Can it really be that hard?

Thom: Kiki. I dare you to try dealing with a room full of hormonal teenagers.

That was it. Clink, clunk. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Click. Click. Ka-dunk.

BOOM .

I must have just frozen while my brain went into its noisy activity, because Thom stopped laughing at the mental image he’d conjured and looked at me, puzzled. ‘What’s up?’ he said.

I stood completely still, calculating over and over, mentally flicking through the pages of my pocket diary – dates, dates, dates. Dates. When I managed to reconnect my brain with my voice box, I just said, ‘I think we need to go to the chemist.’

Thom got it immediately. We rushed out, no coats, no scarves, into the freezing October afternoon, hurrying to the chemist around the corner. Outside, it felt like Before for a moment – we teased one another about who would go in and buy it, until I remembered what the whole thing was about, and my face collapsed. Thom went in while I read the notices in the window again and again. A Great Time To Give Up Smoking! the sign read. Or indeed, start, I thought. Then he was out, and we were hurrying home again, and I thought, Is this time included in the three minutes you have to count off? If I walk home slowly will I know the result immediately? Then we were home, and Thom was bustling me upstairs, and I went into the bathroom and locked the door. When I took the little test out of the box, the adrenaline was coursing through me and my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t read one word of the instructions.

Me: How does this even work?

Thom: [through the door] Haven’t you ever watched TV? Piss on the stick, then we can find out who the father is later.

Me: Please .

Thom: [quiet] Sorry, Kiki. Pass the instructions under the door.

Me: [hands shaking, takes several goes]

Thom: OK. It’s the bit on the end. Then stick the lid back on and leave it three minutes. Do you want me to come in?

Me: Come in? In here? I don’t really know. I don’t know. I don’t know .

Thom: It’s OK, Keeks. I’m right here. We can do this later if you want. We don’t have to do it right now. We can talk about it first, if you want.

And just for a moment, I thought: ‘we’? We ? If a little plus sign appeared in this window, it wouldn’t be Thom squandering his recent promotion. It wouldn’t be Thom who was the only one of his friends changing his name to ‘Mummy’. It wouldn’t be Thom pushing a large ham-weight through his tiny little birth canal. We? Me me me me me. Then I thought: oh, fuck it. Just take the test.

So I did.

I was still shaking, so managed to wee all over my own hands, but I clicked the cap back on and let it sit. I opened the bathroom door, and Thom rushed in.

Thom: How are you doing?

Me: You’re holding the hand that’s covered in my urine.

Thom: I’m going to take that as a ‘good’.

He hugged me for a long time, not even commenting on how much the bathroom now stank, then we went over together to check the result. A giant glowing plus sign greeted us.

Me: Well.

Thom: That’s unambiguous.

Me: Best of three?

Thom: It was a two-pack. I don’t think you’ll need me to go out again.

Me: Oh. Shit?

Thom took me into the living room, where we sat for ages in silence.

Thom: But … when?

Me: Our honeymoon.

Thom: How?

Me: Remember that night? We’d been walking under the Eiffel Tower? And we agreed to start trying because it could take years? The night before we sobered up and realised our mistake. That one.

Thom: Wow. Honeymoon baby.

Me: [breaking down sobbing] It’s so taaa-aa-aa- ack-y-y-y-y.

I cried for half an hour, then calmed down into a state of steady shock. Pregnant. I’m pregnant. As if reading my mind, Thom said in a ridiculous over-the-top voice, ‘I can’t believe we’re pregnant already!’ which managed to get a laugh out of me; it’s an all-time Worst Phrase, and my laugh stuck around until I remembered that it was, at least in one sense, true. My catatonic state returned.