Testing times

Having begun at the beginning and moved along to the present, I will, if I may, take a step back in time.

Once Ros had told me she was pregnant, we entered what was, for me anyway, the scariest part of the pregnancy. I think of the period as 'The Testing Times'. Not testing, as in arduous or challenging, in truth I had little to do at this stage, it was literally testing. There was the 12 week scan, another ultrasound soon after that and then the fortnightly trips to the doctor following those. At each of these scans or visits, I feared that my perfect world would be ripped asunder.

I was on tenterhooks the whole time and couldn't help but wonder whether it would just be better to no do these tests at all. Incidentally I love the expression 'to be on tenterhooks', but for years I used to say 'tenderhooks' as I had no idea what a tenterhook was - it's a hook which is arrayed on a tenter which is itself a frame across which newly milled cloth is stretched so that it may dry without shrinking just in case anyone is curious.

Joining Ros at the midwives didn't help relive the tension much either. The midwives had no interest in including me in any conversation, and as I came to realise, little interest in me being there at all.

I'd gone along because I thought that was the thing to do - at least that was what the authors of the baby books told me to do. And having begun reading these books in order to try to better understand what Ros was undergoing, and to get prepared for life after birth, I thought it best to take up their advice.

However, the combination of the useless advice regarding joining your partner at the midwife visits and the exclusive use of the female pronoun to describe both the baby and it's caregiver, led me to conclude that these books weren't really aimed at me. The only book I stuck with was one which described the pregnancy on a week by week basis. And I cheated with that, skipping ahead weeks to get to the 'exciting stuff' much like a child opening extra doors on his advent calendar to get to the extra chocolate.

I then made the mistake of turning to the baby websites in my search for information and descended into a hell of schmaltz, and acronyms, on a truly epic scale. There were pages in which people discussed what lovey huggy names they used when talking to their partners (my favourite being the couple who called each other baby puppy and baby meatball), what method of conception works best (and stunningly not once was the word sex used which made me wonder whether these were adult women or toddlers posting) and of course the never ending source of mirth - baby names.

There were pages and pages of people who listed their potential baby names and then asked for honest feedback. And people who owned up to naming their children Presley Rain and Chais Phoenix would give their opinions. However, providing my thoughts on Cruze Jude and Honor Donna got me booted from these sites so I suppose they didn't want really honest feedback after all.

Having given up on the serious books, been excluded by the medical fraternity and expelled from the bizarre world of mummy websites, I went back to my old friend 'Your pregnancy explained week by week' and promptly jumped ahead to see what was coming in a couple of weeks time.