chris's diary

Saturday 15th april

Today is my 30th birthday. It’s also the end of a week in which I found out that I was going to be a dad for the first time.

I want to tell everyone, but Jehann correctly says that we should wait to be sure. Whilst I was drunk I very nearly let the cat out of the bag. Luckily Jehann was there to make sure I didn’t spill the beans.

Earlier in the week, we spent £9.99 on a testing kit from Boots. Jehann took the stick to the toilet and pissed on it and it went bright blue. The box said it only had to be a little bit blue. And it was bright blue.

We went to the doctor was said she Jehann should lay off smoking, start eating meat again and take tablets with something beginning with R. It’s good for the baby. She’s also got stuff that smells like engine oil to rub into her belly to stop stretch marks from forming.

Saturday 3rd June

The Midwife came to visit us. I thought she would be testing and checking to see if we were suitable parents, and whether our house would be suitable for bringing up a child in. I therefore spent ages cleaning and tiding the whole house. As it turned out, she never left the front room. If it was a test, we must have passed.

The midwife was lovely. She took us through all the forms and courses and instructions (like the no soft cheese rule) for the pregnancy, and wrote down loads of stuff in a form.

We revealed to her that we were not married. She asked if we were in a stable relationship, which we are. For fun, I made a bit of a murmuring noise as she asked the question. I think she may have written something down as a result. Maybe she ticked the "unsuitable parent" box.

Thursday 15th June

This was our big day at the hospital. Jehann took the whole day off work, and we went in for an ultra sound scan and chat with the doctor. No-one local knows about what we’ve done yet, so we didn’t want to be seen by anyone on the way in.

Jehann was apprehensive about going. I had previously told her that in order to take the scan they put your legs in stirrups, and insert an object the size and shape of a supermarket scanner up you. She was extraordinarily relieved to learn that no insertion would be necessary.

Anyhow, we paid the £3 to have a print out of the scans. The pictures we received showed that the baby was upside down. The receptionist said that she had never seen an upside down baby before, and she had worked there for five years. I thought that maybe some more investigation should be done, but everyone else didn’t seem bothered, so I let it pass. I think maybe the baby takes after Jehann’s side of the family.

We then saw the doctor who explained that we could have all sorts of tests done to see how the baby was developing. We can’t have any yet, and the ones that we can have are not guaranteed to show up all the problems. We decided that as “knowledge is power” we would have all the tests that were available to us.

On leaving the hospital, we decided to strike whilst the iron was hot, and go and tell our parents. Luckily for us they all live locally.

Nan

I wanted to tell my grandmother first. So that’s what I did. My Nan is getting on a bit, and has difficulty seeing. As such I think see didn’t make out our happy smiling faces as we announced the news. It went a bit like this

Me: We have an announcement to make
Nan: Oh yes?
Me: Yes- you see Jehann is pregnant
Nan: Oh … Well … These things happen. What are you going to do about it?
Jehann: We intend to have the baby.
Nan: You mean you are happy about this.
Me: Yes - we are over the moon.
Nan: Well that’s a relief isn’t it come here and have a sit down.

She then went on to tell us brilliant stories what it was like to give birth in her day, in Ireland.

Mum

I was a bit scared about telling my Mum. She was brought up as an Irish Roman Catholic. Although she no longer attends church, she does seem to hold on to some of the stronger guilt aspects of the church’s teachings. Myself and Jehann are not married, remember. As it turned out I didn’t need to be. She said how happy she was and produced a bottle of champagne out of nowhere. She must have had it waiting on standby for years. In fact, it wasn’t long before she got my old cot down. “Look at the mattress” she said to Jehann, “I always used to wrap it in towels and a blanket. That way, I could be sure that none of his wee could get onto it. Have a feel.” Jehann felt it and confirmed that there was no trace of thirty year old baby-wee on the little baby mattress.

Now, my mother had a glass of the champagne - she doesn’t drink much, Jehann just had a sip - because of the baby, and I had the whole rest of the bottle. As a result of this I was feeling a little bit giddy on the way to our final stop of the day

Jehann’s mum and dad

I was even more scared about Jehann’s mum and dad. They have always been dead nice to me, but you never know. Again, as it turned out, everything went very well. My memory is slightly cloudy as I had just drunk nearly a whole bottle of champagne, but I do remember having my hand shaken. Which has to be good.

This site

Since then we've been telling friends and other relations as we bump into them. A lot of my friends have spread themselves out around the world, so we thought that this web site would be a good way of staying in touch, and showing off our baby scan pictures.

Reaction to our name that baby completion has been generally good. My Aunty thought that we would be picking one of the submissions at random, and thought that was bad. Once we explained that we would not she thought it was  a much better idea. If you are thinking of entering, by the way, please could you also give us suggestions as to the surname for the child. My surname is Evans, and Jehann's is Romaya, if that helps.

go back