No the baby has still not emerged. And tomorrow is 15th July, which is the date I predicted in the Baby Shower Sweepstake (no financial prizes, just the joy of winning), so it looks like I am going to have to take some drastic action to make the baby be born by the end of the day tomorrow. Several members of my antenatal class (whose babies have come early) suggested vigorous housework, but things aren’t that desperate yet. And never will be. Instead, I have decided on walking. For a long time.
The only problem with this is that I tried it yesterday and it didn’t work, possibly because I needed to sit down roughly every ten paces. Added to this is the fact that I cannot go anywhere too remote, due to lack of toilets. It’s not so much fear of giving birth in a field that stops me, but fear of needing to empty my bladder in such a location; therefore any potential walking site will have to be within easy reach of pubs, cafes and other urban amenities. Also I will be wearing flip flops for the duration of this walk, as these are the only shoes I have, so no trundling through muddy fields.
Anyway, it doesn’t look as though any walking will be taking place in the near future anyway as my brother and erstwhile walking partner (don’t want to be walking alone, just in case the plan is a bit too successful) is still in bed. At 11.31am! How the youth of today live! I, meanwhile, have had an incredibly productive morning which consisted of cooking and eating an omelette, spending several hours on the internet researching what is supposed to happen at 39 weeks pregnant (answer: a load of waiting around) and watching the Jeremy Kyle Show, which I had to switch off after Jeremy unexpectedly changed the format mid-show from fighting imbeciles screaming obscenities at each other over one or more of the contestants’ failures to get a job/see their children/admit to having children/remain sober to Jeremy himself “confronting his fear” of insects by being presented with a glass box full of cockroaches by two radioactively tanned people posing as psychotherapists. It’s all become very American.
Other than that the last few days (weeks? months? I’m losing track. How long has it been now?) have passed in a blur of being quizzed by relatives about what I am going to call the baby and why do I keep changing my mind and don’t forget to tell us as soon as there’s any news (I can just imagine the entire extended family turning up at the hospital with cameras ready to record the happy event the moment I go into labour, only to watch me being turned away as I’m zero centimetres dilated), and my mother trying to convince me to move to Bristol with claims about how it is so nice here as you can just get on a bus or train and be in Weston-Super-Mare quite quickly.
I thought about this and then decided that a) Weston-Super-Mare is rubbish and you can’t even see the sea from there, and b) where I currently live I can “just get on a bus or a train” and be in most of the nation’s premier attractions within half an hour anyway, so the likes of a donkey ride on the beach and severe eye strain from trying to see the sea at Weston-Super-Mare hold very little appeal.
Although come to think of it, a donkey ride seemed to get the Virgin Mary’s labour started pretty effectively, in fact to the point of needing to seek emergency shelter in a stable, so might be worth a try.