Two Chaps Talking

Dear Chap,

You know well that there is nothing in the world more abhorrent to me than the 'Columnists' that fill our Sunday papers. Invariably their mandate to entertain is based on no more than television celebrity or being the offspring of a superannuated hack.

What is worse is that the comedic arts of pastiche, parody or even half decent written English have entirely passed these people by and we are left with their banal musings on 'The School Run in Highgate', 'Organic Food - Isn't It Scandalous', 'Television - Isn't It Pants What Thick, Poor People Watch' etc. Mainly, though, they bang on about their bloody kids.

So it's taken me a while to hit the keys about recent events. How do I write about becoming a Father without retreading the achingly dismal furrow?

Well, I can but try so here are some thoughts and observations.

We went into the birth unit after work a clear two weeks before the baby was due (please note the definite article. People who refer to the baby as 'Baby' should be strung up. It's an appalling affectation. Remind me, at some point, to rant about white, middle-class Rastafarians who refer to the Notting Hill Carnival as 'Carnival'). We were dropping in for regular checks as the Mem's blood pressure was slightly elevated (frankly, once they'd explained what was going to happen in the pre-natal classes, mine was through the roof).

They plied the cuff and then, with minimal warning told A that she shouldn't count on going home to pick up a bag and that they recommended an emergency C section. I was told, as my mouth gaped, 'You'll be a Dad in 40 minutes'.

The Birth Unit, where we spent the next five days is a wonderfully posh private hospital (thanks BUPA). There are two recommended in London. At the Portland, favoured by footballer's wives and pop stars, it is reputedly possible to order an elective Caesarian at 8 months (no stretch marks) with a tummy tuck and fanny lift thrown in. We were at St John and Elizabeth where you can give birth in a pool with candles, whale song and chanting.

No time for that. In ten minutes we were dressed like extras from ER and in an operating theatre. I'm not sure how much detail you want here but what followed was a bizarre and strangely beautiful process. The operation is done under a local anaesthetic called an epidural that prevents pain or feeling travelling up the spinal cord. Consequently I sat at a conscious A's head while the surgeons zipped her open and lifted L out. I asked her how it felt. She said she couldn't feel pain but that it felt like someone was doing the washing up in her stomach.

So now I have a daughter - who is indescribably lovely. I don't even mind the nappies and night feeds.

It is fundamentally untrue that all babies look like Winston Churchill. Mine looks like Hermann Goering - except when she is being winded, whereupon, according to her Mother, she looks like 'something you might find next to a particularly tacky garden pond - cross legged and slightly malevolent'.

She is also, much as one would expect, a totty magnet, drawing admiring stares from young women everywhere. This afternoon she even enhanced my pulling power in absentia. I had dropped in to John Lewis baby dept for a few bottle related requisites and was standing at the head of a queue of Yummie Mummies qv.

'Do you have any extra small bibs?' I asked, handsome and resplendent in my chalkstripe. There was a frisson amongst the YMs.

'She's only a few days old, you see'. Cooing noise and admiring glances.

Now was the time to bring out the magic word. Having spent the last months in the presence of broody Mothers-to-be at various classes I know its awesome power.

'She's just so tiny.' At which half the room suffered an involuntary uterine twitch and the balance surged with an almost audible hormone overload.

God I'm a bastard, but I just love it. Let me bask, at least for a while, in my Dadness. It won't last. Soon she'll be a teenager and hate me and I'll have to go to evening classes to learn how to wear a cardigan, dance embarrassingly at weddings and smell faintly of pipesmoke and wee.

It is an odd quirk of the National Health Service that, after the birth, one is visited daily by a state midwife. Both A and I had to be observed holding, changing and feeding the baby to ensure that we weren't going to drop her on her head or try to feed her a packet of microwave chips. These fearsome women have right of entry too. Ours was a splendid creature whose given name was 'Novelette'. I can only assume she had a sister named 'Pamphlet' and brother called 'Roman a clef'. Sadly she was unable to read her scales and entered into the record that L. had gained three kilograms in two days. This could have be achieved but only by force feeding her like a Strasbourg goose with lead shot and cement.

Ah well, more anon. I must get some sleep as I'm due up at sparrowfart to scrape Pamperfudge.

PS. I have installed wireless networking at the homestead. I am currently writing this while sitting up in bed but, rather scarily, you would have no idea if I was doing it while coiling one down. There. Doesn't that make you feel a little odd?

T