The Mrs is now 32 weeks pregnant and looks the part. She looks magnificent and I am very excited about September. So yesterday we found ourselves at an antenatal clinic with eight other mothers. Being, as you know, a progressive and feminist sort of chap I attended too as did four other "partners". I came away feeling rather old and as if this world was somehow not the one that I feel entirely comfortable with. Why can't it be 1978 all over again?
I say partners because I could not help but notice that there were few wedding rings in evidence. There is nothing wrong with living in sin but I felt from the start that tradition was not a big thing for my fellow attendees.
I was by a good chalk the oldest person there. The youngest, I guessed, was a pretty young Polish woman who cannot have been much more than twenty. The rest were mostly in their twenties though some might just have been in their thirties. Here am I just eighteen months away from fifty. I also notice that i was the only man present not wearing tattoos.
We were divided into three groups to answer various questions about what happens when your Mrs gives birth. "Don't worry this is not a competition, just a bit of fun" said the midwife. I know that it is politically incorrect to divide folks up into winners and losers, in the modern world all must have prizes so competition is bad. I rather like it. I would not, however, describe guessing how quickly a cervix dilates as a bit of fun. Does that make me a sexist, a reactionary, narrow minded or all three?
If you did not want to guess the rate of cervix dilation, we were told that you are allowed to cheat and check out an "app" provided by our local NHS which has all the answers. On my old Nokia one cannot access an "app" even if one knew what an app was and wanted to. I don't and don't. But the young folks app'd away happily.
Our group was asked to list non NHS ways of relaxing during childbirth. I suggested cannabis. Our group leader did not want to exclude me so helpfully wrote down candles on our flip chart.
After each session the midwife went through our answers and showed us big pictures of what a placenta looked like, the dilation of the cervix and other matters which a scholar and a gentleman really should not be exposed to. Again the young folks lapped it up but I found the graphic displays just not quite my bag. As my father would say "my mind was on higher things."
My father, who is staying here in Bristol,thinks that he attended the birth of one of his three children but is not sure. I rather suspect that in his era that meant pacing about outside and then having a big cigar. One generation on, I am happy to attend the birth. I am actually excited about it and I have done it before. As a progressive fellow I am happy to hold the hand of the Mrs as we attend such ante-natal sessions. But I do come away feeling just very old indeed.