Now and again the kids encounter people who read this column. They say things like: “Oh! I know all about you!” Or they ask do they mind being featured so regularly here: perhaps without realising that the details I divulge are scant compared what you can find out about them on Instagram.
These conversations can take place anywhere: the post office, the pub or during a driving test. But if there was an award for the oddest interaction, it would go to Daughter Number One. She was asked: “So which number daughter are you?” This was from a doctor, who had several fingers inserted into her cervix at the time.
In a very strange way, it was a useful lesson for Daughter Number One: the words “dignified” and “childbirth” rarely go in the same sentence.
She had been pregnant for what seemed like 17 months, but was actually the standard amount. After the initial announcement-that-wasn’t-really-an announcement – every piece of news in my family is telegraphed in advance – there had been an odd process of acclimatisation, where it had started to feel like she had always been pregnant and always would be. That this would now result in a child was mildly shocking.
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Herself was just as bad, so when we finally learned that baby had arrived and all was well, we were still tingling with nervous energy. We couldn’t sleep, so we got up. I had a beer. Herself did some ironing
Shocking, and for me, a bit terrifying. I’ve been around for quite a few births, but this was different. This was, to paraphrase Sly Stone, my baby making a baby, and there was nothing I could do to protect her from the pain and possible anguish if anything went wrong. I went into work like it was a perfectly normal day and depended on regular messages from the Boyfriend: “2cm dilated”, “5cm dilated”, “In the delivery room”. Physically, I was in one building, but mentally I was 3km away, standing outside that hospital, constricted with worry.
And I remained there as I finished work and travelled home, compulsively checking my phone. Herself was just as bad, so when we finally learned that baby had arrived and all was well, we were still tingling with nervous energy. We couldn’t sleep, so we got up. I had a beer. Herself did some ironing.
Because of Covid rules, we couldn’t visit, so it was another two days before I could collect them from the hospital and bring them home: the two of them knackered and shining with joy and quite content to have been victim to what seems like a genetic inevitability in my family: yet another girl. Granddaughter Number One. Hobbies include sleeping and pooping.
The new parents seemed different too; suddenly grown-up. My kids, like all young adults, often come out with nonsense: the kinds of things that deserve an eye roll or a hoot of derision. As a responsible and loving parent, I do this behind their backs. But this time was different. This wasn’t a notion they hadn’t thought through. Daughter Number One had done all the research and got all the equipment. On the fridge door of their apartment: a long to-do list, along with instructions about who to contact and what to bring when labour started. Daughters Two and Three were drafted in to mind the cat, keep the place clean and even do laundry. I was unaware that they even knew how to operate a washing machine. My babies ain’t babies anymore.
Because of the aforementioned Instagram, I haven’t had to tell anyone about her arrival. Instead, I’ve got congratulatory texts and people asking me what it feels like to be a grandfather. I don’t feel that different. I’m more taken with a sense of how there’s a new generation of my family stretching into the future. The wheel of life and death and love endlessly refreshing itself. When I filled out the census form, I used the time capsule section to write a message to Granddaughter Number One. In 100 years from now, with a bit of luck, she may get to read it.