No more all-night partying and binge drinking. But there was no bump, no comedy getting out of chair movements, not even any funny food cravings. But today, visiting a hospital and opening an official manila file with your name on it brought it right up into the unavoidable here and now. I was becoming very aware that this, Jac's first ante-natal visit was my first gestational milestone. We were now officially in the system and officially really pregnant.
Reality is a truly frightening creature.
I sipped the nurse's water, and the generic hospital chemical taste brought back uncomfortable memories from my four-month stint of obstetrics and gynaecology at medical school. My first haunting memory was that as a man, it was a deeply disturbing and embarrassing thing to do. Furthermore, any male doctor who chose to do it as full-time job had to be viewed with suspicion. But more vivid and disturbing was the memory that midwives weren't like zoo-keepers or gardeners, who did the job because they loved it. They were, in fact, vicious sadists who not only took delight in making my student life as miserable as possible but weren't particularly nice to the mothers either.