My wife had told me that she would be doing the test in morning. When she got up I had feigned sleep like a coward. It wasn't that I didn't want to join her to watch a tiny urine soaked piece of paper turn colour; I just thought it would be easier for her to learn of the bad news on her own. We had been married less than a month and like a naive teenager I couldn't believe that she'd be pregnant first time.
I waited. Each passing minute confirmed to me what I already knew. If she were pregnant she would have run up the stairs to tell me. The film Maybe Baby with Hugh Laurie had taught me two things. Firstly, that I did not want to go through the indignity of IVF and secondly a disappointed unexpectant woman could be comforted with the words: "we'll just have to try and be the best couple that we can." I knew that I couldn't put it off any longer, I'd have to get up and comfort her. It was the manly thing to do.
She was in the computer room with her back to me. Had she been crying? As I approached I realised that I risked giving her an unintentional shock, bringing her too quickly out of her thoughts is as dangerous as waking up a sleep-walker. Suddenly the chair swivelled round ...
"I'm pregnant!"
My spontaneous hug was more of a self-defence mechanism than anything else.
"Why didn't you come up and tell me!"
"I thought you needed a lie-in and it wouldn't have been fair to wake you up with such momentous news!"
Our journey towards parenthood had begun.
