30th December 2011.

01:32.

“We need to go in one hour”. Very specific. How about “Good morning dear, how are you? How did you sleep?” No time for such pleasantries. Its business time.

But hang on a minute. Both my wife and I are staunch believers in a good pattern of early nights and a reasonable rising hour. So why do a) the waters break at 1am, and b) the contractions decide to regulate sometime between midnight and 1am the following night? Not only this but baby’s most active time to stretch his or her legs has been in the middle of the night all of the way through pregnancy. These are not encouraging signs. Surely at no point in the upbringing of our future children will we be required to break such practical, rigid routines?!

The Lord knows what each of us need. Could he be lodging this in my mind, that despite our best laid plans, we will sometimes have to step out of the routines we build up for ourselves? That sometimes to get the best out of ourselves (literally in this case) we will be required to do things another way? We shall see.

Fortunately this hour before departure holds the prospect of 2xbacon sandwiches. That should be enough to stave off any physical demands placed on me by my wife’s looming fate. I offer a similar feast to the expecting, but it is declined with a snort. At least I offered.