What to expect when you're expecting.

Expect a person to come out of your genitals, and make a mess everywhere.

Tomorrow I will be 38 weeks. This time last time I was pregnant I was throwing a pancake party because it was the night before I was going to be induced and I was blissfully unaware of how painful squeezing a person out of your bits is. (If you're first time pregnant and reading this maybe ignore everything I'm saying. the other person in this photo, Steph, thinks birth is a lovely miracle and gave birth on 2 paracetamol.)

I tried to write my birth plan today, the short version is "just give me all the drugs and get the baby out." I've been reading up a bit about birth so I can look out for signs of early labour, as I'm now not being induced this time like I was before. Flicking through this book I found several mockable sentences which I will mock now. This is a paragraph telling you all the things you might want to do during early labour. I really just want to know the facts not a list of jobs a generic person might want to do. but yeah I could be folding baby clothes. If baby clothes really needed folding, they're tiny, I don't even fold adult clothes properly. 

"Cook some extra food" my mum had 17 minutes from first contraction to baby being out, with her 3rd child Sarah. My dad had to deliver her because there was no time to get to the hospital. I don't feel like this situation would have been easier if she was half way though making a lasagna. "email your friends" its not 1999.

Don't start telling me what to eat now, if there's any time when you can eat what you want it's when a person is about to come out of you.

Quick I'm in labour, I must find out what celebrities are going to share a birthday with my child... there will be absolutely no time to ever do that again and it is essential that I know now. Just in case it's Hiltler and then I'll try and keep my legs crossed until tomorrow.

This is some advice for the Man now. I don't know if you know, but ice pops will melt all over your neatly folded baby clothes. I remember after giving birth last time I was given a sanitary towel made of ice that was meant to make up for the fact that a man had chopped away at my bits with scissors. (this is called an episiotomy) Initially you're like "ok weird", but yes it's just like putting a bag of frozen peas on a bumped head. Then the ice melts and you have wet underwear and trousers that need changing... and you think this product would not get through to the final stages of Dragons Den.

So glad Dan has been devouring this book so that he knows the essentials like "put socks on cold feet".

Apparently stage one of labour is the time to make jokes and definitely not stage 3. What if you're married to a comedian? Do the rules still apply? Who knows?

Ewww.