Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

Great news: Sarah vomited today!

She has morning sickness, and not before time. She’s more than seven weeks into her pregnancy now and morning sickness had already come to her by this stage of both her previous pregnancies.

Its absence this time around had both of us perturbed, me more than Sarah. In women who are prone to morning sickness, a lack thereof can be an early sign that the woman is going to miscarry. There’s no law that says that a woman who has suffered from severe morning sickness during her first two pregnancies will also suffer from it during her third, but it does seem to work that way for most women.

I’m a pragmatist at the end of the day, so I would tell Sarah in the mornings, “Either miscarry or start puking!” Whilst perhaps not the most sentimental line ever uttered by a man to his spouse, she understood my concern and managed a smile in return. I’ve always had my doubts about this pregnancy, anyway. Without wanting to embarrass the girl, let’s just say that we were both surprised that she got pregnant when and how she did.

Not that a toilet bowl full of chunky bits is a guarantee of anything, but it makes me feel a lot better, even if Sarah’s not exactly chuffed about it. “You fucker,” or something to that effect, was her considered verdict when she emerged from the toilet and saw the grin on my face. The pregnancy is that much realer to me now, when before it was just a purple stripe on a bit of overpriced blotting paper.

I’m more inclined to start rereading my book on weekly foetal development and racking my brain for names now.

For once, I have something more significant to report than the usual claptrap. Significant in this household, anyway, if not to anyone else.

For those who haven’t already guessed (and didn’t read the title), Sarah is pregnant with our third child, due some time around 9th December. Given past performance, however, the end of November seems a more likely time for the delivery.

As in the case of her pregnancy with Lucas, Sarah has joined forces with Moeders voor Moeders, an organisation that collects the urine of pregnant women and extracts the hormone hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) from it. This is a complex and very expensive procedure, requiring millions of litres of urine to distil just a few grammes of the hormone. The hormone is subsequently used by pharmaceutical companies to manufacture drugs that aid in the treatment of infertility.

One in six couples experience reduced fertility and hCG can benefit them. It’s literally pissed down the toilet during the first four months of pregnancy, so why not pee into cannisters instead and have it put it to good use?

We already have most of the things we’ll need to accommodate another child in our lives: ample m²; clothes — if I wanted to make you retch, I might even list big hearts (sickly and uncalled for, I know) — etc., etc. However, with the forthcoming expansion in our ranks, one purchase we won’t be able to get away from is that of a larger car in 2011; some kind of seven-seater, I suppose. Suggestions in this area are welcome, although I don’t want to make many concessions to frumpy people-carriers if I can help it.

And so begins the process anew of mulling over names, taking the weekly photo of Sarah’s swelling belly, etc. We’re old hands at this now.

When our third child is born, the small people will outnumber the adults in the family. The balance is tipping in their favour. This may strike you — and even us, at times — as the ultimate parental folly, but when the little blighters aren’t playing up, the joy of having young children around is good fantastic; so overwhelming, so emotionally fulfilling, intellectually satisfying and generally indescribably brilliant, in fact, that we’re simply not ready to be finished with the stage of early childhood development.

The profundity of our emotional involvement is such that the decision to have more children isn’t really a decision at all, if I’m honest. It’s impossible to resist, not to want more of that bonding with a newborn, to witness that first smile, be there when your child starts to crawl, walk, utter its first word, etc. Neither of us is ready for the permanence of having completed that stage of life.