My friend T was in town this past week, en route to Sydney from London. So we met up for karaoke, a tradition we’ve followed in various cities since T came home from a teaching stint in Japan ten years ago with an addiction for karaoke booths.

Our singing sessions tend to get a bit raucous, even when they’re alcohol- free, as this one was. We rolled out the classics: Dolly, Madonna, Cyndi, ABBA. We took turns doing the boy part of the duets and danced around the room like Michelle and Romy at the highschool reunion.

Then the baby began to kick violently.


“Oh dear, do you think he’s distressed?” T asked.
“I think he’s just dancing,” I said, dancing.

But then I grew weary, realising I didn’t have half the energy I normally have when I’m leaping about playing air guitar and pretending to be Buddy Holly. I don’t like to moan but my back was causing me untold grief so I gave the bump a bit of a prod and declared that he was welcome to come out anytime, as I was starting to tire of this whole “being pregnant” malarkey.

Later that night I woke up with a huge searing cramp gripping me around the middle. H was instantly awake too.

“What is it?” he said.

“I’m in labour!” I screeched, like a patient in a hospital drama, shoving the cat off the bed and madly untangling myself from the sheets.

I lumbered out of bed with all the grace of a hippopotamus and went to the bathroom to see if there were any other potential “signs”. Nothing. I leaned forward onto the bed, my head starting to spin and vomit brewing in the depths of my squashed up stomach.

Then the following sequence of thoughts kicked in:

1. F**k. This is all my fault for going to karaoke and jumping around singing “Nine to Five” in a Southern accent. I scared the baby out. I even dared the baby out.
2. F**k. Which hospital should I go to? (I am in the middle of switching from private to public and don’t know where the paperwork is currently sitting in the chain).
3. F**k. I have no bag packed.
4. F**k. I still haven’t organised the nursery.
5. F**k. This hurts. I’ve been so blasé about the whole pain relief thing, I’ve obviously been completely misjudging my pain threshold. Find me the biggest needle in the hospital and fill it with whatever you’ve got.
6. Please don’t come out, baby. I said I was ready, but I was deluded. It’s the hormones. Forgive me. (At this point Bryan Adams popped into my head, don’t ask me why.)
7. Hmm… aren’t contractions supposed to be short at the start?

And then the pain subsided and I got back into bed, tucked Sausage Man into place and went to sleep.

My mum called the following night, and I relayed the details of the previous night’s drama. “If that was one of those fake Braxton Hicks contractions, and they’re not supposed to hurt, then I’m royally screwed, aren’t I? I’m going to hyperventilate and die in the delivery room.”

“Doesn’t really sound like a Braxton Hicks contraction,” she said. Then a pause. “Could it just have been wind?”

“Pff. No.”

Well. Actually… I had downed a big can of Fanta rather quickly with my dim sum before we went out singing. And H was teasing me the other day about how my bump was probably just a build up of trapped gas. Which is a fair statement given the freakish amount of wind pregnant women seem to accumulate (at least I hope it’s not just me).

But it got me thinking:
Imagine the anti-climax at the hospital!

Imagine the headlines! (Pregnant woman gives “birth” to 8 litres of methane) (or whatever units you measure gas in).

I would become one of those urban legends, like the boil on the Kentucky Fried Chicken drumstick.

Anyway, I think I can safely assume I didn’t go into early labour the other night after all, and it was just a little wake up call, intended to shake me into action and pack a bloody bag for the hospital. Which I will do. Next week.