It felt strange leaving the office. I was nervous about how the guys would get on without me. I was also nervous about the scan. It was the supposed 10 weeks scan. I didn’t know if we’d learn our baby’s sex today or not. I had only seen these things in the movies.
Did they really rub jelly on the belly?
Did they swipe what looked like a barcode scanner across the bump and get a black and white image of a baby?
Of my baby?
Of our baby? Our baby, that made me smile.
We located the office which in typical Polish fashion looked like all the other non-descript buildings it was surrounded by. Why can’t you put a big sign all over something to say it’s a hospital? Why paint it in the same colour schemes as the blocks of flats that it’s hidden between?
To confuse me?
Well that explains it then. Poland’s city planners all got together and on the off chance I’d show up at some point and then get a woman pregnant, they played a massive elaborate practical joke on me. Good job I came otherwise they would have looked quite the fools.
We got inside and followed the signs through the vacant hallways to a cluster of doors and plastic chairs. We sat around a corner, hidden from everyone else who wasn’t there. There were little name plates next to the doors so you knew which office contained your doctor. It was so quite I almost felt bad breaking the peacefulness of it all.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I wasn’t.
“Tak.” Yes.
She just stared at the floor as if she was waiting for someone to punish her.
A young guy came and opened the office we were sat next to, switched on a light, located the desk, plonked down the files he was carrying and left.
“He was pretty.” I said nudging her. “You wouldn’t mind him having a look down there would you?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Bullshit.” I replied even though it could have been true.
“Shut up.” She started tapping her feet impatiently.
“Maybe he likes pregnant chicks. Swollen ankles and...”
“Ch-e-ho.” She interrupted me by telling me to shut up in Polish.
I would hear that word a lot and probably rightly so. Somebody once accused me of having verbal diarrhoea so I stopped talking to smell my breath, minty fresh, and continued with what I was saying.
We were still alone and I was so nervous that I couldn’t stay quiet for long.
“Are you nervous? I am nervous. I hope it isn’t twins.” I couldn’t shut up.
“Don’t say stupid things.”
“You want twins?” Was it stupid not to want twins? Did they bring good luck in Poland? In Catholic families? I’d never heard such a thing. “It’s possible. There is no history in my family so it’s unlikely. Is there in yours? It could be twins.”
Yep verbal fucking diarrhoea. I couldn’t shut my mouth. I didn’t have a mute button either so Elly decided to engage me in futile debate and speculation.
“He could be blue.”
“She could be green.” I replied. I wanted to say more but I caught myself. I stood up and looked around, still nothing. “Do you want a drink?”
“Lemon tea.” She replied.
She probably didn’t but fancied some peace and quiet. I went off all hunter gatherer, stalking my prey, quietly tracking it down then waiting for the right moment to pounce and punch in the letter and two digits on the vending machine.
Today we shall feast. Father did good on the hunt today.
I got myself a water and then on the way back spotted a free water cooler with cups, shit! When I finally made my way back around the maze of corridors and found our hideaway there were two other pregnant women waiting. Elly was still sat right next to the office door then there was an empty seat and finally another pregnant woman. A third pregnant women was standing and as I gave Elly her lemon tea she looked up at me and patted the seat next to her.
“I saved it for you.” She said proudly.
While you were out hunting I protected the homestead.
“Tell her she can sit down, she is pregnant after all.”
So she did and then the ladies talked among themselves. There was another older lady, am guessing the mother of one of the other two but that did leave one woman here alone. I was glad I could come with Elly and we could share all this stuff together. Waiting in hospitals is never going to be fun but I knew I had to get used to them because I’d be back there or in hospitals in general a lot more now I was a father.
The young man who brought the files returned and unlocked his office door, this time he had on his doctor white lab coat. I looked at Elly and laughed as he invited her in. The little office was dark, really dark and it had a bed at the far end, a desk, some medical equipment that I guessed was the sonogram machine and a little swivel stool that would have put the doctor at the right head height when his patients were lying down, legs akimbo.
“Ch-e-ho.” She repeated as I giggled.
I didn’t know where to stand and as they jabbered over dates of birth, names and blah blah blah medical stuff I rested against the wall. I tried to position myself so I could see Elly and the screen where our child would first materialize.
As Elly laid down and took off her pants but not her top I realised there wouldn’t be any jelly on her belly. Instead the doctor produced a massive phallic looking instrument and started lube-ing it up.
“Don’t enjoy it too much.” I said to Elly.
She was busy in conversation with the doctor who pulled a screen around her bottom half and he got to work. I ignored them and focused on the white that started to emerge on the black screen. The doctor checked on the screen then starts to move his device around. All of a sudden he found the zoom button and the clarity was amazing.
It wasn’t a little blob or a peanut, it was a fucking astronaut. It was moving about but I could see arms, legs, two of each, the correct amount and a big bulbous head.
“Can he print us off some photos?” I asked her knowing that he could. I really should have asked how much he wanted.
She asked him and there seemed to be a problem with it so I start to pull out the large notes from my wallet. I had come prepared for any bribe that I needed to make. Elly returned to the vertical position while continuing a quiet debate with our doctor. As I produced a few hundreds she said that he wanted three, expensive but it’s my first child so I gave him them.
“No. Three, not three hundred.” She said after he had objected.
“Erm, I don’t have any change.”
“In my bag.”
So I got her bag, found the small change and gave him it. He traded it for a beautiful little picture. At the top of a white square was a black kidney bean and relaxing in the kidney bean was my little astronaut. I could see its arms and legs, its little belly and am sure it wasn’t but it looked like it was winking at me.
It was so relaxed, so peaceful with its massive head that any fears I had subsided for that moment.
Elly ushered me out into the corridor and as we ghosted past the waiting mothers they cooed at us huddled over our little photo. They would be next and it was a precious thing.
“Look at him. He is beautiful.” Elly said.
It took me a moment to hear it and process what she was saying.
“Him?”
“Yes. It’s a boy.” She announced.
I picked her up and spun her around just outside the hospital doors. An old man walking his dog looked at us like we were crazy and took another drag on his cigarette. We were crazy. We were in love. I believed we were in love. In that moment I was sure of it. All was right with the World. I was going to be a Dad.
We sat on a park bench and just stared at him, the little spaceman. I didn’t want it to end. I could have stayed in that moment forever. We were on the edge of potential.
“To work?” She asked.
“Unfortunately yes.” I answered. “I hope they haven’t burnt the place down.”
“We are real now.” She said.
I wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question. She kept her eyes on the road but I could see the tears welling in them.
“We always were for me.” I said.
“You know Poland is a very Catholic country and my family is very Catholic.”
“That’s nice.” I replied.
I wasn’t really listening though. I was debating if he would play football for England or Poland then I realised that he had such a great chance, instead of one he had two chances at everything.
“Children should be with married parents.” She added.
“The most important thing is that children grow up in a loving environment.” I said seeing where she was going. “What do you think about the name Andrew?”
Now it’s a boy he should have a name, I thought.
“Would be good. Could be Andrzej in Polish.” She said.
“Or he could just be called Andrew.” I said. “We are Team Andrew then. No more Elly and James, we are Team Andrew. He comes first always and we work together to make him happy.”
“I like that.” She said smiling.
“Me too.”