Coming home from the hospital on Thursday was a massive event for us. Finally the pregnancy is over no more wondering when he was going to pop his head out. And the horrors of the labour and birth were behind us too. We just wanted to get home and get on with our new life.

It’s to be lovely: an adorable baby sleeping peacefully, a doting dog at his master’s feet, our beautiful house transformed into a wonderful home.

5 minutes after we got home though, the adrenalin that had been getting us through the previous few days finally gave way to tiredness and we realised: this is it from now on.

And the baby started to cry and the dog ate my slippers then pissed on the floor.

This is it from now on…

I received this e-mail today from Mumsnet:

Hi there,
Congratulations on the imminent arrival and good luck with the next few weeks and months.

We’ve noticed you’ve been a bit prolific on our boards with regard to encouraging members onto a specific website - this is known as spamming and we’d be grateful if you’d not do it anymore as it irritates the membership.

Thanks for your understanding.

Yes, I have prolifically posted 3 times on 1 topic (which I confess, I did start) in 2 days asking whether it was common for husbands not to be allowed to stay with wives when being induced.

At the bottom of each of the 3 post I included my name and a link back to this blog. This is spamming and it makes me a very bad man.

I would like to sincerely apologise to all the irritated membership (Missus!) especially to the 240 members that chose to click through to my blog (as they’ve had to read this rubbish).

Sorry.

Just a quick blog about blogging and a shameless promotion all at the same time.

I have changed the Expectant Father Store to show products from Amazon.co.uk. This makes it far more convenient for my UK readers to buy thousands of pounds worth of baby gear.

I’ve also changed some of the other adverts on this site which I’m informed are supposed to show products relating to the content. So far that doesn’t seem to be true but maybe you’re browsing this site and think: “I do want a Braun Tassimo Freshly Brewed Coffee System”. Who knows.

Anyway, back to the shopping.

Cheers, Ian.

As the 40 weeks are now up, every time Mrs C flinches or squirms or rubs her tummy I ask her “Are you alright? Getting pains?”.

I tell you, it’s starting to irritate me, let alone Mrs C…

So the count down clock on the left there says 7 days to go, but by my calendar there’s still 8 days to go. I’m obviously not as good at computering as I thought….

Things have quietened down on the old giving birth to a baby front over the past few days (for me at least, Junior is still kicking and punching Mrs C to pieces). Not many more Braxton-Hicks and no other signs that things are getting imminent.

Today we bought food for the labour. Although we shopped independently of each other we bought the same things (ah sweet, we are obviously meant to be together). Granola bars, fig rolls and Jelly Babies. I suspect by half way through the thought of eating a baby (regardless of whether it’s made of jelly or not) may be to much for Mrs C so I’ll keep those in my bag.

The only excitement today came when Mrs C called me at work. She never calls me at work. Why would she call me at work? Oh God this is it….

“Can you get some dextrose tablets, I can’t find them anywhere.” She asked.

Sweet Jesus that’s a relief. I still hoping this roller-coaster has a little way to go before it gets to the top of the big drop.

Still just 8 days to go…

Mrs C had her first major wobble yesterday. Today was her first day on Maternity leave and her body was full of near end of pregnancy hormones. This combined with talking about “The Baby Blues” at NCT on Saturday has put some fear into her mind.

“It’ll never be the two of us again!” she sniffed through some tears.

“Oh God, she’s right” I thought but I didn’t say it. I gave her a hug and stroked her hair.

“No, but you never know it might just be better” I did say that, it didn’t stop the tears though.

Then just as quickly as she started to cry, she stopped and was back to looking forward to time off work and time with Bernard.

I can’t help but feel that my worries about the impending birth of our child are nothing compared to Mrs Cs…