A Diplomatic Incident

I don't know what it is but, from personal experience and three other cases I have observed, there seems to be something about having a first grandchild that somehow makes women really angry. I don’t know if it is because they feel like they are finally losing control of their child, or if they think they should be the centre of attention, or if its just a menopausal thing.

I’ll explain.

Lynne’s mum is cross with me and do you know what? I’m pretty pissed off with her as well. When they moved Lynne from the recovery room down to the ward I went home to get some sleep. On the way I phoned our parents to tell them the baby was born, that both Lynne and the baby were healthy, it was a girl, and the birth weight and time. I left out the grisly details. As far as I was concerned it was nobody else’s bloody business, especially since Lynne was sleeping off the diamorphine and I had been up for two nights straight. I was dog-tired and feeling pretty wrung out and tearful. Neither of us was in any shape to talk to anybody. We had arranged with the grandparents before-hand that they would come and see us after Lynne was home from the hospital, and she could tell them as much as she wanted to then.

I got back to the flat, ate all the bacon in the house with a slice of stale bread and a triangle of Laughing Cow cheese, and went to bed. I meant to only sleep for an hour or so and then go back to he hospital where I was needed, but when I woke it was 2pm. I had slept longer than I meant to so, thinking shit, shit, shit, I had a quick shower and rushed back to the Queen Mum's. I stayed until after nine at night, went home and tried to put some pictures on Facebook but my internet connection kept dropping and I was too tired and cross to work it. I watched some crap telly, drank some milk and went to bed again.

In the morning I checked the phone messages. There were lots of well wishers, which was expected. All day my mobile was filling up with texts as fast as I could delete them. There were also a series of messages from Lynne’s mum, growing increasingly snippy, asking how things were. I don’t know why she thought I would be in the house waiting for her to phone me instead of being in the hospital with my wife and child, but there you are. Among other things, she wanted to know if Lynne had any stitches, and if so, how many. Cheeky cow, I thought. What’s it got to do with you? I didn’t even know how many stitches Lynne has, and I was there when she fucking got them!

When I went to the hospital that day, I told Lynne she had better phone her mum. It was peaceful on the ward, despite the other howling babies, and Lynne was enjoying having no visitors and time to bond with the baby by herself, but she sighed and agreed it was time to let the outside world in. She phoned her mum and told her she had had a c-section. Her mum was pretty clipped on the phone, but that seemed to be that.

An hour later my dad turned up at reception. His eyes were rimmed red and I thought what the fuck is going on here? Lynne’s mum had called my mum in hysterics. Had Lynne had a blood transfusion? What hospital was she in? I was keeping the truth from her! I was hiding things! Then she slammed the phone down. When I heard this I was absolutely fucking raging. So that’s how I told my dad about the c-section, standing in the hospital lobby among all the crappy plastic seats with a fuzzy telly burbling from a bracket on the wall beside us. My dad said that my mum was ok, just a bit bemused, but that he wanted to warn me before things got out of control.

Unfortunately, I can’t just fall out with my mother-in-law. I’m not allowed. That night I went round to Doctor P’s house to use his computer. I emailed all the pictures I had taken of the kid to Lynne’s folks and then phoned them up. I let Lynne’s mum tell me off and hang up on me. Doctor P said ‘Aye, whenever something good happens, there always seems to be someone who just has the knack of spoiling it.’ I laughed a lot at this. It was exactly what I needed. Lynne folks drove down the next day, and at visiting time they came in to see the baby. Lynne’s mum was glassy-eyed, her smile fixed on her face, but when she saw Lynne and the child she snapped out of it. Nothing was said about what had happened. We all played nice.

I phoned my mum to tell her the crisis seemed to have been averted. She said that when I had put her off from visiting the hospital, at first she had suspected that it was because Lynne wanted her parents to see the baby first.

Christ Almighty, I thought. Don't you start.