first_in_time | This Can Hardly Wait

Barbara glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. Ian's break time had just started. She knew because he sometimes called her instead of going into the staff room and eating with everyone else. Today, however, she wasn't going to give him the chance to eat for the moment, not with such important news.

The dial tone ws loud and clear as Barbara picked up their telephone, and each number she punched in had it's own sound to make. When she heard the ringing on the other end, her heart sped up and almost leapt from her mouth when a secretary answered.

"Yes, hello. I'd like to speak to Ian Chesterton please. This is his wife."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

first_in_time

"It isn't forever," she told him and smiled again. "And look at his beautiful face. It might be worth waking up multiple times just to see him."

From:

splendid_roman

"I'll remind you of that in a few weeks." He grinned at her. "I'll happily stick to looking at him in the daytime."

From:

first_in_time

"In that case you can look after him in the day and I'll look after him in the night," she smiled. "You will have to come home from work a few times during the day or take little Johnny in with you."

From:

splendid_roman

"I think he might disrupt my lessons. Unless he sleeps all day, and you're not going to do that, are you?" he added to John. Although he had been asleep, he now opened his eyes a bit and waved a hand around, looking like he was trying to get it free of the blankets.

"His eyes are so blue," Ian said, although with all baby's eyes being blue it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. But it did somehow.

From:

first_in_time

"So are yours," Barbara replied and watched as John started to grunt up at Ian and twist his head slowly from side to side. "I hope that he always has eyes like yours."

From:

splendid_roman

Ian smiled at John. "Maybe he'll take after me." He looked under John's hat to see he had dark hair.

Either John didn't like that or he was unhappy about something else, because he started crying. Usually Ian would just hand a crying child back to its parents, but he didn't have that option with John. Instead he looked over at Barbara with a panicked expression. "I don't know what he wants."

From:

first_in_time

"Neither do I," Barbara said and winced as she tried to sit up a little straighter. "Maybe his nappy needs changing? Have a look." It had been an hour or so since he'd last fed and his happy had been changed right away just about.

From:

splendid_roman

He put John down on the bed beside Barbara, which made him cry harder. "If you could talk this would be a lot easier," Ian said to him.

John was well wrapped up, so it took a while for Ian to get down to his nappy. He loosened it enough to peer in and wrinkled his nose at the smell. "He definitely needs his nappy changed," Ian concluded, although he didn't know how to go about doing that.

From:

first_in_time

Barbara tried to calm John down by reaching out and placing a hand over his stomach. "Under the bassonet there should be spare nappies," she told him a pointed to the trolley-looking thing with a bassonet on top.

From:

splendid_roman

Ian looked and found the nappies, then pulled one out and returned to the bed. "All right, so I need to take this one off." Which he did carefully, noting how it was on so he might be able to put a new one on the same way.

From:

first_in_time

John was now wailing and Barbara was trying her best to calm him down. She tried to soothe him by talking and singing and rubbing his little tummy but nothing appeared to be working.

"Have you changed a nappy before?" she asked Ian, trying to stay calm while their baby screamed bloody murder.

From:

splendid_roman

"No," he admitted. "Have you?" He wasn't sure if Barbara or a nurse had put this one on him. He rolled the old nappy up, hoping that might contain the smell a bit and looked hopefully at Barbara.

From:

first_in_time

"You're doing fine," Barbara told him and took the dirty nappy for the moment. "Now the fresh nappy goes under his little hips. I think that you pin the edges together."

From:

splendid_roman

Ian gave it a go, but it was harder than taking one off and seemed impossible using only two hands.

He hadn't got very far when a nurse put her head round the curtains. "I heard the baby crying and wanted to see if everything was all right." She looked over at Ian trying to change John's nappy and frowned. "You're letting him do it?" she asked Barbara, making it sound like that was a crime.

From:

first_in_time

"You should have called for help," the nurse said with pursed lips. It seemed to be a trend among the nurses in the hospital.

"The doctor told me to move as little a possible," Barbara feebly argued.

"Well this is meant to be the wife's duty but I can show the both of you how to do it just incase this happens again in the future." The nurse gently nudged Ian out of the way. "Now, most importantly, always have something under the child's little bottom. Just because his nappy is full doesn't mean there won't be an encore," she explained quite happily over the baby's cries. She had the bottom wiped and a new nappy under him in one fluid motion.

"The best way to remember how we put nappies on is is: the lower angle holds him down while the two either side pin him in. It's best to do this as quickly as you can when they're so little because they get cold easily."

Barbara felt as though she had blinked and the baby was changed.

"Now it's time for cuddles," she continued and handed John to Ian, "he's still not used to being outside the womb, so long periods without contact aren't encouraged. In the first few weeks he'll often cry because he doesn't know where you are, and he hats only going to repeat itself once he's a toddler."

From:

splendid_roman

Ian wasn't sure he was any the wiser about how it worked, but at least now that John had a clean nappy on, and was being held again, he stopped crying. "Thank you," he said.

The nurse nodded. "Call me if you need anything else," she said to Barbara, and left.

"I suppose at least we'll get plenty of practice at that," Ian said, sitting back down. "But everything I do is wrong, according to the nurses here."

From:

first_in_time

"You're a man in the maternity ward. What did you expect?" she chuckled.

From:

splendid_roman

"I am John's father. It does need two people to make a baby." He sighed. "At least John doesn't care." He was looking up at Ian, rapt.

From:

first_in_time

"Yes but this is the place where the more messy side of things happen, the things no woman discusses with her husband. Or if she does she gets to watch him squirm through the whole thing. That's why they don't expect you to know anything. Things like changing nappies and feeding him I'm meant to know and then teach you about. Making a baby does indeed take two people but it's a societal norm that it's raised by the mother." Barbara gave him a small smile. "But I don't care what society wants me or us to be like. We're in this together and we'll share the tasks."

From:

splendid_roman

He smiled back. "The messy things are just biology. I know what they are." But he hadn't really heard discussions about them in the way that women discussed them and if he saw them he probably wouldn't be quite so keen either.

"We both decided to have this baby. It doesn't seem fair to let you do all the work."

From:

first_in_time

"Not every man studies science or reads up on biology when Thu find put their wife is pregnant," Barbara grinned but then her look softened. "I'm so very lucky to have you."

From:

splendid_roman

"It wasn't all for you," he said, and grinned. "I did it for my future students too. Although I hope none of them get pregnant while they're still at school." He frowned at the idea. "And don't you go getting any girls pregnant before you're twenty one," he told John.

From:

first_in_time

"I think that if he keeps those eyes he could be quite the heart breaker. Women go mad for such dazzling blue eyes," she told them both. John merely grunted.