My Hairy Baby

There’s a chatty lady at Big Corp who is always asking after my health and that of my bump. She usually looks a bit disappointed when I tell her (truthfully) that I haven’t really suffered any unpleasant pregnancy side-effects..

The other day I told her I had started to suffer heartburn, just to keep her happy. I had, in fact, had a smidge of heartburn. But I had eaten a massive curry accompanied with 2 pints of water, topped off with three satsumas. So it’s probably just actual heartburn, rather than the special pregnancy kind.

She was delighted. ‘Oh!,’ she cried, ‘You know what that means, dintchya?’

I had to admit that I did not. God knows I read enough Babycentre, NHS and Bounty emails and surf enough Mumsnet blogs, I thought I was reasonably well informed. But I missed the bit about the significance of heartburn. (Shame).

‘Airy by-bee,’ she cackled. Loud enough that people’s heads turned from quite far away. ‘You’re ‘aving an airy by-bee!’.

I recreated the sound for you here (turn your sound up for max authenticity - she really belted it out):

For the benefits of Northern and American readers, I will translate. She was accusing me of having a hairy baby. Which sounds disgusting to me. Like a little chimpy baby growing inside me, all matted and unkempt. Yuck.

I smiled, and said, ‘Really?’ and silently wished her to be struck dumb with heartburn.

Funnily enough at our last scan, a few days later, we were told that it was already possible to see the hairs on our baby’s head. I guess she will be quite hairy when she’s born. We were a little disappointed that the sonographer couldn’t tell us if she was blonde and fuzzy, like me, or had the poker straight, chestnut hair I dream of for my daughter. I wonder if, in the US medical system, you’d be able to find that out…

Needless to say I have not given Ms Chatbags the satisfaction of knowing she is right about our little chimp.