Читать книгу Your First Grandchild: Useful, touching and hilarious guide for first-time grandparents - Paul Greenwood - Страница 20

‘My father was a GP with a busy practice in Glasgow. I was living in London and pregnant with my first child. My husband wasn’t particularly interested in any of my symptoms and I was far away from close female friends. Also, I idolized my father and I valued his medical opinion highly. So every day, at least once, I used to phone him.

I knew he really loved me so it never occurred to me that I could be being a bit of a pest when I used to phone him in the middle of his consulting hours with the latest symptom. What did so-and-so mean? Should I eat such-and-such? Why was I feeling this, that and the other? During the whole nine months he would patiently explain every tiniest detail to me. My phone bill rocketed and so, I’m sure, did his, as if he was unavailable I would leave messages for him to phone me back. Eventually, on the day before my daughter was born, I went to the loo and found I had a show of a jelly-like substance. (This turned out to be the stopper of the womb and meant that birth was pretty imminent.) Immediately, I went into overdrive and phoned Glasgow: “Dad, what does it mean, this jelly?” There was a long pause. Then my father’s voice said dryly, “Well, dear, I expect it means you’re going to have a Jelly Baby.” Even a saint’s patience can run out!’