Bestie’s blessed news: pregnancy from the best friend’s perspective
Joyous news, friends! I am back and have I got a pearler for you. Blessed be the fruit: Bestie is having a baby! The Lord opened and Of besties-husband’s impending arrival was announced some months ago now; not even my binge watching of The Handmaid’s Tale could bring a damper to this happy news.
Unlike pregnancy in that TV show, Bestie’s time with child is proving to be most amusing. So please, let me regale you with: Pregnancy: The Best Friend’s Perspective.
I’d like to think I’m pretty good at keeping secrets. Whether I keep them or not depends on how much I care about the secret (savage, but true). With hand on heart, I can honestly say that the seven weeks I had to keep my trap shut about the baby news until it was announced to the wider world were the longest seven weeks of my life. I didn’t tell a soul, for the record.
It’s interesting looking at the changes your friends go through when they have a baby. Bestie and Bestie’s Husband are of course thrilled, and a series of baby-sized All Blacks supporters gear already takes up a significant portion of the baby’s wardrobe.
There’s also been the cravings. So far, things on the ‘‘cravings’’ list have included: icecream, a Jimmy’s pie, hot chips and chocolate. The cynic in me reckons perhaps she’s just got a cheeky hankering for some delicious junk food, but being pregnant is the ultimate justification excuse.
Upon dropping comments like this, Bestie glares at me and usually says, ‘‘Just you wait until it’s your turn – you have no idea’’.
In all fairness, anything she can eat is a good thing with the state of her morning sickness proving to be a fantastic ad for contraception.
The poor dear had it particularly rough one day. Upon coming home from work ill with morning sickness, she found a cat poop on the ground her dog had fished out of the litter box.
After flushing it down the loo, her stomach decided it was all too much and she parted ways with her minimal breakfast, went to the kitchen to wash her hands, vomited in the sink and then headed to the bathroom to tie up her hair when she thought she was finally feeling stable, only to vomit all over the bathroom floor.
Deciding that if she tried to clean it up it would only result in more of a mess on the floor, she shut the door and went to bed. Blessed be the fruit. Pregnancy sounds great.
Not one to leave things to the last minute, baby names quickly became a hot discussion point. The pair had long decided on a name for a girl, but were struggling with boy options – mostly because Bestie’s Husband was having too much fun being completely not-serious about it.
‘‘How about Leo?’’ she asked me. My heart sank. ‘‘I love it,’’ I said to her. I love it because it’s the name at the very top of my own list. Yes, I have a list, as do many women who already know the names of their future children.
It’s not weird.
But, let’s face it, I’m not having a baby right now so it’s first in, first served.
Luckily, Bestie’s Husband (BH) was there to save the day.
Bestie tells me their conversation about ‘‘Leo’’ went like this:
Bestie: ‘‘What about Leo?’’
BH: ‘‘Hmm, no. It’s not strong enough.’’
Bestie: ‘‘Leo like a lion – lions are strong.’’
BH: ‘‘What about Mufasa or Simba? They are both strong.’’
Bestie to me: ‘‘See what I am dealing with?!?!?!?!’’
Had Bestie suggested ‘‘Richie’’, I’m sure it would have been an instant yes from her All Blacks-proud husband.
‘‘I’m not even going down that track. He will think it’s Christmas forever and then I won’t be able to back out,’’ was the response I was met with when suggesting the former captain’s namesake.
Luckily, I needn’t have worried at all. Bestie and BH are expecting a little girl in the new year.