Sleepy, hungry, and overheated

Read Time: 4 mins

“You said — NEVER” I squeaked.

Since I was a baby there have been three things that make me grumpy. 

One, lack of sleep.

As a toddler I used to put myself to bed at 18:00 after a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. I was the human embodiment of a slug from birth, plonkable in any corner safe in the knowledge that I was not going to go anywhere — because that would involve moving.

Two, hunger.

The only word I used for the first 18 months of my life was ‘numminnies’. My parents eventually worked out that it was a request for food. When I finally decided it was time to start talking I began with, “well Granddad, time for a coffee and a kitkat.”

Three, overheated.

The first parenting argument my mother had with my grandmother was about how wrapped up for the cold I needed to be. My mother said I wouldn’t like it. My grandmother insisted I would freeze to death. I made a massive fuss about being too warm. My mother won.

These are the only three things that make me uncontrollably grumpy. I have not evolved in the slightest. 

Of these three sleep makes me the least grumpy but the most likely act irrationally. It was unfortunate then that my flight home from Liverpool was at some ungodly hour of the morning directly after a concert of epic proportions. 

Christine picked me up from the airport. I was due at work an hour after we made it home. The drive back had been tense and neither of us could decipher whether the restlessness was from excitement or fear.

“Something feels different.” Christine shared as we took the long motorway home, “I’ve never had this feeling before — I can’t describe it.”

I sat in semi-silence feeling the familial burn of sleep deprived eyes. Surely it couldn’t have worked. I would feel so stupid if it had. This is how unwanted pregnancies happen. People like me believing that science couldn’t possibly be true. That I would be the one exception.

“Are you ok?” Christine shot me a glance from the driver’s seat.

“Yes, of course, this is what we wanted, right?” I could hear how robotic my own voice sounded.

As the drive continued and I had more and more time to stew in my own thoughts, I could feel my head lulling to the rhythm of the car. This was not the time for a snooze, I thought, you’re about to find out if you’re going to be a parent.

I probably should have napped.

Christine and I had been together for only two years at this point. I had found the most incredible person. Someone who I wanted to spend every waking minute with and now that could come to a grinding halt.

In the three years we had known each other she had battled her way through a horrible divorce, homelessness, and an unidentified stomach bacteria, all while working full time as a high school teacher which I had come to realise was one of the most intensive careers anyone could choose. Somehow, she never once let her smile or optimism drop. 

Her life had been hell, physically and emotionally, but it was finally over. She was free. 

We were free. 

The thought of losing her as I got to know her was difficult. I wanted a family but I wanted my wife first. I wished to get to know her uninterrupted by life’s stresses, to allow her the space she would undoubtedly need to heal, to just be as a couple. She was my world.

I can’t really think straight when tired. I didn’t realise how deep the spiral when I heard her gasp at the pregnancy test. She turned to me, face open and bright, and I felt the blood drain from my cheeks. 

Not knowing what to feel, do or say, I stumbled over some words which unconvincingly were intended to show my delight. I was halfway through a collection of panicked questions when I saw the time and realised I was late. I grabbed my stuff, said, “we’ll continue this later,” and left her looking worried on the sofa.

I spent the first 30 minutes of my drive crying and panicking. I texted her halfway through my class that I didn’t know what I felt. She texted back:

All I want to do is be with you. Let’s just talk it all out when you’re home.

Something in that text message settled all the world’s worries.

At midnight, on my way home, I stopped at a motorway petrol station and bought a pregnancy test. The man behind the counter eyed me up suspiciously, I could hear him think.

Christine was asleep when I got back. I clambered into her side of the bed and tried to rouse her. 

“I bought another test.” I said softly, “I’m sorry I panicked, we’ll do it again in the morning and start over.”

We both shrieked for joy the following morning when the test came back positive. Pregnant urine flew around the bathroom as we jumped up and down. We were about to have a new member to the Holmes clan. 

“I don’t know why I panicked so much,” I contemplated over breakfast.

“I do,” Christine said through a mouthful of eggs, “I think you were asleep before your head hit the pillow. You woke me up and I couldn’t sleep for hours after that. All I kept thinking was thank god you were just tired, and not hungry and overheated!”