My Bundle Of Joy: Part Nine

~ beetleypete

This is the ninth part of a fiction serial, in 725 words.

A very tired-looking female doctor turned up twenty minutes later. Reading through some notes, and inspecting the two monitors, she smiled. “We are sure everything is okay, but I am going to keep you in tonight, just to make certain. You must rest, try not to worry, and trust us to look afer you. You will be allowed home tomorrow lunchtime, I expect. I am suggesting lots of rest and feet up though. No heavy lifting or exertion, and avoid driving or standing for too long”. She breezed out of the room before I could ask her any questions.

But I had forgotten what I was going to ask her anyway.

Olly stayed for about an hour, until the big midwife returned and suggested he should leave me to try to sleep. Given all the shouting and toing-and froing outside the room, I doubted I would. Olly said he would phone my boss for me, and take time off tomorrow to come and collect me. I told him to get a taxi home, and not to try to work out what buses he might need.

The same doctor came to see me not long after I had hungrily demolished a breakfast they brought me. The monitors were taken off, and I had another ‘downstairs inspection’, before I was told I could go home as soon as Olly could collect me. I wondered how long that doctor had been awake, and whether or not she had got any sleep during the night. A porter was arranged to wheel me to the main reception, but I had to get dressed in the same clothes I was wearing when I arrived the previous evening. I just wanted a proper sleep, after a much needed shower or bath.

On the drive home, Olly spoke to me seriously, after first asking me not to interrupt. He talked about the possibility of me leaving my job. With the cheaper mortgage, it wasn’t as if we needed the money to get by, and last night had given him such a bad shock, he had been awake most of the night deciding to broach the idea of me becoming a stay at home mum. At least until Leah started school. When he had finished, he looked over at me anxiously, probably expecting me to reply with a flat out no.

If so, he was wrong.

I told him that I had been thinking too. We had already both taken some unscheduled time off, and there was a long way to go until I qualified for maternity leave. I agreed to call my boss that afternoon, and ask her whether or not I could work from home using my laptop. I confessed that I hated the train journey, and being squashed in the carriage with so many people. I couldn’t imagine how horrible it would be once the weather warmed up, and I was much bigger. By coincidence, Olly’s suggestion had provided me with a way out that I hadn’t wanted to talk to him about myself.

Work was not as accommodating as I had hoped. At first, she suggested I go in part-time. Just in the afternoons, to avoid the crush on the rush-hour trains. Olly shook his head at that, so I pressed the work from home idea. She said that just wasn’t suitable, and admitted that if she let me do it, she expected a few others to ask for the same concession. After leaving the call hanging in the air for a while, she dealt her last card. “Maybe you should rethink if this job is something you really want to do, Angela? Why not take a week off, and let me know whether or not you want to come back?”

It had been on speaker, and as soon as I hung up, Olly shook his head. “No way. Just ring her back next week, and tell her you’re resigning. Once Leah goes to school in five years or so, there might be other things you want to do. We can manage perfectly well on what I earn. In fact, we are better off than we were living in the flat, even without your salary”. I nodded, and agreed to think about it.

Becoming a pregnant housewife was a big change, and not something I had ever considered.

39 thoughts on “My Bundle Of Joy: Part Nine”

  2. (1) The female animal doctor read through some notes, and inspected the two monitor lizards. “Yes, they’ve mated. One was invasive towards the other, so now she’s pregnant.”
    (2) Bad citation: “Olly stayed for about an hour, until the big midge wife returned. In the meantime, he chatted with the skinny midge husband, who reminded him of Jeff Goldblum.”
    (3) Angela had another downstairs inspection before she was told she could take the elevator back up to the ground floor.
    (4) Overheard:
    Angela: “Doctor, did you get any sleep last night?”
    Female Doctor: “Yes, but I had this terrible nightmare about patients demolishing their breakfast. You should have seen the horrible mess they made!”
    (5) Last night had given Olly such a bad shock! He’d had the same nightmare as the female doctor, except that in his dream, he was the hospital janitor!
    (6) Angela’s boss told her to avoid the crush on the rush-hour trains. She agreed there were a lot of handsome blokes on the trains, but warned her that Olly would be insanely jealous of her crush.
    (7) After leaving the call hanging in the air for a while, the old black crow finally decided to let everyone hear it.

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  3. An enjoyable series, Pete, you are doing very well portraying a pregnant lady…I was lucky I carried on working until I had mine… not planned just the fact I was well and didn’t have anything that caused me problems I do realise that some are not so lucky though…A good little series x

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  6. How priorities change with maternity…i had to travel to office for one day when I was seven months along. A one-km patch of road was bad and I was crying my heart out. I was on the verge of quitting then and there if my husband hadn’t intercepted and asked me to reconsider after two days… 😁

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  12. Working from home wouldn’t be a problem now, I wonder how many ladies have taken advantage of that. 😊 for Ang it will be frustrating, she’ll get bored, but when the baby comes she will have 3 months of ‘baby brain’ and won’t mind being at home in the slightest.

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    1. This is in around 2002, Kim. I haven’t stated the date as such, but there is Internet, and mobile phones are common. The huge TV owned by Olly would have been massively expensive then, but just available on the market. (I knew someone who bought one that year, and it cost almost £5,000. An equivalent now would be less than £750.)
      It moves on to the current time period as the story progresses.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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