Chapter Seven
16 August 2017
Lindsay
Ten fucking days late. Lazy little git is showing no sign whatsoever of moving. Tyler has made me a curry every night for the last ten days. Curry and raspberry leaf tea can fuck off. I’ve tried to have sex with Ty, but he’s told me he knows I’m only doing it to try to get the baby out and that I shout at him 99.9% of the time, so I can sit my arse back on the sofa and wait for nature to take its course. Earlier he suggested a walk. I may have threatened to twist his bollocks off. The bones of my pelvis feel like they’re about to come apart. When I walk I feel as if there’s a large melon trying to come out of my box which I guess there kind of is. There’s really nothing at all that could make me feel any more shit at this moment in time. I’m like a beached whale.
Tyler comes running in. “Beth had the baby this morning.”
“She did what?” I screech. “She’s not due for another three and a half weeks! How fucking dare she? My baby was due first. Mine. I’m still here, a big fat blob and she’s had hers? In which universe is that fair?”
“Erm,” Tyler waves his hand, showing me the phone. “She’s on the phone, babe, wants to talk to you.”
I roll my head back against the sofa before gesturing for the phone. Fuck my life.
“Congratulations, Beth.” I say down the phone.
“Yeah, I just heard what you said. I know how you’ll feel, that’s why I called. Only the baby was born in the early hours after a four hour birth and I’m already home. But, I did want you to hear it from me, not Tyler.”
“I’m sorry, Beth. I really am pleased for you. So what have you had? Tell me all the details.”
“A little girl, Alesha May. Six pounds 12 ounces. I’ve had a couple of stitches but other than that it wasn’t too bad. Might need some ice down there for a few days. Anyway, I know it must suck being overdue. You remember, I was a full two weeks overdue with Trey.
I feel a tear roll down my cheek. “Sorry, I can’t take it much more. I swear if it was possible, I’d cut my own stomach up and take the baby out myself.”
“Oh I remember that feeling well. Look. I know you feel crap and it’s hard to get about but get Tyler to take you somewhere, even if it’s only for a drive. You can put towels down on the seats just in case.”
“Yeah, I might just do that. Thank you, Beth, and thank you so much for calling to tell me about the baby when you must be so busy.”
“No, actually I have my feet up and a cuppa, the baby is sleeping at the side of me and Leo and Trey are playing downstairs.”
“Right, I’m going to go now before I send an assassin round to finish your perfect life off.” I cackle, only half joking.
“Take care, Linds. Let me know when anything happens.”
She rings off.
Now I’m even more fucked off. She has her baby and I’m still sitting here like a volcano waiting to blow.
“Tyler.” I yell. “Come on, we’re going out.”
It’s a roasting hot day so after a small discussion and a quick look at the ‘What’s On’ guide for our area on the internet, Tyler decides we’ll go up to a summer music festival at a park not too far away. He’s all, ‘just in case the baby comes’. Yeah right, I think there’s more chance of the second coming than an appearance from this child.
He gets on my nerves from the minute we arrive, trying to get me to stay at the back out of the way of the crowds. There’s plenty of space between us and other people and a local band I like, Terrilion, are about to take to the stage. I waddle forward slowly trying to get as near as I can to the stage.
A woman at the side of me with a security lanyard spots me. “You sure you should be here?” She nods at my stomach.
“I had to get out of the house, I was going crazy,” I tell her.
“She’s ten days overdue,” Ty explains.
“Omg, you’re Tyler, Bewildered Baby Daddy!” The woman exclaims. “Bob from Terrilion just found out his wife’s expecting. He follows all your posts. Come up to the top and wait for the band. We have a VIP area. You’ll be able to have a seat there.” She says to me.
I note the fact that my pregnant state didn’t get me a seat in VIP. No, just my boyfriend being a famous YouTuber. You must not punch the lady offering you a chair. I repeat to myself over and over while I waddle forward following her.
Indeed she offers me a seat and also an ice cold coca cola, so I forgive her immediately. The band come on stage and their performance is epic.
The lead singer, Davey, leaps around the stage like a man possessed until it’s time for their slow song.
“Okay, it’s time for me to take it a little slower. Now let’s get a little lady up here with me on the stage. Who wants to join me? About two hundred female hands go up in the air, with those annoying squeals women let out embarrassing themselves. You know, the ones that come accompanied by a clapping of hands like you’re a fucking seal waiting for a fish.
Davey looks out around the crowd and then his eyes fix on mine. No. I don’t even have my hand up.
“As this track is called ‘Hold me Baby’, I think we’ll have the expectant mum over there up on stage.” He announces and fuck if I don’t squeal and clap my hands. Throw me a fucking fish someone.
I go up on stage, which takes a few minutes in my condition and Davey takes my hand and asks me my name. Oh my God, he is holding my hand. He sings and for two beautiful minutes he keeps staring into my eyes and then it happens. In front of about one thousand people, standing next to a local heart throb, my waters break and splash onto Davey’s feet.
And bless him, he carries on until he’s finished the song. Thanks me for taking the stage in front of the audience and then says to the crowd. “Well I think we’d better let Lindsay go and have the baby hadn’t we? Let’s wish her luck guys.”
I’m escorted off the stage carefully and Ty comes up to me. “Oh my God, you’re having the fucking baby. The fucking baby is coming. It’s going to be born in the middle of a field. I just know it. Did I not say we should have stayed near the car?”
I punch him in the arm. He’d banned me from this so-called annoying habit of mine, but he needed to calm the fuck down.
“Focus. And get me to the hospital.” I tell him.
As it happens, it’s twenty hours before Jacob Davey Turner makes his appearance. He’s a whopping ten pounds eight ounces and has a thick tuft of dark hair on his head, which Dora says is not surprising after all my heartburn. Tyler was a star throughout despite my almost breaking his fingers and he managed to stop the midwife who threatened to have me ejected from the labour room for being the rudest mother to be of all time. I calmed down after the epidural but she had told me she’d never had a baby, so when she kept telling me to be calm, I kind of told her that after the birth I would gather up and come fuck her with several hedgehogs.
An extra large bouquet of flowers turn up from Davey himself the day after Jacob’s birth. They kept me in an extra day for observation as my large baby had caused a bit of damage to the nether regions. Nothing that won’t heal quickly though.
Me and Ty can’t stop smiling at each other. Because we just created the most awesomest son ever. He’s currently in Grandma Dora’s arms. She’s been wilder than ever since she met up with that Tatiana woman. Today her hair is a vibrant pink, and she’s dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a black long tee, gothic style with rips in it.
“Grandma is going to spoil you rotten,” she says and then beams at me. “Oh, Lindsay, he is so beautiful. I can see our Tyler in him. He looks like Ty as a baby.”
And an hour before my mother had said he looked just like me. I nod and smile.
“Little Jacob. I know someone who’s just had a little girl and she could be your wifey when you’re all grown up.” Dora coos. Then she collects herself. “Or maybe you will swing a different way and not like her. No pressure little one. Whatever floats your bath time boat.”
“My mother’s back to her abnormal self.” Ty whispers in my ear. “By the way, roll on six weeks cos you’re a hot mama.”
He’ll be lucky if he’s back near my vajayjay in twelve months with how sore it is to sit down, but one day at a time, hey. All I want to do now is focus on that little bundle who was worth every single puke, all of the feeling shite and all of the labour pain. In fact it's already fading into the background as Dora hands me my son.
“Oh, Jacob.” I coo at him again. “I think you’ll need a brother or sister one day. Not now, but one day.”
There’s a thud and I turn around to find my other half has hit the decks. Later he’ll say it was because he forgot to eat during my long labour, but he managed the whole thing without even feeling queasy. Maybe, I spoke a bit too soon about extending the family with my loved one.
I’ll have to take it easy with him, he’s a sensitive soul.
When I get home I find out that Tyler has already made the baby an Instagram account and there’s a photo of Jacob next to a microphone with Terrilion tagged and ‘your next lead singer’ as the status.
“I’m going to try to get a bit of rest. Please don’t accidentally auction the baby on YouTube or something while I’m asleep.”
“I’m not even going on YouTube.” He says. “It’s father and son bonding time.”
Tyler
Bewildered Baby Daddy - final excerpt.
Wow. The moment that baby is put in your arms, the world stops, tilts and you see everything in a different way. As you walk that baby around the room trying to get them to sleep at night, you think of your own parents and that they must have done this very thing. You become more grateful, closer to your own. They know what you’re going through and you know what they went through.
You have to learn to listen to everyone’s advice and then feel free to ignore the whole damn lot of it because everyone thinks they know best. You have to remember they’re just trying to help.
People you’ve only spoken to twice on the street, come round with presents or knitting. We’ve had so many gifts from my fans I’m humbled, truly humbled and what we can’t make use of we are donating to a local charity.
My son is my world. I adore Linds, my love and baby momma, but we’ve both agreed that we would throw each other under a bus to save our son from any harm and that’s okay.
I dress my son in the little romper I secretly ordered after he was born and place myself in the tee shirt that matches. Mine says ‘My son is the bollocks’. On Jacob’s it says ‘I came from my Dad’s bollocks’. I snap a very quick photo before my baby mum wakes up and the only place you’re going to see this photo is in this book, right at the back on this very last page.
Thanks for reading and I’ll catch up with you soon.
Tyler xxx
The even more bewildered baby daddy.
THE END