It's strange the things that occupy your mind at the most unlikely moments. It first struck me while I was sitting at my wife's bedside at the first twinges of childbirth. You know the twinges I mean, the ones just before the main event. They're obviously the first twinges because she still calls you "love", and only holds your hand.

But the main event, that's a different ball game. "Love" has gone out the window, and she's calling you every name under the sun and holding hands has turned into "hand in a pipe-vice", which seems like it's slowly being wound shut by some demonic villain in a Bond film while he's explaining to you that he's trying to take over Ze Vorld.

We were just at the "What have you done to me!?!" stage, when that thought  struck. I began to wonder why it was that more children aren't born in dirty linen baskets? Because when you think about it, that's where they're conceived. It's true. Let's face facts, what's the first thing you do as soon as you've done it?  Wipe up the damp patch with a towel, then shove it in the bottom of the dirty linen basket. Am I right, or what?

Test tube babies? Wimps.

Dirty linen basket babies? Tough as old boots, mate. Jesus was one, and look how he turned out.

Mary and Joseph, obviously feeling a little randy after a night out on the town. Did it.  Joseph wiped up the damp patch - because he loved her - then shoved the towel into the bottom of the linen basket. Nine months later, Mary goes to do the washing and Lo and behold, there's a baby at the bottom of the basket! It's a miracle. A virgin birth. No doubt the stable and the no-room-at-the-inn bit were added later for a bit of local colour, to sell Mary's book "My miracle Birth".

"Oh, but how can you poke fun at the wonder of child birth!" I hear you cry. I know, I understand, I've been through it. And if you don't believe me, you should see the state of my hand after being in that pipe vice. And I'll hold that withered and lifeless limb up and admit that I don't know what all the fuss is all about. There's absolutely nothing to it. All the fuss that goes with pregnancies. You get wives, mothers, sisters, aunts, mothers-in-law and the woman who works behind the counter in the post office telling you that you don't understand. But there's one person that they always forget. And without that said person, the whole damn shooting match would never have got off the ground...Yep, that's him, the father. I don't understand? The Hell I do.

It is us, who after finding out that fatherhood looms ever closer has to put up with many, many strange alien happenings. For instance, the sight and sound of a grown woman throwing up into the bathroom sink at six every morning, without having had a truck load of lager and kebabs the night before. It's not a pretty sight, let me tell you. Especially if I'm cleaning my teeth at the time.

I always thought that hormones were tablets. The ones given to men who want to become women, to make their bits more....wobbly. But I was wrong.  I found out that they rule the pregnant womans mind like a tyrannical schizophrenic dictator. One minute calm and peaceful talking about nursery colour schemes. The next, a screaming psychopath wielding a long bladed carving knife trying to detach any part of the male anatomy, just because he mentioned going to the pub.

Rather disturbingly, the woman's figure deteriorates too. That slinky sex kitten you once lusted over on the dance floor, begins to look more and more like Mr Blobby each time you look at her. Although still curvaceous and sexy from the rear, she's now more than a little rotund in front. I once had a dream I was watching darts on the telly, and my heavily pregnant wife beat Eric Bristow to a nine dart finish.

The stomach I'm afraid continues to grow and grow and grow and looks as if one little prick might deflate the huge balloon under my wife's shirt. Ironic really, that it was one little prick that put it there in the first place. And it moves. A week before my son was born, it looked as if the damned thing was trying to escape through the belly button. I had flash-backs of the film "Alien", and refused to sit at the same table as my wife.

Wanting to do things properly, she insisted I go along with her to a parent craft class. The things they showed us! One was the fetus crawling along a narrow tunnel in its quest for freedom. The fetus represented by some horrific looking doll, and the pelvic bone by some misshapen plastic "thing" that was probably meant to be a thermos flask, but was left too long in the sun. Not having been in this situation before, I thought the whole thing looked so easy, so clean, so clinical, so......boring really. 

It's five in the morning and I'm fast asleep. I feel a nudge in the ribs. I ignore it hoping it'll go away. Another nudge, followed by a swift punch to the groin. "You bastard, you did this to me!" I warned you about those hormones. I was duly informed that contractions were ten minutes apart. Seconds later I'm on the phone, and the bloody nurse the other end tells us not to come in yet. Didn't she realise I had an injured animal not three feet away from me, ready to pounce at the slightest move?

After a subsequent phone call we're told we'd be expected; calm as you like, but I'm sure I heard her call for more hot water and towels as she put down the phone.

Half past eight in the morning; rush hour traffic in the pouring rain, and I'm informed that she wants the toilet. "Pull into Sainsbury's, I'll go there." I'm told.

 Now, if I have one thing, it's a good memory.

"Don't go to the bathroom during contractions, you'll want to push and Bob's your uncle, you've given birth in the toilet." The midwife had told us.

Risking life and limb, I push on to the hospital. It's a good job I didn't stop, for two reasons. One, I didn't want to have my picture taken pointing at the lavatory where the baby was born. And two, I have this everlasting mental picture of a certain supermarket being "Clean and Fresh", and I didn't want end up in court for being responsible for sullying that image.

We arrive at the hospital, and by nine fifteen, the whole things over. There's blood, sweat, tears and placenta everywhere. But the only thing that sticks in my mind is overhearing two doctors chatting at the business end, comparing the lack of sleep they'd both endured. Listening closely, I'm sure I heard one say she hadn't slept since 1998.

But finally I must comment on the old adage of childbirth being a beautiful sight. Not so much the sight of my son being born, but the sight of the twisted torment and agony my wife was going through. For the crap she put me through during those nine months of pregnancy, there was nothing more beautiful.        

ENDS