I will re­mem­ber this day for ever. My hus­band said he ex­pects us to touch on the to­pic again over the weeks to come. I told him we most de­fi­ni­te­ly will.

I am due to give birth to our thir­teenth child to­day. My whole body is re­a­dy to burst. I am tho­rough­ly ripe and fed up with wai­ting. For many eve­nings I have al­re­a­dy pra­yed, with some frust­ra­ti­on, that the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her would fi­nal­ly grant for there to be two of us in the mor­ning. My hus­band used an old 5 kg iron weight to de­monst­ra­te to our child­ren that their mot­her is car­rying that much weight in her tum­my. He as­ked them how they would feel about ha­ving to tidy up the mess made by ot­hers in that con­di­ti­on.

That good man spoke such lo­ving words and made the kids se­ri­ous­ly con­si­der the mat­ter and test the weight with their own hands. On top of that, he has been most help­ful and con­si­de­ra­te throug­hout my preg­nan­cy. I couldn’t have as­ked for more. One eve­ning, for ins­tan­ce, watc­hing my pi­ti­ful at­tempt to turn over and get up for a pee, he gent­ly as­ked if he could help and roll me over. Roll me over! I laug­hed so much I al­most peed my­self. I tried to tell him that he was very kind and help­ful, but I did not exact­ly like his choi­ce of words. I poin­ted out that a more sen­si­ti­ve per­son might even be of­fen­ded if so­me­o­ne of­fe­red to “roll” her over.

To­day I de­ci­ded to bake some wai­ting-for-the-baby goo­dies for my kids’ snack time, and I was gre­at­ly de­ligh­ted to see my hus­band ar­ri­ve. He came mid-mor­ning, unex­pec­ted­ly ear­ly. He gave me such a lo­ve­ly smile through the kitc­hen win­dow that my legs went all wob­b­ly. I thought I was so luc­ky to have that man for a hus­band.

But it did not last long, on­ly as long as it took him to walk from his car in­to the kitc­hen. Ma­y­be just half a mi­nu­te? He said he had had a co­vid-19 test made. Just in case, as re­com­men­ded, be­cau­se he has this sing­le tiny, not-so-com­mon symp­tom. He had had a co­vid-19 test made on my due date!

I stop­ped lo­ving him pret­ty quick­ly. Pres­sing the pot hol­ders against my flour-co­ve­red sto­mach, I burst out crying. Not be­cau­se he had had that test made, but be­cau­se he had done it to­day. I had me­ant to have my baby to­day. And he should not have gone and had that test made, not to­day. That would have been crys­tal clear to each and eve­ry preg­nant mot­her. It is still per­fect­ly pos­sib­le for me to have the baby to­day, but he can­not come along. He will have to wait for the re­sults of the test be­fo­re he is al­lo­wed to en­ter the hos­pi­tal. And how long will that take?!

I do not want to have our baby all by my­self.

Well, he had not thought about that at all. I saw that he was tur­ning over in his mind the word “mis­ta­ke”. And so was I, along with some ot­her words. Su­re­ly he would not have nee­ded to have a test af­ter a coup­le of snee­zes, not on his wife’s due date any­way.

While I was wai­ling out my pa­nic, our tee­na­ged daugh­ters ad­vi­sed their fat­her to call the lab. Right now. And ask them to see about his test as soon as pos­sib­le. Even the girls re­a­li­zed that there was no time to was­te. I have had se­ve­ral of our ba­bies be­fo­re the due date, and we can­not know when and how quick­ly this new­co­mer is going to ar­ri­ve.

He was ab­le to get hold of some lab staff, and they said they would not get the re­sults un­til to­mor­row. But they would try to be quick. In my ima­gi­na­ti­on I saw a group of flab­ber­gas­ted fe­ma­le lab staff tal­king about a man who came to have a test on his wife’s due date. I could see them sad­ly sha­king their he­ads in deep inc­re­du­lous si­len­ce. That ima­ge was so­me­how com­for­ting. And they even sent a text af­ter­wards and pro­mi­sed to be quick.

Woe to this gloom and de­jec­ti­on. Woe to the emo­ti­o­nal ins­ta­bi­li­ty of a preg­nant wo­man. Woe to my poor hus­band. I was so an­no­yed I thought that, if I need to le­a­ve in the night, I will not even wake up my dear hus­band in qu­a­ran­ti­ne. I will go and have my baby all by my­self and – as my lo­yal friend sug­ges­ted – I will not even tell him if it is a boy or a girl. Though he can pro­bab­ly make an edu­ca­ted gu­ess ba­sed on the fril­ly pink gar­ments lying all over the place, I will not con­firm it.

And one more thing: I have as­ked many pe­op­le to pray that the baby would be born soon. I will withd­raw that re­qu­est. I pub­lic­ly dec­la­re this to be my se­ri­ous wish: ple­a­se, do not ask for a quick birth but rat­her for some ext­ra time. All of a sud­den, I feel that I am now re­a­dy to car­ry this lit­t­le one in­si­de me for anot­her week or two.

Yes, and I could cer­tain­ly al­so ask that my hus­band would test ne­ga­ti­ve, which I as­su­me to be the case any­way. If he tests po­si­ti­ve, I will can­cel all my evil thoughts and start being a most lo­ving and un­ders­tan­ding wife. I pro­mi­se.

I would ne­ver have be­lie­ved how ex­ci­ting the end of a preg­nan­cy can be! I ima­gi­ne my­self to be the port­ly pro­ta­go­nist of a de­tec­ti­ve story, whose soul mate is in qu­a­ran­ti­ne be­cau­se of a vi­rus thre­a­te­ning the whole world. I will fight my own bat­t­le and, if ne­ces­sa­ry, I will blow up the bank on my own. If I go in­to the hos­pi­tal with this at­ti­tu­de, I will be out with the baby in my arms in no time – all by my­self.

Text: Satu Luok­ka­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.