The Baby Has Landed

This week I experienced a filmic moment. I had to run to get somewhere when the odds were against me getting there. 


It’s Wednesday afternoon and we’ve left a lot of time. We arrive forty minutes early; it will give us time to sit down in the café and get some lunch. Approaching, we find the road has become a queue, a thoroughfare we can’t cross. We turn around and head to the next car park which has no space. A lady lies her car across a row of vehicles, hoping this stakeout will prove fruitful. On the flip side, we prowl for spaces, looping the loop, doing laps of the track. All is in vain. The time ticks on. 14.10 gets closer. The next car park we go to has all the bays of a landlocked state. In the end we concede defeat. I drop The Girl off at the maternity clinic. I’ve resigned myself to missing it.


You see we’re having a baby. This is our twenty-week scan. We’ve decided against finding out the sex of the baby. When asked by people what we’re having, we simply reply, ‘A Watford fan.’ It won’t wear blue or pink. Yellow and red will be its colours. Although we’re not finding out what's between its legs, we’re excited to see the rushes on the baby production.


Only it doesn’t look like I’ll be there.


All the parking is taken. I contemplate knocking on someone’s door and asking if I can park on their drive. I consider leaving my car in the middle of the road like Michael Douglas in Falling Down, giving uzi eyes to anyone who crosses me. I think about parking in a disabled bay: the heart is willing, but the conscience isn't. In the end I find somewhere at the bottom of the road when the phone rings. 

‘I’m just about to go in. Where are you?’

‘I’m running. I’m coming!’


So like Kate Bush I’m running up that hill. It’s a romcom ending- only the love is secure. I’m dodging and darting between patients, staff, trollies, relatives. Like a rat in a maze, I scratch and scurry for the exit. A text goes: ‘I’m in Room Two.’ I dispense with manners and jump the two person queue, apologising profusely, ‘My wife’s in there. I’m sorry can I go in front?' (I’m already in front.) The receptionist waves me through and there on the bed is my wife, there on the screen our child.


I was only a minute or two late. Everything is checked and measured. At the end, the scan returns to an overview of the foetus. It’s palm opens and closes. The Girl says, ‘Look it’s waving.’ As a child of two teachers, I think it's got its hand up. It’s a lovely moment that to them means nothing, but to the us suggests meaning, a connection of sorts. I turn my head, my wife turns hers, meeting in the middle we smile. It’s really happening. In a few months we will hold what we see. Our lives will change.


In preparation for this momentous moment we’ve been watching BBC Two’s The Baby Has Landed. Initially, I thought I would just watch it as homework, revision of sorts, to prepare me for the big day. Quite quickly though I found it moving, illuminating, entertaining. In many ways it takes the form of Gogglebox in that it drops in on the homes of disparate families. There’s young couple Mo and Syler expecting their first; Craig and Paul who are having their first through a surrogate; childhood sweethearts Shabaaz and Hermisha waiting on their third; and Helen and Nigel readying themselves for their fifth. Some small families, some big then. Some traditional families, some modern. All are united though by one common factor: soon the baby will land.

The first episode mainly features on the preparation for the baby’s arrival. It’s interesting to see how first-timers respond compared to old hands. Mo is under pressure to be in the delivery room. His wavering is making Syler tense. Mo explains how in Egypt the man gets a call when the baby arrives. Syler’s retort: we do things differently here. It’s a revelatory scene that highlights the cultural differences of childbirth. Helen and Nigel are a different case. With this being their fifth, they have the procedure down to a tee. For them having a baby is as routine as getting your car insured. With four children running around, you get the sense that the delivery room will be a holiday, a mini-break from the joyous chaos of home life.


The second episode concentrates on those first few days. What is fascinating is how Shabazz and Hermisha’s boys react to their sister. The boys have been prepped in advance. Mum and dad have made them part of the journey. They’ve bought presents for them too, signed from their new sister – in the same way your mum signs from Santa. They’re so excited to see her. The tenderness they show is a credit to their parents. Although over time you see how the younger son looks for attention: he plays dead so his dad will carry him; he curls up on the bed with mum. He wants to feel their touch. Never once does he complain though. He appreciates he has dropped in the pecking order, recognising the reason why - just wanting to hold on a moment longer. I’m sure the way a child can feel is the way a parent can too: you no longer become the number one priority; you’re rightly displaced by something more vulnerable that necessitates care and attention. This reduction in status though, this humbling, must be a good thing. To cede importance to another is maturity in action.

Hermisha and Shabazz (centre) with their kids.

In the last episode we watched it focused on Craig and Paul. Although the show does follow a trajectory of lead-up, birth and aftermath (is that the right word?), the chronology is staggered so we see different couples go through these events at different times. In a show of selflessness, Mel is surrogate for her friends Craig and Paul. She met one on a flight (they’re cabin crew) where he told her of his desire for children. Mel’s mother was a foster parent, which educated her in the philosophy that taken on more work might lessen someone else's burden. She gives her womb to Craig and Paul. She is headstrong and brilliant, guiding her own children through what surrogacy means. When the babies are born, she hands them over. She does not weep in loss, but joy. She has delivered happiness to another. Craig and Paul cry, feeling guilt over leaving her. Later, Mel’s husband picks her up. She’ll return to her family, aware she's helped create another.


All of the families on The Baby Has Landed are wonderful. You see their fears, their struggles; the teamwork, the tenacity. I wasn’t really broody before. Watching the show could have put me off. Opened my eyes to the sleepless nights, made me recoil that beneath the beauty is a bum, a bum that will shit shit everywhere. But seeing how the parents look on receiving their newborn. Seeing their heart hit their face has brought it home. I can’t wait to experience that. 
(I hope the baby doesn’t come too early though. I’m really not ready.)


The Baby Has Landed is on BBC Two, Wednesday 9pm. All episodes are available on iPlayer.