Eva Bradley: My own lunar landing

Eva Bradley

I have been saying for what now amounts to a large chunk of my adult life that it's about time I had a baby, if for no other reason than to have something new to write about in this column.
Well, at four hours past deadline and with a mind as vacant of inspiration as a black hole, I have an announcement.
I'm doing it. Well, I guess in the modern vernacular it could be assumed I already have done it, with the result of course being that, as a result, I'm doing the parent thing.
I'm up the duff, I'm with child, I'm expecting, I'm breeding, I'm procreating, I have a bun in the oven, I'm in the pudding club, I'm in the family way, eating for two ... I'm pregnant. I. Am. Having. A. Baby.
Got it?
If you haven't understood, don't worry, you're not alone.
It has taken me almost four months to get my head around it, and even now when I look at my growing pot belly, I freak out thinking I must have had too many pies, before freaking out even more when I remember there's another reason why my jeans no longer fit.
Being pregnant for the first time is about as close as most of us (well, half of us) can get to experiencing our own lunar landing.
It is exhilarating, out of this world and terrifying.
In short, it is one small step for mankind and one giant leap for Eva Bradley & co.
And that's why it has taken me so long to commit my current disposition to print.
Not because it's an intensely personal thing that one might not wish to share with a readership in the vicinity of 100,000 (although don't worry, that freaks me out too), but mostly because while being pregnant might be the most remarkable thing to ever happen to me (and my lovely baby daddy), for everyone else it is about as unremarkable as the passing of the seasons.
Although we all live our lives as the star of our own daily sitcom with complications and aspirations that boggle belief, the biological reality is that like every other organism on the earth, we're here for one purpose alone; to reproduce.
So while it is tempting as a first-world woman in want of a new plot line to recalibrate my entire life and its script around the impending arrival of a baby, I'm conscious that (although many pregnant women seem to forget), I'm not the first to ever find myself in this position and I probably won't be the last.
There are only so many column inches I can dedicate to this new topic before my loyal readers (who have stuck with me through columns on many questionable topics including avocados, picking up dog poo, the arrival of light-proof milk and even making my lunch) give up and turn the page.
But not just yet, right? I'll ride the little wave I've been on for a little bit longer, soaking up the good vibes that inevitably come from sharing happy news (of which I've been happily having far more than my fair share of lately).
Then I'll quietly get down to the rather untidy business of bringing human seven-billion-and-one into this world, while intermittently updating you on just enough of the happy stuff not to be boring, and just enough of the pain, sleepless nights and dirty nappy stories to make you feel like your own life could definitely be worse. Deal?