Realistically, I'm not going to be able to do this forever. There are going to be times where I get on the tube or I'm in a restaurant and someone walks in who is pregnant or has baby. What am I going to do? Stand up in the middle of my meal and just walk out? I am going to have to get used to be around bumps and babies or its going to get out of control. Plus, I don't want to cut those friends and family who have babies out of my life forever. I've already lost enough. I don't want to lose them all too.
So, I've enrolled myself in an Aversion Therapy course. I am the tutor and there are no other students (not surprising given I made the course up myself in the privacy of my own living room!) so I can pretty much dictate the rules and what the course involves.
There are five stages to my made up course which are as follows:
Stage 1: Learning to tolerate pregnant strangers.
Objective - student must be able to be in the presence of pregnant strangers without welling up in tears and staring at their baby bump. In order to pass stage 1, student must be able to sit or stand next to a pregnant stranger.
Stage 2: Learning to tolerate stranger babies
Objective - student must be able to be in the presence of stranger babies of all ages (including newborn). In order to pass stage 2, student must be able to tolerate hearing the baby cry and seeing the mother feed baby.
Stage 3: Hanging out with friend's babies who were born pre-William
Objective - student must be able to spend time with and play with the baby. Student must be able to tolerate hearing the baby cry and be able to watch the mother interact with or comfort the baby. In order to pass stage 3, student must be able to hold baby...and then be able to give it back to the mother.
Stage 4: Hanging out with pregnant friends
Objective - student must be able to spend time with friends who are pregnant and have announced their pregnancy since William was born. Initially, the student will be expected to do nothing more than spend time with the friend and look at her from the neck up only. Over time, student should endeavour to make general enquiries about the pregnancy (an example might be to ask the mother when she is due). In order to pass stage 4, student must be able to look at the friend as a pregnant person - i.e. someone who actually has a bump body below her neck.
Stage 5: Hanging out with friend's babies born post-William
Objective - student must be able to spend time with babies who are born after William was born. Student must be able to tolerate hearing the baby cry and be able to watch the mother interact with or comfort the baby. In order to pass stage 5, student must be able to hold baby...and then be able to give it back to the mother.
I have had the odd mental moment where I have thought about taking this aversion therapy to the extreme and skipping to stage five which involves me going to John Lewis and just standing in the baby section watching all of the pregnant families around me. In reality, I suspect this is not sensible and it will only end in one of two ways:
(a) Claire breaks down in hysterical tears and has to be taken to the Manager's office so that they can call her husband to come and collect her;
(b) Claire is taken to the Manager's office by Security so that they can call the police as they suspect her of being a baby snatcher given she has spent the last hour not buying anything and staring at other people's babies.
So for now, I'm sticking to the therapy plan above. It will be interesting to see what happens when I go back to work next week. I know one of the secretaries at work is pregnant and I have a sneaky suspicion one of my friends at work is pregnant (although she hasn't told me yet). Ordinarily I would avoid her but as she works in my office its going to be pretty much impossible so I might be moving on to stage 4 sooner than I think.
