That VB Hat...

I know that I would win if I entered...

The competition is for the relationship that needs the most help. Honestly; it's on the radio at the moment. The prize is for a two night stay at a fancy hotel in the spa room with a buffet breakfast every morning and two three course dinners and I reckon that I'd like that. But I can't enter and tell them that it's not that we can't find any time to be together. There is always plenty of time. I just can't tell them that he chooses not to spend any of it with me, well not enough, and that I'd have to beg with him even to share the prize with me.

Do I tell them we deserve a holiday away together because we've been fighting a lot lately? All of the other female callers are just complaining because they have no time for romance- poor little princesses in their castles- at least they are still sure that their husbands are in love with them. Not one of them has rung up and worried that their husband might leave them for someone else one day just because he's finally realised that he's never loved you in the first place...

Go on; stick your cock in her if it makes you happy- I don't care. They don't worry- because chances are that their husbands do love them. Most of them. I don't reckon mine does. Not much, anyway. He's certainly not 'in love' with me anymore. And the prize isn't worth admitting the truth for, so I won't call the number.

But I will tell you about the radio competition that my Hubby's mate won a few years back- the one where the prize was playing cricket on the beach with the Town's football team...

The whole event was sponsored by VB and was basically going to be the piss-up of the year, at least since New Year's Eve a few weeks earlier. I knew there was very little that I could say or do from preventing my Hubby from this golden opportunity of free food and grog all day- I knew I wouldn't be able to stop him from going, so I didn't even bother trying. I was only concerned that the match was to be played on the same day that I was due to give birth to our second child.

In the days leading up to the game I begin to get accused of holding the baby in on purpose, both by my Hubby and my Mother-in-law. Because I'm spiteful like that. She tells me to be fair and not try and ruin his big day out by having the baby on the same day as his big cricket match, because it would be such a shame for him to have to be in the hospital with me. Jesus. I'll try my hardest...

The Team has even been practicing their batting and bowling down at the nets every day after work in the hopes they'll stand a chance- but to Me that's just another excuse for him to be away from me while I'm pregnant. He's not been here a hell of a lot; even after he promised me it was going to be be different this time around.

The day begins early for me. At four thirty that morning I woke up with labour pains, but they are irregular and and not very strong and they're only coming every half hour or so. This is my second pregnancy and labour so I know there's still a long way to go; and I'm not panicked or afraid this time- because I'm twenty eight this time as opposed to being only eighteen- and because my bag was packed weeks ago. I've written out my birthing plan in great detail for the mid-wife's perusal when we get there; I'm planning on staying at home for as long as I'm comfortable- last time I was in the hospital for twenty two hours walking the corridors while my Mother lectured me that I couldn't possibly be in labour if I was still capable of eating the inedible hospital mush they provided me sixteen hours into the ordeal...

But at just before nine This morning my Hubby informs me that it's now time to drive him into the beach for his cricket match- and I tell him that I've been having contractions for the last four hours; and even though they aren't very painful yet that they are getting uncomfortable. He pouts and accuses me of trying to spoil his good time so I huffily climb into the Rocky that we had then, and drive him there- pointedly ignoring everything he says to me along the way. I'd let him take the car himself except he's planning on getting shit-faced drunk. Oh, and the small point that he hasn't even got a driver's licence.

And I'm fucking ropeable at him- because how dare he ask me to do this; today of all days?

Just as we lurch over another speed-bump another cramp hits- they are only as painful as bad period pain- but I still wince and groan through it while he is seemingly oblivious; tuning the radio to the same station that will broadcast the game later. He's presuming that I'm going to listen along during the day to see how he is going, I suppose.

As I dump him at the corner and speed off in a cloud of diesel fumes I am fuming at him, for even asking him to drive me, anywhere in the first place, but also for abandoning me, presumably for most of the day, while I am about to give birth to our baby. I cried the whole way home, angrily berating my Hubby in my mind. For the rest of the day I furiously cleaned the house from top to bottom, continuing to labour on in between contractions. I think they call it nesting but I just wanted the distraction.

It had been a long time between children for Me; nine and a bit years to be precise...

I progress slowly throughout the day, but my Hubby doesn't call to check on me. Not once. He's having too much fun to think about Me. His mother calls- to let me know how her son is doing- she's taken my eldest son into the beach to watch his father and his mates embarrass themselves against professional sportsmen. They all, funnily, still think that they're in their spoting prime. My Hubby's not even one of the worst- he hits one ball for six straight out into the car park and wins a VB hat and shirt for his efforts.

Someone informs the radio's DJ's, who are broadcasting live from the beach, that his Missus is at home in labour- which allegedly elicited a boo from the crowd, and they go to say that if he suddenly runs from the sandy pitch it is just because he has become a father for the second time and has had to get to the hospital in a hurry, and the crowd cheered, or so I was told. Like he was doing anything deserving of applause...

I was on the lounge about then I suppose, or in the shower for the forty-eighth time that day trying to ease my pains. One or the other.

It was past dark when he got back; one of the other drunk's wives drove him home- I guess she was feeling sorry for me by that time. My Hubby was burnt to a crisp, suffering sunstroke and maggoty drunk. I let him sleep it off on the floor for four hours, and laboured around him in a triangular pattern- first in the kitchen, then to the patio, then into the bathroom. I muttered nastiness as he slept.

Then, at four past ten, I woke him up and made him have sex with me. It was a pretty animalistic thing to have done, don't you think? To his credit, he still tried to make me enjoy myself, but for one of the few times in my Life I didn't give a fuck about having an orgasm. I just wanted his sperm to soften my cervix so I could have his baby quicker. So that the pain would go away. I don't even know if I can write that. Oh well; censor it if you want...

It certainly kick-started 'true' labour. We went to the hospital about two AM, my chauffeur Dad driving like a bat out of hell, and I made my Hubby hold my hand and stay awake until the baby was born- even though he felt like Death on toast. I was really quite proud of him that he didn't vomit when I splashed his feet with amniotic fluid when my water's broke; that was quite an achievement considering he has an usually weak stomach.

He wouldn't cut the umbilical cord, and he didn't look very much 'down there', saying it was all 'too gross', but he was the one who told me that our baby was 'a boy, Mate', just like it said on my birthing plan- which was the only thing that actually went to plan, come to think of it.

And that little baby, our little Son, is now the rightful owner of that VB hat; he wears it to pre-school. I figured that his Father didn't really deserve it for himself anymore- well; not after how he came to get it, hey?