THE BABY SHOWER AND MY NAGGING EGGS.

AUDIO QUACK (SKIP INTRO 2:05)

You know those chick flicks where the female protagonist is a boss, is married, has lots of friends, and always looks glamorous? Even when they eat a yogurt they’re hot.

You like to think that these kind of women do not exist, that they are as fictional as a unicorn. Well, unfortunatly this isn’t true. I have a unicorn my life and her name is Sian and she’s my friend. You want to hate Sian, but like Jennifer Anniston, you can’t help to love her.

We meet most weeks for Pilates and breakfast at GAIL’S. We would joke that we had a yummy-mummy routine without kids, but then Sian got pregnant, and so now the joke is only half funny.

Sian hosted a baby shower, which was an afternoon tea at her house. Of course, she hadn’t done the usual thing of a spread of kettle crips and hummus.

Do you remember in Beauty and the Beast, when the Candlestick hosts a dinner party? Yup it was that energy.

There was a bucks fizz arrival, pink balloons and bunting, and towers of scones, fairy cakes and vases of roses. She had even catered for the problematic people (me) with a vegan section.

It’s only natural at these types of events, (and weddings, funerals, Christmases, birthdays, and world book days), for your eggs to start nagging you. As I ate my plant-based scone, I heard that luring voice coming from an ovary.

“You can throw an afternoon tea party too…if you just use one of us.

I’m naturally not that maternal. I’d rather hold a puppy than a baby. And I don’t envy women in Gail’s when their cappuccino is being disturbed by their pestering toddler. In sixth form, we were paired up with a kid from reception to be their ‘house mothers’. I remember the first hot chocolate morning, where we were supposed to bond with our ‘house daughter’. My friends connected with their kids effortlessly, whilst I sat opposite mine in silence.

“Don’t let that hot chocolate burn you,” I said as the kid took a sip. Her eyes widened with terror as she put the cup down. She then waddled over to Sausage, who was making her house daughter laugh hysterically by giving a voice to her biscuit.

Yet, despite my unnatural motherly ways, I still have that consistent, progressively louder voice coming from below my belly button.

“Why don’t you have a baby with that guy?”

“YOU DON’T HAVE TIME FOR GAME OF THRONES GO OUTSIDE AND MEET SOMEONE!”

“…You just trap him…? What’s the worst that can happen?”

Halfway through the baby shower, Sian did a tour of the nursery that she recently had decorated. It had a classy teal palette, warm lighting, little mirrors, and framed pictures of animals, and hanging lightly above the cot, a cute little animal mobile.

“Look at the cute little animal mobile, Mary. Don’t you want a cute little animal mobile?”