The Strand

With just under five weeks to go until my boy's scheduled first appearance his nursery is looking close to completion. The furniture has been bought and built. The walls, shelve, skirting boards and ceiling have been painted. The carpet has been laid.

It's a nice soft carpet, made of two intertwined threads of blue, which is pleasant lie, walk and hopefully crawl on. The carpet had already been fit a few days before I was building the furniture and it was thenthat I saw it; I shrugged and smiled at it, to all appearances dismissing what had set my mind racing in outlandish and unfounded directions. It was a strand of carpet. Mixed in with the strands of winding shades of blue was a single strand of carpet which was made of two other colours: red and pink.

What are the odds that of all the square footage of this carpet in the world that that section of carpet would be bought by a retailer which Michelle and I would visit, and that we would then buy that particular section of carpet which contained a strand of red and pink within it for our baby's room? Are they the same odds of mistakenly being told that you will be having a boy? Probably not but still; makes you think. This was not as random a thought as it may seem either. Michelle had been told recently of two (TWO!) women who were told that they were having one gender by their midwife (or whomever does the scans) and ended up having the opposite gender. Both of these stories were told to her, I believe within a week, specifically the week before I found this symbolic strand of carpet.

In case you are interested, Google tells me that medical professionals will most often advise that there is a 10% margin of error when being told the sex of your baby.

Either way, whether we have the expected boy or an improbable girl, Michelle and I will be happy. Clothes with be exchanged, blue furniture will be adorned with pink flower or the likes and the world, as ever, will keep on turning.

4 weeks, 5 days until due date.

'Till then (or before).

THIS WEEK

I Watched: Land of the Lost, Nurse Jackie - Season 2, Southland - Season 2

I Read: Pronto by Elmore Leonard