We’re Pregnant and I Can’t Speak Japanese. William Hay

punishment, a strap across the backside, for bad behaviour…. Just you wait until your father comes home.

      I need to find a balance between being a Neanderthal and a wimp. I figure if I start showing signs of sympathetic pregnancy syndrome, which apparently is real, but usually the fodder for pregnancy episodes in sitcoms, that’s caring too much. The first bout of morning sickness and I’m checking in for electric-shock treatment.

      The baby is now 14 millimetres long and still an unidentified speck on another monochrome photo, but big enough for the gynaecologist to determine a delivery date, May 28. The big decision now is which gynaecologist is best for us? Our present gyno’s clinic is near the in-laws’ house, about 30 minutes away from us by train, and my idea of a good choice. If there’s a problem, my mother-in-law is nearby to help out. The fact that she has had three children makes her eminently more qualified than me to deal with any complications.

      My wife has other ideas. She wants to go to a gynaecologist in a swank mid-city clinic closer to her office, but about 45 minutes by train from where we live. You pay more for a consultation, but they are supposedly better doctors. That is, unless you get that one doctor who has only one appointment on a busy Saturday afternoon. A huge question mark flashes in my wife’s head. The guy has no other appointments because…? The answer her mind conjures up is enough for her to reschedule her appointment with another doctor for another week.

      Besides the obvious reasons for choosing the perfect gynaecologist, you have to consider whether he or she is connected to a hospital that allows the father to be present at the birth. It’s still not commonly accepted in Japan for men to be in the same room as their partners when their child is born. For a lot of dads-to-be, it’s cigarettes out in the car park or coffee and old magazines in the waiting room while the little woman does her job. We have to weigh up our options. Is it more important for me or for a good doctor to be in the room with my wife when the baby is born? I know my wife would be a lot more comfortable screaming at me for all the pain she is going through than at an eminent medical practitioner, but beyond being a human punching bag and breathing coach, I couldn’t do much else to bring the little one into this world. That’s if I don’t pass out in the process.

      At 14 millimetres, it’s still early days and anything can happen so we hold off telling anyone other than family of the pregnancy. We figure, once we clear three months and my wife starts popping the top button on her jeans, we’ll make things public.

      A teacher I work with has different ideas. He is happy to relay any and all news from his gynaecologist to the staffroom, but then again this is his second child so the stages of pregnancy are very familiar to him. An ex-paramedic, he mentions something I hadn’t thought of in these early stages. His wife is thirty-nine years old. My wife is thirty-nine. As his wife is rapidly reaching the big 4-0 mark, they have decided to have an amniocentesis test. He starts naming syndromes and attaching percentages of their likely occurrence in older pregnant women, which concern me enough to take notice.

      That night over dinner I raise the issue of an amnio test with my wife. It is a very brief topic of conversation because she has been thinking the same after reading the same risks and percentages in her magazine and it’s not something we want to dwell upon. I most certainly don’t. I’m a worst-case-scenario kind of person in the sense that I always think of the worst possible outcome and work my way backwards. The idea is that if I consider a certain outcome to be the worst thing that can happen to me, then anything above that is a bonus. It’s a pessimistic approach to being optimistic. When it comes to the baby, though, I don’t want to entertain any bad thoughts for a fear it will bring misfortune on us.

      Later in bed, I look at my fingernail in the dark. Fourteen millimetres is probably the length of the nail with a glued on extension — not that I’m the kind of guy who wears nail extensions; and, not that there is anything wrong with it if that’s your choice. Japanese baseball pitchers have their nails manicured regularly because healthy nails are important for throwing a full roster of pitches. I shake my wife gently to wake her from her sleep and tell her I don’t think we should have the test. I’ll be happy with whatever fortune comes our way.

      I’m swayed by the fact that we didn’t deliberately plan to get pregnant, but we also didn’t take any precautions to avoid it happening. We figured if it was going to happen it would; if not, which looked to be the case, we’d buy an apartment and commit ourselves to a financial burden that didn’t account for kids, which we did. As fate would have it, while we were knitting together a financial package to secure a home loan, there was a little knitting of chromosomes going on inside my wife’s body. Fortunately, there isn’t a history of life threatening genetic defects in our lineages, so there is nothing really to worry about. Although, the stringy comb-over my father wore as a hair style has me checking regularly for any widening of the bald spot on the double crowns I never used to have.

      My wife must have been thinking along the same lines because she agrees before I need to elaborate, which is out of character for her.

      No: umm.

      No: I… ah…

      No: Sucking in a thin breath through gritted teeth or tilting her head to the side, no extended nodding.

      Just: I agree.

      It’s totally against type for my wife, as her DNA has produced in her that Japanese trait that finds it difficult to make a decision quickly. It’s all to do with the Japanese preoccupation with considering others feelings and the general feeling in the air around us. That’s why there are so few bank robberies in Japan even though the banks are flushed with cash and there are no obvious signs of a deterrent to a would-be robber besides a smiling, middle-aged lady who is on hand to help you decide which teller you need to see.

       What service do you require, sir?

       I’m just here to rob the bank.

       Oh, so that would be a withdrawal… Teller No. 5 or 6.

      Getting the teller at the counter to put their hands up is easy because it is a command, but when it comes to the demand that’s when real tension clouds the air.

       Give me the money or you’re dead!

      Now, the teller is thinking if I give this guy the money, how will the manager feel? But, if I don’t give him the money and he kills me, how will my parents feel and that’s not taking into consideration the cost and inconvenience of my funeral. It’s a big decision to make. Do I disappoint my employer or my parents? Admittedly, my parents raised me and I will always be indebted to them, but I’ll probably be with this bank for the rest of my working life. A disappointed employer is likely to transfer me to the northern tip of Hokkaido where the locals go to Siberia in the winter for the warmer weather. Obviously, this is not a decision that should be made on the spot even with a gun pointed at me.

      The teller responds with a lot of mmms and shallow breaths sucked through their teeth while tilting their head to the side, stalling tactics learned from birth. For the robber, the teller’s indecision triggers indecision in him. Does he really want to kill or even hurt the teller or anyone? He needs the money, but a shooting would upset everyone one in the bank and he doesn’t really want anyone to feel bad. Then what if there isn’t as much cash in the bank as he had calculated? He’ll have to rob a second bank and go through the same ordeal to make up the shortfall. In the end, both the teller and robber decide they need more time to decide, but they are not exactly sure how much time is enough time?

      For my wife, passing on the amnio test also has something to do with the fact that she is a big fan of this spiritual psychic who is supposedly able to contact your guardian angel and look into your past lives. I’m not exactly a believer in spiritual readers of one’s future, but I have to admit I don’t mind this guy because he makes plausible connections with people’s past lives to explain their present and future lives. Too often, I’ve heard Hollywood celebrities, who have taken the trip down the reincarnation lane, claim that they were kings, queens and maharajahs in their past lives. This guy tells the Japanese celebrities who appear on his show that they were cleaners, servants, even prostitutes, which