Pregnant, at last! And so it began. A dialogue between me and my baby. Sorry, I mean me and my baby app. My baby app and I. Bapp, for short.
You’re probably worrying you’re starting to look fat, said Bapp, one day, when I was about 18 weeks along.
“I’m sorry?”
You are, but that’s okay.
“I know it’s okay,” I retorted, “I’m pregnant.”
Uh, thanks for that.
It soon became clear early that Bapp was a nervous pregnancy companion; determined to see the negative in every stage of what I preferred to believe to be a miraculous journey to new life. Every day he would suggest something new to feel anxious about.
You just wait for those belly button blues.
“Belly button what?”
Cry. I would.
“You mean I should feel sad because my belly button looks different?”
And you also look fat.
Bapp was a worrier. He felt I should worry too.
“Chill out, Bapp,” I would say when he got out of hand. “I’m having a baby.”
Then maybe you should act like it.
I wasn’t even in my third trimester and Bapp wanted me to lock away the toothpaste.
You need to put child safety locks on all compartments. I’m talking cabinets, drawers, refrigerators and the toilet.
“No, Bapp,” I said, gently but firmly. “I don’t. Not yet.”
It might be time for a new pregnancy app if…
I could only imagine how stressful mornings would be if I followed his advice. Waking up desperate for the toilet, only to find it clamped shut and I’d forgotten the combination. Needing to go back and forward to unlock the safe to get my toothbrush and later my hairbrush, because having two types of brushing equipment out at the same time would be too dangerous. Unable to make myself a decent coffee because I’d lost the key to the kitchen cupboard. Not being able to get at the milk either because the iris recognition had stopped working on the fridge.
At times I was tempted to uninstall Bapp. Some relationships are hard to let go of. He was annoying, but he made me laugh.
Now that you’re over six months pregnant, you probably have concerns about your safety in the event of an unpredictable disaster…
“No, not particularly, Bapp.”
Once you’ve decided on a plan of action, you’ll be able to rest knowing that you’ve done everything in your power to stay safe…
Bapp made me question how the human race had managed to survive so long surrounded by such peril. Bapp also made me wonder how many women were taking their paranoid pregnancy app seriously.
How I see it, if you’re locking away your toothpaste months before baby has even been born because of something your pregnancy app said, it’s probably time to try another app. After all, what really matters to that baby growing inside you, is that you’re relaxed and happy, even if that means you don’t know what size fruit they are that week.
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