Chapter 15: No alcohol abuse

I never thought I’d ever become an alcoholic, I like a drink as well as the next man and, surrounded by my peers bent on a bender, I have been known to drink to excess on more than one occasion. A single man with few restraints is likely to indulge from time to time.

Now things were different ... Monty’s new rules, backed up enthusiastically by Kay, meant no drinking alcohol, at all, from that point on. As I said, I didn’t think I was dependent on alcohol, I still don’t think I am but, Lord, did I miss my customary quiet sit down at the end of the evening with two or three fingers of one of my favourite malts. Now that I had to deny myself that pleasure was a test of whether I was an alcoholic or not ... it was a close run thing but domestic harmony and the health of myself and my twins won out.

Although the morning sickness had long gone away, and I never really had any extreme food fancies, I did find that I occasionally suffered from alternate bouts of constipation and diarrhoea sometimes, along with queasiness when facing foods that had once found favour on my table and now even the sight or smell was too much to bear.

My nipples got really sore and we all thought that I might develop breasts to feed the twins with but, fortunately for my mental wellbeing, that never happened. Al Murray, the Pub Landlord, often refers in his comedy routine alluding to gay customers, “that he was never confused”, I thought that accepting the invasive internal organs of a female womb was one thing, developing full blown tits bursting with milk would have been a confusing gender-encroachment too far!

Monty got the basement CAT scan working well and the few well-spaced scans proved that I wasn’t developing any cervix or the start of any birth canal, which meant that the C-section operation was the only delivery option on the table, the operating table, that is.

Also fortunately, Monty assured me, that all the hardware equipment necessary including the lighting and the surgical instruments were of the finest quality that Russian Oligarch money could buy and all the software updates which were available were easily installed from the original maufacturers without any awkward questions involved.

Monty was a well-respected doctor in his field and no Harley Street fake. I found out that he had carried out surgeries in hospital experiences at home and abroad in the distant past before opting to join his father’s private and quite exclusive medical practice. He had built up a lot of respectable contacts in the medical profession and, freed from his daily obligations to his former practice partnership, he was able to provide sort-after consultancy services both to his old surgery and to St Thomas’ Hospital. Monty sat in on a few surgery operations in order to get his hands-on surgery skills honed and he also pulled a few strings to get Kay seconded to his private practice where she was able to get a lot more involved in the area of nursing experience with children and babies, some of that experience with Monty, but mostly with doctors and surgeons who specialised in paediatric treatments and aftercare.

Kay wore her increasingly enlarging ‘fat suit’ as everyone was persuaded of ‘her’ progressing pregnancy and then, at the time when I entered the last six weeks of my pregnancy, Kay took her due maternity leave, which meant that for most of the time thereafter she didn’t have to wear it in order to fool anyone, which was a hell of a relief for her. Lying didn’t come naturally to Kay-Lynn and she hated what she was doing even if it was only to protect us from the potential fallout of the public finding out our secret while I was still carrying the twins towards their inevitable birthing.