JACK THE DAD

Our anonymous male columnist talks about project procreation

When Squirm first landed she was blue and hairy, and I worried that her mother might have slept with a Greek smurf.

That sounds derogatory to Greek people, but as a boy my Greek school friends did tend to be a little furrier. That was clearest in the changing rooms. They also tended to be persistent with girls. That was clearest when they danced with the girl you fancied at a bahmitvah. Those were multicultural times.

The nurses told me the blueness was normal, and they put a woolley hat on Squirm’s head and stuck her under a grill. Not to cook her, of course, just to warm her up. Then the three of us had a moment while she suckled away, and then the nurses took care of her mum while I gave her a bath.

She’d warmed up a bit by then, and looked like someone had drawn an angry face on a pound of sausages. Or maybe like a vole plucked too early from hibernation. Either way, babies don’t really look human for a while, and some don’t make it that far at all. ‘Unviable embryos’ they call these, as we know. And 18 months on, she grows more viable by the day.