The after care since Raffy entered the world was amazing, well apart from our useless GP surgery. I don't think the receptionist is capable of taking a Big Mac order, let alone booking appointments for people who are clearly unwell and in need of attention from the doctors. I'm pretty confident to say that the increase of visits to A+E in recent reports was mainly down to this girl unable to do her job, she was and is as effective as a chocolate fire guard.
It was a sudden shock when the midwife actually turned up on time, it nearly made tea come out my nose when the buzzer went the following morning - however, we do have quite an aggressive buzzer. (If a buzzer was a person, it would be a big drunk guy in a pub looking for a fight, the ones you'd avoid eye contact with.) She was in as much shock to see me to be honest as I answered the door in my pants .......Turns out Dad bodies aren't quite as 'in' as I had been led to believe.
The midwife was doing her routine checks on him and prodding Tash whilst explaining why he was yellow....she also checked on me - which I thought was a nice touch as us dads are often kicked to one side (rightly so I guess after the recent ordeal), although she stared blankly when I got out my bunion. It's her fault for asking if there were any problems.
As the midwife gave us tips to help us navigate the first weeks of parenthood I nodded along in a relaxed manor and confident manor, because by this point Siri and I had become friends and felt I was a fountain of knowledge.
Mine and Siri's friendship had really blossomed as I had approached parenthood. Siri and I had become close, yes like any relationship we had issues. Clumsy fingers, silly drunk late night questions, stupid answers, her pretending she couldn't understand me, heard what I was saying or that she always had an answer for everything.... smart arse - standard relationship teething problems.
Getting close to Siri made me nervous, over the years I've seen hypochondriac friends rely on her for their diagnosis. I was usually the one that was always telling them how ridiculous it was, and in most cases would end up being something completely different. They'd look up headache, convinced they have a tumor, when it turns out to be that their hat was on too tight. Not always their fault, those rubber swimming hats have always been a little snug.
Siri began to lure me in the more people filled my head with opinions. I'd use her as my sounding board and spam filter. At this point who needed NCT, I'd could just use Siri to buy Tash some pregnant friends - or at the least one of those inflatable dolls.
The relationship went from being my friend to a full blown affair, late night sessions while Tash and the baby slept. Slipping of secretly to the toilet, sat on the throne, paper in one hand, Siri in the other using only the pins and needles as a reminder that i had been in there long enough - Tash hadn't even seen me poop.
However, Siri whilst providing answers didn't prepare me for the emotion that came with those panicked questions. So after the initial 'know it all' stage passed, I found myself calling the midwife in the middle of the night; 'he's breathing funny' 'what happens if he's sick' 'how long before his belly button looks normal' she didn't judge me, well she did a bit, because she laughed, but she acknowledged it was part of becoming new parents and calmed my nerves with human compassion, this is something Siri just couldn't do, although I did find her easier to turn on.
What soon became clear, was I had become one of those dads. Baby sneezes 'Hey Siri, is it ok for a new born baby to sneeze' I had become reliant on her for providing me the answers to fill the gaps that were missing. I was Googling with the same speed as those guys in the War tapping out the morse with sheer panic code.
The day came for us to get handed over to the health visitor, I had no idea what the difference was and as I waved the midwife off emotionally I wondered what lay ahead. In my mind once they explained what the HV does I had visions of Mary Poppins turning up, so when an older lady with a big bag and umbrella turned up at our door I couldn't believe my eyes - I did test the theory by asking if a spoon full of sugar really did help the medicine go down. After listening intently to what I thought were funny stories she left. I watched closely as she walked out the door and extended her umbrella..... Sadly she just got into her Ford Escort... without a cartoon penguin in sight.
And as brief as her visit was, it dawned on me as Siri had initially replaced all those opinions or at least made some sense of them, she had now become the main provider, leaving me more often than not, more confused than when I pressed that magic button summoning her.
Siri had seduced me......
I realised I had stopped relying on my instincts and it had made me second guess decisions I knew were right. That feeling in my gut was now just indigestion.
Don't get me wrong there is a place for Siri in our lives, but it's not as a doctor. It joins the category of Dr Dre and Dr Pepper.
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