Belly button magic

I have five days to go. I really should have written 'we' there shouldn't I. My girlfriend has something of a role to play in all this. Let me start again ...

We have five days to go. Our baby boy or girl is due on 5 February ... though we had rather thought baby was going to be born a couple of weeks ago. Girlfriend (GF) has had a lot of high blood pressure over the course of her pregnancy and words that previously weren't in my vocabulary - but which I've swotted up on - have been a big part of conversations with doctors over the months. Preaclampsia. Hypertension. Gestational diabetes. Thankfully everything is fine now and we are beginning to think baby is more likely to be overdue.

When you are a dad in waiting, there's so much you start to learn about babies and the birthing process. Did you know that when your baby is born, they clamp off the umbilical cord close to its stomach with a little clip which remains there for about 10 days? As I'm without the gift of vision, I can't see pictures on the internet of this baby clamping phenomenon so I'm guessing it could be anything from wooden gypsy clothes peg size right down to one of those little clippy things you can fasten your breakfast cereal bag up with so it stays fresh. Maybe I should have said traveller clothes peg? What's the right thing to say? SO difficult these days isn't it. Anyway, who'd have thought it? I do hope I don't accidentally unclip junior before the clamp does its magic and creates a proper looking belly button (assuming that's what it's meant to do. I'm a bit embarrassed to ask to be honest).

While we're on the subject of umbilical cords, the birthing plan that GF had to fill in asks whether or not the father wants to cut the cord after birth.

This question slightly flummoxed me at first. I had no idea this was part of the process. It seems that some dads like this symbolic act because it makes them feel as if they've taken part, done something, helped. I'm not at all bothered. Though after having been blind for around 20 years now, I can't quite work out whether I don't want to do it because I can't see the point or because I can't be arsed to deal with any panic that might ensue from a midwife who might be too nervous to hand a knife over to a blind man. On the whole though, it won't rock my world if someone else does the cutting - after all, my dad was at home in 1970 when I was born. He didn't know that I had come out overnight until he walked round the corner to the phonebox and called the maternity unit where my mum was. I don't think that his being 10 miles away from my umbilical cord has particularly affected our relationship.