A Bun in the Oven.

by

Angharad

Ever since the various television stations had started crossing so called reality programmes with competitions, it appeared that those who enjoy such things couldn’t get enough to sate their addiction.

There had been bake offs and cook offs, dance offs and celebrity dance offs both on terra firma and on ice. It seemed inevitable that a celebrity dance off on ice while baking was inevitable. It seemed that the more ludicrous the idea and the more vacuous the celebrity, the greater the popularity amongst the army of viewers. By comparison, the number of documentaries seemed to be waning. It seemed the age of intelligent television was now replaced by mush, or so the television critic of the Sunday Oracle complained constantly.

‘Come back Attenborough, come back Professor Cox or Alice Roberts, bring us back intellectually stimulating programmes. Even Time Team was better than this parade of banality all the stations appear to show from breakfast to supper.

It seems this nonsense just builds upon itself, we’ve had transgender contestants competing to get sex reassignment surgery and programmes showing others seeking cosmetic surgery to make themselves more beautiful—men and women. Do we really want to watch this cringeworthy medium filled with exhibitionists trying to outdo each other, or Jeremy Kyle leading his pea brained victims to public abuse. What’s next, making a man pregnant? That might be good to see.’ He joked.

In an office, not a million miles away a handful of media executives were making plans to do just that trying to draw up lists of celebrities who might just be up for such a thing, were it possible.

“That bastard Julian Corrigan, pity it doesn’t happen to him.” This was the opinion of Bob Menzies who was head of a reality television group and responsible for four series of ‘I’ve Got no Talent – Make Me a Celebrity.’ That two of the winners had gone into psychiatric care and another had killed themselves made the series even more compelling.

Another had been, ‘Make me look like Kim.’ Here contestants male and female were transformed by various means to look like Kim Kardashian. The viewers lapped it up perhaps because it actually enabled them to feel sane in a world where madness seemed to rule.

The Sunday Oracle continued its campaigning for decent television calling upon ministers to do something about the dumbing down, but seeing as half the cabinet had appeared in one or more of the programmes and pocketed the huge fees they demanded, nothing was going to happen.

Julian Corrigan woke up in the middle of the afternoon. He never slept in the day, what had happened. He tried to remember but it all felt fuzzy. His tummy felt funny and he seemed to have a scratch or small scab on it. He rubbed it, it was a bit tender but otherwise seemed okay. He had no recollection of doing anything to himself unless it was while he was gardening the day before—that had to be it, a scratch or jab from a rose bush or his raspberry canes.

He’d railed against all these instant garden fixes or house changes which had been so popular years ago. It taken him five years of hard slog to get his garden into shape and had helped him deal with his fiancée walking out on him just before the wedding just after they’d bought this house, or he had.

Unsure why he should feel so fuzzy about his day, he assumed he must have had too much sun or eaten something that was a bit dodgy, except he was very careful about what he ate and a regular gym bunny, going each morning before settling down to watch three hours of recorded television to comment on for his articles. He was very popular with ladies of a certain age, the older ones wanting to mother him and the younger ones wanting to sleep with him.

Two weeks after his strange episode he woke up one morning feeling really sick. He had to cancel his gym session and also his breakfast. He’d no reason for it as far as he knew but after it went on for a fortnight, he called to see his doctor. He was examined and various blood samples were taken but they all came back negative.

“So what is it then?” he asked his doctor.

“God knows and he isn’t telling me,” was the response. “If you were female, I’d have said it was morning sickness, but you’re not so scratch that one.” He gave him anti-emetics and eventually it stopped but not for another couple of months or so.

The next thing Julian noticed was tiredness and he appeared to find some of his trousers were getting rather tight. Being a dapper dresser, this displeased him and he wondered if he could do a radical diet to lose the weight but found he was much hungrier than usual. “I must be eating too much,” he reassured himself.

When he started to get strange sensations in his tummy, he wasn’t sure what to make of it and he was convinced his stomach was swelling. Reluctantly, his doctor who thought he was being neurotic arranged for an ultrasound scan.

“What’s that going to show?” Julian asked.

“Any pathology in the organs of your abdomen, swellings or growths.”

“Isn’t this what they do for pregnancies?”

“Yep, I lied, Julian, we’re going to look to see if your baby is okay.”

After a moment of shock both men laughed themselves silly and Julian waited for the date for his scan. It was on a Friday afternoon and the ultrasound technician, a woman radiographer welcomed him into her room. She had him lay on the couch, explained what would happen and asked if he wanted to watch the screen where images would be visible, caused by the ultrasonic echo of whatever it met.

Julian joked that he’d do an article on it being more exciting than most of the television he had to watch and they both laughed which relaxed Julian until she smeared his belly with the cold gel they use as a transmission medium, it also enabled the device to float over the skin without any damage or discomfort apart from it being cold.
“Here we go,” said the radiographer whose name was Anne, “That’s the bottom of your liver, the largest of your internal organs, and we sweep across from here and oh, what’s that?”

“Is there a problem?”

“I don’t know, excuse me I’m just going to ask a colleague to come and see this.”

Julian tried to recall what had been on the screen when she’d shown her surprise. Did he have cancer or triplets or what? He decided he’d wait for a firmer diagnosis before he altered his will—actually he’d never written one, so perhaps it was time he did.

Anne returned with a middle aged man they looked at the screen again and moved the machine over him several times. He held his breath while they played with him.

“Blood test, we’ll need to confirm it,” said the doctor.

“Confirm what?” asked Julian.

“You appear to have what looks like a live foetus in your abdominal cavity.”

Julian laughed, “Come off it, doc, I’m a bloke.”

“I’m telling you what it appears to be, we need a blood test to be sure if you’re pregnant.”

“How can that be? Apart from anything else, I can’t even remember when I had sex last.”

“How the hell do I know? I’m a doctor not a detective.” He walked briskly out of the room and they admitted a phlebotomist who seemed to take a gallon of his blood.

He wandered home in a daze. He wasn’t sure what he felt, how could he be pregnant? He stopped at his local pharmacy and bought a pregnancy testing kit and did the urine test when he got home. He nearly fell over when it showed positive.

What should he do? Part of him wanted to keep the little life that was swimming around inside him, after all it was hardly its fault and part of him wanted rid of it because it made him some sort of freak. Men don’t have babies—but I am—bloody hell. He felt like he wanted a stiff drink but he’d read alcohol can damage a developing foetus. If it survived and that was questionable, would he be its mother or its father. Technically, he supposed it was mother as he’d have given birth to it albeit by caesarean section. He’d be the first real male mother, that guy in the states was biologically female so that didn’t count in his book.

When he’d dealt with the shock he read up on ectopic pregnancies, depending upon where the placenta engaged the outcome was quite uncertain and he realised he’d have to rest quite a lot if he wanted to keep it. He even had a picture of his baby to bring home with him.

His doctor called to see him the next day and was matter of fact about removing it. “It’ll die anyway, I’ll make arrangements for a surgeon I know to remove it for you.”

“I’ve decided to keep it.”

“But the chances of its survival are so small.”

“So, it’s my baby.”

“Julian, it’s a foetus, depending upon how advanced it is it’s just a blob of dividing cells.”

“It’s four months old, my baby is four months old and I want it to live.” He screamed at his doctor.

“Okay, okay, let’s just see how it goes, all right and at the first sign of trouble it goes.”

“We’ll see,” replied Julian who seemed to have got much more emotional in recent days.

“I’m telling you,” said his friend.

When his editor discovered what was happening they decided they’d sponsor any medical care he and the baby needed if he’d keep a diary of his pregnancy and then the birth and first few months.

Julian was embarrassed and didn’t want to, but when they offered to double his salary and a one off bonus if the baby arrived safely he couldn’t refuse. It would pay off his mortgage which gave him security and also his baby would always have a home. This expectant mother stuff was hard work.

When it came out in the press that he’d somehow become pregnant, people were tweeting asking if his name was Mary as he hadn’t had sex for ages. The TV company who’d thought of the idea sent a representative round with a chequebook and asked to do a series of programmes on him. Despite the amount they were offering, he turned them down.

They thought he was just holding out for more money and they offered in excess of a million pounds for exclusive television coverage. Julian said no again. “Name your price,” they pleaded.

“Why should I pander to your prurient viewers?”

“Because we’re offering silly money. I mean how did you get pregnant—you must have gone to one of these fertility clinics.”

“Wouldn’t even know where there was one let alone visit it.”

“Sure so it’s gonna be a boy an’ you’re gonna call it Jesus, is that it? Miracle birth like the Bible only I’ve got news for ya mister, or should that be sister? Men can’t do parthenogenesis.”

The television magnate spoke to his close colleagues. “Ironic ain’t it, we implant the baby inside him and we’re not gonna get a slice of the action.”

“Send Gloria round to see him, she can be most persuasive.”

And so it was that two million pounds were deposited in Julian’s account the moment he gave live birth via a section. Apart from never needing to work again unless that included as a lone parent, mother to be precise as Julian was able to breast feed, he didn’t call the baby Jesus as suggested, partly because it was a little girl and a blood test showed it wasn’t genetically related to him, he kept her and raised her with every due care and love all babies should receive. He granted her every wish but one, he wasn’t going to give her a brother or sister except by adoption.