Welcome To The World Little Baby Prozac!

It seems that I am surrounded by pregnant women these days. I don't know what all of my girlfriends were doing 7-8 months ago (well...actually, I probably do, but let's not get too graphic here) but I am looking at my diary as I type and I have at least 6 Baby showers to attend between now and the end of next month.



We used to be the group who went out, drank too much, smoked too much, poked fun at the opposite sex, the government, religion...and always at ourselves. I have noticed however, a slight change in the wind as far as conversation goes.



The late night, shiraz-fuelled discussions bashing the Bush administration, questioning dogma and laughing at, well, anything to do with Amanda Vanstone, are now sedate lunches, iced tea and calm debates on drugs versus natural, day care or stay-at-home, and of course the 'Oh My God, I look like a bloody big Heifer already!"



I have no problem with this. Some of the changes in my gal-pals are quite amusing.



Let's take friend Number one (We'll call her Carol). Some people are said to have been born with silver spoons in their mouths, Carol was born with a rather large joint in hers (well, she was raised by suitably bohemian folks), and has remained possibly the biggest stoner in the entire Northern NSW region. However, At 7.5 months along the path to parenthood, she has taken a swift 180 degree turnaround, and is now a fierce advocate for "Natural and Drug-Free Birthing".



This is someone who, not that long ago, would order a scotch and dry and a chaser of lithium. Even her home-made omelettes were made from free-range eggs, tomatoes and magic mushrooms.

No such nonsense now. When the time comes for bub to arrive, "Carol" wants to "run naked in wild flowers, and have a symbolic water-birth in the lake, under a big Fig tree, listening to Yanni."



I tend to think Carol may secretly be on the Pethadine already.



Another friend (Let's call her Marion) decided when she was 16, that she was going to take on a career that would afford her a Mercedes SL 300 by the time she was 25, and that's exactly what she did. Today, she has a very sensible Mitsubishi Family 4-door wagon, and is counting the days until Maternity Leave when she can tell her job to (her words) "Sod Off"!



So, I have been happy to sit back and quietly sip my Sav Blancs, and listen to talk of ante-natal classes, ultra-sounds and  the Post-Easter 'sale" at 'Pumpkin Patch'.



That is….until this morning.



I received a bubbly email from a friend in Townsville, who advised that her baby-bump now had a gender AND a name. She was going to have a boy, and after much poring over Baby name books, she and hubby had decided to name him 'PAXEL"



After I had picked myself off the floor, I emailed her back, in CAPS...IN BOLD.....with many a decorative **%$$#@!*&&^%$#@ to emphasise my response:



{b)"WHY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, ARE YOU NAMING YOUR CHILD AFTER AN ANTI-DEPRESSANT?????"



I must have startled her, because she picked up the phone immediately to explain to me that she wanted to "avoid some of the names that could be easily ridiculed".  Her brilliant solution was to take a number of names and mix them together, in this case,  Patrick / Max / Daniel.

My friend "Carol" is obviously not the only one hitting the Pethadine a little early.



I explained to her as patiently as I could, that if she insisted on a name for her firstborn that sounded like a successful GlaxoSmithKline selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, she better be prepared to follow up with the siblings, if nothing else, to keep Junior from feeling completely out of place.



I had a fleeting image of her kids, 10 years from now, in school, answering the roll-call with 'Zoloft', "Xanax" and "Tofranil".



Although, maybe by that time, some more progressive and trendier names may have emerged like "Imodium" and "Vagisil"



Why do adults feel the need to traumatize their kids before they have even left the womb?? I have heard some crackers over the years. Take the name "Richard", a nice, regal name to be sure. That is, until you pair it with a last name like "Pease".  So too, the girl's name "Mercedes", very sweet and feminine, unless of course your surname is "Binns".



Go Directly to DEPOL! Do Not Pass GO, and try save any threads of self-respect you may have left!



My sister-in-law in the US used to work with young offenders, amongst which, were many young pregnant teens. Her theory was, that the girls come in, give birth, and basically name their child after the first inanimate object that they see.

This would explain such horrors like "Tampaxia Feminika" and "Oranjello and Lemongello".



So, I hope for the sake of my friend's child, she does some serious re-thinking on the 'Paxel'. I am sure what you are christened, has some indirect effect on your place in life.



I don't want to be walking down the road one day, only to be robbed at knife point by a man named "Ivan O'Dore"...