– 6:21 pm

On Thursday, your mother and I went in for your first scan, to make sure you were coming along OK. We left home at about half two-ish towards Oxford Circus, getting on the Victoria line from Vauxhall. I suggested we walk through Carnaby Street so I could see what shops had remained from my time working at Lee Jeans.

Most of them had left, probably bust with the free-falling economy. The COVID era has been a terrible time for people and businesses. Rich or poor, no one has been spared. I hear there’s a new variant now, Omicron. Blimey! I wonder if it will be talked about as much by the time you are able to read or formulate sentences. Either way, you should know it was a devastating historical event. I would know. I felt its impact directly, with your grandmother.

From being the birthplace of Swinging London in the 1960’s, the home of Mods, Skinheads, Punks and New Romantics to the street style tribes of today. Carnaby has and always will be the epicentre of culture and lifestyle in London’s West End.

That probably explains why Christmas decorations always looked better on Carnaby Street, artsier, than anywhere else in Central London. The same article says it gets its name from Karnaby House, the first house built on the street.

1665 was the year of The Great Plague. ‘Pesthouses’ were built for plague victims, the first one in London being on Carnaby Street.

We took a left before the end of the street and walked straight down, onto Berwick Street. We popped into a Clarks so I could “touch and feel” some Originals I’d seen online. It looked different in hand. We then went to Duck & Rice. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been there. Generally, if I’ve got time in the area, it’s a near must. We’d have to return after your scan however, the kitchen hadn’t re-opened post-lunch.

Your mother has been eating a lot lately. I suspect you might have something to do with that. So unsurprisingly, she was quite famished. We left to find a coffee shop and found a Gails. A friend of mine (whom I admittedly haven’t spoken to in a while) Imran, and I used to frequent the one just behind the Blue Fin building when we worked at HSBC. It’s probably still there.

Your mother ordered a quiche and some tea. I took a black decaf. Any milk or sugar would break my fast. We got a six doughnut box at Crosstown before deciding to walk to the clinic. Maps is quoting 18 mins.

The Portland Hospital gave us new face masks and had our temperatures taken when we got there. Liza had to fill in some paperwork before we could be seated. Not long after, her name came out the hallway and we were behind closed doors moments later.

I sat down quietly facing the screen as the doctor summoned her orchestra of tools and machines I’d never seen before. I observed passively, equally elated and amazed the entire time. We got to see you onscreen and hear your heartbeat. You were doing just fine. Granted you were no bigger than a grain of rice at this point, magnified about a million times bigger. It was a brief but very memorable encounter.

A few flights of stairs from there and we were in another doctor’s office, Dr Erskine. I was later told she’s half French. I tied that to the beautiful blouse she was wearing. Her office also had lime green walls which I surprisingly really liked. And I was mid-telling her how much I did when I noticed a piece of art on her wall, stunning. Behind me on the left were shelves of baby pictures, a tonne of them, probably (and hopefully) from happy parents. She has three kids herself. “I don’t even remember the third pregnancy,” she said, “it was all a haze”.

She explained the dos and don’ts of pregnancy, with a sonically calming tone. For the most part, I was again silent while she played tennis with your mother. Liza had a list of questions that were answered before they could be asked, bar a few. So the sit-down was shorter than I expected.

I remember “…you’re not out of the woods yet. At 6 weeks, a miscarriage is still possible and normal”. I also remember “Folic acid”. Liza has to take Folic acid. As you grow and develop, we’d have to come back for more tests and scans. If there are any pitfalls we can avoid, we’ll do our very best.