The Baby Party
Saturday was an unusual day. Instead of bumming about as I usually would, maybe getting some programming done, or some gaming or writing, I got up obscenely early and went with my parents to Mum’s work — Bourn Hall Clinic — where they were having a party to celebrate the 25th birthday of Louise Brown, the first baby conceived using IVF to be born in the world. You may have seen something about this on the news.
Miss Brown was there of course, but not until later. We got there at nine o’clock in the morning, and there was much to be done…
As to why I was there — well, for some reason I volunteered to help. I seem to have this habit of volunteering for stupid things these days (see my various mumblings about not being able to join the Special Constabulary).
Anyway, first job was inflating lots of balloons. Filled with helium, they were to be released later for a balloon race, so each silver latex balloon had to be inflated from the gas cylinder, tied and labelled. We did this, but the tying was very painful and a surprising number of people claimed they can’t do it! I had to stop before we’d finished all the balloons, because my fingers hurt too much, but I labelled balloons instead. About three hundred had been done the previous night and we carried on until we’d run out of balloons, but I have no idea how many we actually did.
After the balloons, we milled around looking for something else to do. Dad and I were on car parking duty, but since that wasn’t needed until people actually started arriving we fetched and carried for a bit until it was time for the briefing, which happened concurrently with a live broadcast by Sky News, one of the many TV and radio and newspaper crews who were arriving in droves by this point.
After the briefing we grabbed sandwiches and water, but the car parkers were required for our own briefing so we had to eat while the guy in charge of that outlined his plan for how to fit the cars of the parties of about 1,000 IVF children onto the front lawns. Eventually he imparted it to us, got us jobs, got some of us flourescent jackets (unfortunately not including me, although we did all have Baby Party T-shirts to identify us from the guests) and then we hung around for ages until people started arriving.
A policewoman came at about ten past one and went down to the entrance to help manage the traffic — especially important as Bourn is a fairly small village, and there was a wedding in the church next door that afternoon too. Then the cars started arriving.
About three and a half hours later they stopped arriving quite so fast, then they stopped just as we were running out of space — rather miraculous, that.
After that was over, I went and sat with Mum for a while (she was on the registration desks), then we wandered about and did some errands for the people on the barbecues, who were running low on burgers and sausages and rolls. Hands were needed everywhere, so we were fairly busy until the party ended, and then we had our own party. I refrained from the champagne, as I don’t like it, and held back on the Pimms as well, because Mum and Dad do like champagne so I offered to drive, allowing them to enjoy themselves.
Clearing up generally happened in between glasses of champagne. Once we’d done our bit, I dragged Mum and Dad to the car and drove them home (Mum was rather giggly), and then went out again to get Chinese takeaway, as we were all rather hungry.
And then we collapsed into bed — only to get up early the next morning to go to the Maize Maze at Milton with some friends of my parents, who are through various circumstances willing and in a good position to give me advice on job interviews and such things. So it was worth it, but the weekend left me totally whacked, and I’ve been to work today and… well, brain melting, basically.