One of my girlfriends is pregnant with her first child, bless her heart, so I asked her recently if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl. “I don’t know,” she said with a dreamy smile. “I want it to be a surprise.”

OK, seriously? Let me tell you, sister, there are so many surprising things about having your first baby that the child’s gender doesn’t need to be one of them.

You won’t believe, for example, exactly how long it takes for your waters to break.

The rest of childbirth is so comprehensively gross we won’t get into it. Let's just say that you will spend the majority of your labour and delivery shocked to pieces.

And that’s just giving birth. A lot of new mothers can't believe the pure volume of human waste a baby can produce. Start calculating the volume of what's going in compared to what’s coming out, and the physics will seem positively impossible.

I say, if you want a surprise, wait until the baby is born and then see how many hours you have stay awake at once.

THAT one will kick you in the teeth, I can guarantee you.