Flat-pack furniture is one of life’s greatest tests of patience. It lures you in with the promise of a simple, step-by-step process, only to hit you with vague diagrams, missing screws, and the crushing realisation that you’ve installed an entire panel upside down.
But even knowing this, I still thought it would be a great idea to tackle multiple pieces of furniture in one day. What I didn’t anticipate was that my wife would go into labour halfway through—because, apparently, assembling a cabinet wasn’t stressful enough.
Helen and I had ordered a load of new furniture, and my plan was simple: get everything built in a single day. A bold strategy, but I was feeling confident. Helen, heavily pregnant and understandably tired, helped for a bit before deciding to have a nap on the sofa.
I cracked on, smugly thinking how productive I was being. One piece built. Another halfway there. I was winning.
And then Helen woke up.
She sat up, stretched, and very calmly said, “My waters just broke.”
Now, when your pregnant wife announces she’s in labour, you’d think you’d instantly go into action mode. Instead, I just stood there, holding a screwdriver, as if that was somehow relevant to the situation.
“Wait… what? Are you sure?”
She gave me a look that basically said, I swear, if you ask me that again… Then she had a contraction, which confirmed that, yes, she was very sure.
The Great DIY Abandonment
In an instant, my priorities flipped. The half-built furniture? Forgotten. The screws scattered across the floor? Irrelevant. I grabbed the hospital bag, bundled Helen into the car, and got her to the hospital as fast as possible.
Several hours later, after a long and exhausting labour (for Helen, mostly—I had the much easier role), Ollie arrived. Helen and he were taken to a ward to rest, and at around 4 AM, I was sent home.
Most people at this point would fall straight into bed.
I am not most people.
I walked into the house, looked at the chaos of half-assembled furniture, and instead of sleeping like a normal human being, I thought, You know what? I might as well finish it.
I can’t fully explain the logic. Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe I just needed to feel like I had some control over the day, or maybe I was just completely delirious. But at 4 in the morning, I picked up that cursed Allen key and got back to work.
Piece by piece, I finished what I’d started. The room went from a disaster zone to a fully furnished space. And just as I tightened the final screw, feeling some misplaced sense of victory, my phone rang.
It was Helen.
“Can you come and pick us up?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. The moment I finished the last bit of furniture was exactly when Helen and Ollie were ready to come home. It was like the universe had given me just enough time to complete my ridiculous mission before reminding me what really mattered.
So off I went, sleep-deprived but victorious, to bring my wife and newborn son home—where they were greeted not just with love, but also with fully assembled furniture.
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