20 August 2009

This waiting game is a suspense one.  It requires utmost patience from the pregnant mother.  I looked at my reflection in the mirror and told myself that this would be as large as I would get.  This week at my doctor’s visit though, I discovered that I had gained a kilogram within seven days and the tummy had still the capabilities of growing larger. 

Friends and friendly strangers are always enquiring the date of birth of my baby, viewing my protruding stomach.  I want to tell them that even my doctor doesn’t know when the baby is coming but that would require a further explanation that I cannot furnish them with.  In the end, I simplify this by saying ‘Soon’.  ‘Soon’, of course, is debatable.  If there is anything learnt from this experience, it is that words can be very powerful.   Because I kept repeating ‘soon’, it had created some form of belief within me that ‘soon’ would be today, or tomorrow but as of now, I am still waiting to see land after nine months of being at sea.  As of now, ‘soon’ seems like eternity.    

Daily mobility has proven to be getting more and more challenging as the days go by.  What I mean is, simple activities that I’ve taken for granted like walking and sleeping require much effort from me now due to my pregnant frame. 

I read somewhere that the best position for a pregnant lady to sleep is on her left side with a pillow sandwiched between her legs.  Also, if I remember reading correctly, sleeping on my back will reduce the oxygen flow to my baby and put pressure on my spine.  I followed this recommendation.  After one night of sleep, I woke up with a sore left arm.  Due to this, nowadays I vary in all types of positions when I sleep to avoid having sore arms.  I reasoned that losing an arm would not be a very pleasant situation to be in.  I’ll take my chances sleeping on my back sometimes.  The baby is doing fine still.  He just karate kicked me in the stomach, and seems to like it very much inside there for the moment. 

I had given up taking my boys to the park now.  Last week I attempted to do just that.  These active toddlers were out of the gate and were a mile away on their fast wheels while I struggled to take my first few steps.  I knew that I could never catch up with them.  Fortunately, my lungs still worked fine.  I screamed for them to wait for me, envisioning cars coming from all directions knocking them over.

With my current condition, I am contented to just take a slow tortoise walk on my own.  Even then, I attempt only short distance walks which is tantamount to climbing Mount Everest.  I am already breathless walking from our main door to the house gate, the length of ten steps apart.

Once, a friend casually mentioned that I looked and behaved the same before, during and after pregnancy.  But you don’t live with me, I replied.  I’ve experienced it all; morning sickness, running to the bathroom every five minutes to pee, indigestion and heartburn, a weaken spine, breathlessness, and emotional outbursts, to name a few common pregnancy conditions.   Even if I had to live with these for past nine months, my spouse sees nothing except my growing belly and thinks that I am having it easy with my growing tummy.

The best advice I’ve received so far is, the baby will come when he wants to come. 

In the meantime, I will have to patiently wait for the moment. 

Cheers! And here’s wishing you a good weekend ahead!

PS My waiting ended on the 21 August 2009!

I am making a list and checking it twice.  The baby is coming early next month and here I am, thinking furiously and writing frenzily of the basic necessities that he and I will need when he arrives.

I rummaged through my used baby items stored in various black plastic bags.  There were various clothing in different sizes, mostly stained yellow by years of storage.  The discovery took me a trip down memory lane.  I looked at the doll sizes of my baby items and am amazed at how fast my boys have grown.

I remember when Daniel was only a baby, wailing throughout the night and there I was, a brand new mother thinking when this madness was going to end.  I didn’t think that I would be able to survive motherhood two more times after that but I did.

When James arrived, I told myself that I would never go through pregnancy again because of the intensity of the labour pain.  But somehow, throughout the years, I forgot the pain and focused on the joy of having another additional baby join our family.  These positive feelings quickly overshadowed the pains of pregnancy and labour.

That was when Brian came along.  Secretly I had hoped for a Briana.  I remember that fateful cool autumn day when the doctor used the ultra scan to check my baby.  That was when he told me that it was going to be another boy.  I let out an involuntary protest as if willing the doctor to change the sex of my baby.  He was very sympathetic, and tried to pacify me.  Brian turned out to be a beautiful boy, showering his love and affection all over us.  Recently, he told me with all the seriousness of a three year old that he is Brian transformer and that I am mummy transformer.  Sometimes, he is changed into a baby dinosaur.  It doesn’t matter what he is, he loves his mother fiercely.  Now, it seemed unthinkable that I had wanted to trade him for a Briana.

Here I am again, very pregnant for the fourth time going through the familiar motions of unpacking and sorting out the baby clothes.  Would the baby mind wearing hand me downs that have yellowed through the years, I asked myself.  I had concluded otherwise because none of my sons have complained to me so far of wearing second hand clothes when they were newborns.  They have, however, screamed till no end when I did not give them the attention that they had so craved for.  With this thought, I rinsed these yellowed clothes in clean clear water and hung them out to dry to give them a refreshing smell of the sun and wind.

Of course, there are some things that I did not store.  I will have to run errands to buy diapers fitting for a newborn,  a rubber mat to replace the one that I had that had gone flat and a host of other necessary baby equipment that I have not thought of yet.

Today, I experienced some severe stomach pains.  That gave rise to a panic attack.  Is the baby coming today?  I haven’t completed my list of things to buy yet, I shrieked.  I have not even packed my hospital bag yet.   

So here I am, furiously writing my list and checking it twice.  Now, where is that breast pump of mine?

And by the way, before I continue to furiously try to complete my list before the baby arrives, I have a simple tip for mothers who are breastfeeding for the first time.  I got this really common sense solution from my paediatrician when I asked her the correct method of breastfeeding.  She said to stuff the whole nipple into the baby’s mouth.  What a practical woman!  I did that with youngest son and successfully breastfed him for nine months.  So, first time mothers, relax and enjoy the ride!

Cheers!  And a good day tomorrow.     

After visiting my obstetrician last week, he used a red inked pen to draw attention to my weight gain.  Instead of gaining the expected 1.5 kilos in three weeks, I gained double of that amount.  I grimaced.  I get no mercy from my doctor when it comes to weight gains.  He is precise and meticulous and very particular with his pregnant patients.  I looked at the ugly red mark and smiled weakly at him.  What can I say?  The evidence showed after days of munching at supper. 

Well, I didn’t learn my lesson at all.  A few nights ago after that fateful doctor’s visit, I was doing just that, munching at supper.  There I was, very pregnant at nine months, sitting at our dinner table with a whole packet of chips right in front of me.  I consoled myself by looking at the packaging and pointing out silently that there was no added salt and preservatives.   I stuffed a whole mouthful of chips in my mouth.  The chips tasted salty enough to tantalise my taste buds and crispy enough to motivate another mouthful.  They tasted great!   Surely the manufacturers had added more than enough salt already. 

Anyway, there I was sitting at the table gobbling away and unwilling to share my forbidden chips with anyone else.  The children were already in bed, so they were no longer a threat  that night.  The only other person still awake was my spouse, and he was sitting just a few meters away from me watching television. 

He was watching a movie I had absolutely no interest in when he suddenly said, “Honey, why don’t you come here and sit next to me?”  On a regular night, I would have jumped at the chance of  his invitation.  Any time is a good time spent with my man, even if it was in front of the idiot box.  But I sat down still, my backside glued to the chair.  I was not willing to part with my chips for anything else.  Sorry, honey.  I sat there continuing what I was doing, munching away, holding on to the sinful packet of empty calories pretending that I didn’t understand what he was requesting for. 

He looked at the flickering screen for a few minutes, and then turned towards me again and said,” Why don’t you come sit next to me?”  My puny mind jumpstarted and was working overtime now.  My spouse had stopped being romantic since the children were born, and always Mr hero on TV gets more attention than me every night.  Was he trying to rekindle our romantic love tonight?  That was a big question mark.  Well, if he was, he had chosen the wrong night.  My chips were looking more enticing than him that night. 

I didn’t bother trying to talk.  With my mouth full, I gave him a look he knew so well.  I demanded to know what was going on about his queer behaviour.  He said to me, “How am I going to eat those chips if you are sitting there?”  I knew it!  The truth hurts though.  He wanted the chips more than he wanted me.  Once again, I am reminded of one of the reasons why we fell in love easily.  It is for the love of chocolates and junk food. 

Reluctantly, I got up and parted with my bag of chips.  Surely, I consoled myself, this will save me from another ugly red mark on my medical records when I visit my doctor tomorrow. 

Cheers to you my readers.  And have a good week ahead.   
 

I have been feeling very much like an animal lately, a mammal to be more precise. This happened when I was reading to my children the book ‘The Living World’ a few weeks ago. On the first page of chapter 1 of the book, there were two photos; a slightly larger one had a snapshot of the young of a yellow baboon and on its top right hand side was a slightly smaller snapshot of a human baby. Both young were suckling. I felt a strange intimate bond with this hairy baboon, having been impregnated by a man myself, having to carry my young for nine months, and predictably in a few weeks time, being able to produce milk to feed my baby like all mammals. Perhaps the major differences between me and the baboon are that she wouldn’t need to weather our world’s economic downturn, nor worry about sourcing funds to provide decent education for her young.

It had seemed endless, me sharing my physical body with a foetus within. Just today I had only needed less than five fingers to calculate the number of weeks the baby is expected to arrive. Excitement brimmed within with this knowledge. The birth of my baby is very close at hand.

Months ago, when I was in my second trimester my spouse asked me what it feels like to have a large tummy. I didn’t have a quick answer then, but now that I have a tummy the size of two huge round melons, I can attest that lugging one around is not easy. I can now move with the speed of a tortoise, and have the size of a killer whale. Great, more animal associations. Well, my dear hubby, perhaps this is synonymous to a bus trudging uphill with a strained engine having to carry an overload of passengers.

My children noticed the difference in their mother these days. She no longer speaks unless it is necessary. Being Breathless is not only one of Kenny G’s main themed music albums, it is also very much part of my daily live these days. I can no longer finish speaking a complete sentence smoothly, having to pause in between to pant and take in air as if I had just finished running a marathon.

Easy tasks that I took for granted are viewed as great feats nowadays, like the ability to get out easily from bed after a night’s rest, or alighting with agility from the car. I have learnt quickly to negotiate my big belly by twisting and turning my body at awkward angles. Even then, every movement is excruciatingly slow with a weakened spine. And with three boys terrorizing me with their rough and fast play, I can feel the baby pressing tightly against the wall of the womb as if in protest.

The baby is in a good position for a natural delivery. According to my doctor, his head has turned downwards and he is of good size for a normal birth. For the next few weeks as his only concerns are to deposit fat and to put on weight in the womb, the lack of space within is creating much discomfort for his mother. Many times during the day, an unidentified organ in my body, possibly the bladder or could it be the liver, gets compressed. This can create a sharp pain, causing me to yell out a resounding ‘ow!’. If you happened to be standing nearby, chances are you would think that I am a very pregnant lady out of her mind.

I no longer walk elegantly these days. The correct term to use is waddling. An extremely pregnant lady waddles. I am somewhat offended using this term. It would be more polite to say that an extremely pregnant lady walks with her legs slightly apart, or an extremely pregnant lady walks with extreme slowness. The term ‘waddling’ makes one feel as if she is one big fat duck. As it is, throughout the day depending on my mood, I am constantly feeling either like an oversized beach whale, or an overweight elephant, or simply an obese woman. There you go, more animal associations. The last choice is heartfelt when I have to put on my extremely oversized knickers every day. I am constantly reminded of my huge overstretched belly and cellulite fat thighs when these baggy knickers fit snugly across my belly. Darn!

Even as impatient as I am now to dispose of my extra baggage, daily I am in awe with my amazing physical being. Apart from having to deal with a weakened spine, I am greatly blessed with a strong and healthy being. My body has learned to quickly compensate and adjust itself in order to sustain and protect new life within. I read somewhere that my heart will need to pump blood many times harder, or my body will need to change the baby’s amniotic fluid four times a day etc. All medical facts aside, I am just constantly grateful that my very pregnant form still does not prevent me from performing my regular normal chores, like bathing my children and bending low to wash their dirty toes. Now, I tire easily having to carry an extra weight of twelve kilos but am still able to perform a short distance brisk walk with my children to the park.

To experience first hand the first stirrings of new life is indeed an invitation to experience the miracle of life. Sometimes I feel the lightest of the lightest touch, perhaps these are his toes or fingers. Other times I feel a bolder, rougher knock, maybe caused by his elbow or knee. And occasionally there are constant gentle taps which are harder to identify, perhaps this sensation is felt when the baby is in a playful mood or hiccupping. Experiencing this is still truly magical and very personal even though I am about to be a mother for the fourth time soon.

Of all my thoughts on this pregnancy, my next ones will probably be the hardest to pen. When my spouse and I conceived this child, we had an unspoken agreement that we will keep him regardless of the circumstances. With this line of understanding, we did not pursue any form of prenatal testing. Have you seen my growing tummy lately? You have not? It doesn’t matter, it makes no difference. I see it everyday, and yet the gift within is just as mysteriously concealed to me as it is to you. I know not how he looks like as yet, or whether he will be a perfectly formed and healthy human being. Some nights I lay wide awake, plagued with trepidations of the unknown, mostly of the well being of my foetus. Other nights, I make peace with myself and my tummy and my God. Some days, I belt out Doris Day’s Que Sera Sera , what will be, will be on top of my lungs.

Once, I asked myself, “What if I had been a little less than perfect, would my mother have kept me?” I am beyond any doubts that she would have been given me a chance to celebrate life. Being a fourth child surviving in the womb is a major accomplishment in itself. I’ve had my stomach kicked at albeit accidentally by the boys, beaten by tiny hands, lain on by a sleeping toddler and bitten by sharp teeth although only once which was suffice to say a terrifying experience for the pregnant mother. I am not only pregnant, but also a mum in motion going through the daily activities of life with my three active boys. Sometimes having to absorb the unavoidable daily rough tumbles and knocks, I can only be thankful of the strength and durability of the baby’s waterbag. He swims serenely and kicks strongly within still, oblivious to the dangers of the outside world. Surely if mother nature is able to fiercely protects and ensures the survival of this child, he deserves to be given a chance to live life. Heck, even all infant baboons get a shot at life unless being terminated by mother nature herself.

I’ve just reread the three stages of labour a woman has to endure to be able to eventually hold her precious baby in her arms. I tried to relate the neatly printed well formed sentences with my past three experiences. The truth is in theory, it depicts less intensity and gory blood. I remember nothing of consciously telling myself the stages of labour I was going through. What I do remember was the constant pain and its increased intensity as the moments of birth grew closer. I remember how hot it was in the first few minutes and suddenly how cold it felt the following few minutes. I screamed at my spouse to turn down the air conditioning, and demanded for my socks. I remember of being more terrified of the sharp needle that poked into my vein when I was induced than of the labour pains itself. I remember the nurse asking me to push and when I did, the amniotic fluid squirted out on her. I apologized profusely. I remember wailing in self pity on the labour bed when the nurse decided that despite my pain, it was a good time to have a friendly chat with my doctor. Can’t they see that I am practically dying of pain here, I lamented.

And of course, I remember the moment my three babies were born. I would very much like to say that I felt ecstatic or overwhelmed looking at my babies, but I only remember a sense of relief. The pain had finally disappeared. In my world, labour was not termed as a systematic three stage process. It was filled with haphazard experiences interjected with a wide mixture of emotions. I am certain that even though I will be going through labour for the fourth time, it will be an all new experience.

Each birth produced a new beginning. And this one would be no exception. The birth of this child will bring forth a new beginning not only between him and me, but will also forge new relationships within our family unit; among siblings, between each existing child and his parents, and between husband and wife. Of course, last but not least, I will need to develop a new relationship with the most important person, myself. In short, the landscape of this family will change once again.

Being a mother three times over, I am confident that my family will quickly adjust to life with a newborn. I call it the tide of change in life. I’ve learnt to cope with this inevitable tide with each successive birth, and now my children will learn too.

I am impatiently waiting now. I am simply waiting for nature to put the final touch ups on our baby before he makes his debut.

I am ready to meet him.

Perhaps not just yet, not until I’ve been to the movies first for the last time this year.

Cheers!