It’s not me, it’s the baby

IF I see one more Bollywood movie with divinely pregnant women practicing lullabies the moment their bloody ovum is fertilised…
Or any more filmi sequences where hero-heroine burst into “the moon of our eye and the apple of your womb” type romantic number when they discover they/she are/is pregnant.
Or any references to how life is going to change (completely, drastically, horrendously) because tum maa banne waali ho*. (All Hindi translations given at the end of this post, and if some are missing, I can’t be f*cked.)
I swear I WILL kill.

I mean yes, it’s great that I am preggers. Yes, it was quite shocking to discover something barely 6 cms long kicking around that energetically INSIDE me. And once I got over the first shock, it was quite… shocking, again, but this time more like, ”It is alive AND kicking.” (Also finally understood the meaning of that phrase, thank-you very much) Then only to be scared persistently, horrendously for the next four weeks wondering, ”Is it still kicking?” “Oh shit I was lying on my tummy…is it squished?” ”If I sneeze or cough or laugh too hard…does it get dizzy?” ”If I get horny, does it know?!” (Freaked me out completely that one)

What I am trying to say is that I am feeling… That yes I am willing to do all that’s necessary….or simply that I know I am having a baby. Yes thank-you I am excited. But no thank-you I cannot pretend that everything is peaches and apples and other rosy things. I cannot be all angelic.
I am having a bloody nicotine withdrawal all right?! And my boobs feel like, like extra appendages from Total Recall that have a mind of their own. They certainly have a centre of gravity of their own given the directions they go off to when I lie down. (Like how would you feel if you had to tuck your boob from UNDER your arm pit and…nevermind.)

And my back hurts. And people tell me it’s only the beginning. Ooh, ha, ha, very funny. And there are these twingy feelings at the side of my, well, uterus. (How many times have you spoken about your uterus in a normal conversation eh?) Though from where the uterus originally was now it has apparently risen. And I thought it was just man-balls (as against woman-balls?!) that did the rising-descending thing. And the time I told Partner, “I think I am hurting because my uterus is rising,” he stopped, mid-step, one foot in the air, almost jerk-braked and whilst staring somewhere in the region of my belly said horrified, “What?! Like rising right now?”

I know gazillions of women have done it before me — infact our friend group has a new mom and two others who’d be popping out their bubs before me — and have all gone bravely etc, etc. But if I am a bit chicken, can I please not be laughed at? Can I please get some bloody sympathy?

And not have anyone (like Partner, though I know he is trying to be understanding etc) patting me on the arm and saying, “Ah, you’ll be fine.” Really and he’s scared of tweezers.

And someone wished me a baby with a big head. Like severe constipation, multiplied by 20 times and the wrong orifice. I am petrified.
(*Translation: You are going to be a mother, usually said with nudge, nudge, wink, wink)
PS: Despite one father and one mother possibly reading this blog, I shall blog about Things That Piss Me Off About Being Pregnant, all filed under the category: “up the duff“. For what that means and the origin of the phrase, go here.
Pic courtesy: Steve Harpster of Studio Harpster

A little, big thing

Why am I writing this, writing here? That’s the question I’ve asked the umpteen times I’ve tried blogging and haven’t. Each time I haven’t been certain of the answer and so haven’t bothered to write. I’ve sat and played game after game of online monopoly (pogo.com), tried the same campaign on Age of Empires at various difficulty levels, surfed through various websites…Done everything but blog.

Either I’ve not known why I want to write – not what, never what – or someone else has said it better than I would, could. There’s no dearth of opinions, I’ve always had them by the truckloads, there’s just a sense of… Can’t-be-bothered.

There’s so much that’s happened. It made the last year go by so fast, it seems I went straight from 2008 to 2010. Perhaps my not wanting to write was a way of dealing with so many new things, adjustments, changes. Perhaps.

So many remember-it-lifelong events, moments. So many that at times you (and I) forgot them in an instant unless it had a Facebook album dedicated to it.

The desperation of unemployment. While living an all-paid-for life. The consequent, complete loss of identity, or feeling thereof. It’s not money if it’s not my money, joint account be damned.

The jealousy (and anger) I felt…towards my own Partner because he was doing so well while I languished in self pity. You are someone and I am that someone’s girlfriend. The intense guilt because some times I really wished it was the other way round. And because I was never denied anything.

The acute realisation that I have different coloured skin. And that it’s supposed to be inferior. Not because anyone has been racist towards me. But because the media said they could be. Or that I am supposed to have a “new found sense of superiority”. A polite way of saying “Indians are getting cocky”. Apparently I belong to the “rising Indian middle class” with more “spending power”. I swear I didn’t notice.

A year – well couple of months at least – of travelling, where “travelling” did not mean an 18-hour train journey to see the parents or a road trip to Manali. International travel dudes, spending power and all that. (But it’s not your money said that thought at the back of my head, sometimes at the front of my head too).

The realisation people more qualified than me are walking around jobless. Like the Masters in Accounts waitress at the local restaurant… and feeling guilty that I got a job at one of the community newspapers. It’s a casual position – I have a job if someone resigns or goes on leave – it could go any day. Community reporting, it’s something I did when I started out as a journalist. BUT, it beats making sandwiches and cleaning tables any day. So I lied when she recently asked if I had a job.

It was a year of scoring really well in my Masters final semester. Being “awarded” (it was a book) by this high flying, resident-author-at-uni…and wondering if I deserved it or if it was international student appeasement. Of getting really good feedback from two well-respected industry sources on my novel draft… and wondering if it was because I was selling a West-accepted image of India.

Umm, what is the India-accepted image of India?

Then of course was the grand finale: Finding out that I am pregnant. And realising that I really didn’t ¬– and don’t – have an answer to, “Are you ready for it?” I don’t know, but I know I am having a baby. I know am excited. I know I am bloody petrified.

And I know that no matter how much I am paid, I don’t think I can pose nude when pregnant. Nope.

PS: Will this blog now become a “mommy” blog. I don’t know. Is it allowed?