Hi everyone, I just want to put this on here in the hopes that someone will find Whisker. She went missing from our house or Garden in Jasra yesterday Dec 21 and without a trace. We think she might have been picked up by someone who found her wandering in the compound.
…As he slowly strolled on the left side of the clear blue stream which cascaded down the side of the undulating hills of greenery, twisting and turning with the schools of fish on this hot summer day, the insects and birds covered the green shady trees of the orchard and their twittering filled the warm air and breeze. And the road swerved up ahead into the distance flowing with cars, and the madry shino pooed and the monstrous baboon fleed...bleeuh ble-bleeuh ble-bleeeeeeeeeeuh…
Oh. My. God.
If you started to doze off reading the above, I don’t blame you. I almost passed out writing it.
When I start reading a novel, I want to know the story. Its like spoiling a good piece of saucy gossip about the weird neighbors. You could squash the thrill in an instant by dwelling on the time of day, the fabric's textures on their furniture and what their barnyard animals were doing at the time. I don’t want a bloody listing of every boring detail in the background or the scenery. I don’t want a complicated and irrelevant history lesson on the house of the town’s mayor’s ex-boyfriend…(actually that might be fascinating) just because he happened to pass by it. Really, if someone is smart enough to write a book and get it published, they should have the insight to realize that WE (the readers) just want the damn story. If you want to describe the setting to death, put it in the script, when you make it into a low budget TV movie and save us all the misery.
I just want to know where the dude is going and I wish he would hurry the hell up getting there, because the strolling and the stupid insects are getting on my nerves. I am tempted to shout at the book and put it in the naughty corner until it gives me something scandalous to hang on to and motivate me to keep reading further.
I’ve started reading this story, which when summarized sounds very interesting, but having page after page of descriptions is making my hair frizz. I mean his wife had several clandestine affairs, and it surprises me that no one –COUGHauthorCOUGH- thought to follow her around and give us a detailed account of her illicit relationships. And honestly I don’t judge her for her infidelity. I mean the guy keeps strolling next to streams and trees, all silent and uninteresting. I’ve been reading about him for only a day and now I want to have an affair!
Why would I care that the fluffy bird in the tall Oak tree is pecking at the aged and crooked branch. WHY? Unless of course, the bird played a pivotal role in the plot.
For example, let’s say that the bird has OCD and had been compulsively pecking for hours, hard enough that the branch happened to break and fall with great timing onto the unfortunate head of the main character causing him instant amnesia and making him forget who he was. He would later meet a kind and beautiful nurse at the hospital and eventually make her his wife until one day when she tells him that she once survived a brutal attack and kidnapping gone wrong by what the police told her was a very dangerous serial killer who never lost a victim, and that they had been trying to track for years…which rings a bell..and the guy starts to remember…it was HIM. He was the serial killer…
If this was the bird’s role in the story, then by all means keep going with the inane descriptions of tweety’s soft feathers, curved orange beak and his elegant yet birdish posture. After all, he is my hero, for he has made this story a zillion times more exciting than the stupid stream has ever contributed. I mean, it just sits there and looks all watery. Puh.
Even I can do that.
So now I’m reading this novel out of spite. I will finish you damn it, just so I can casually say “Oh, I read that…”. Even if every painful page of overly descriptive prose tries to kill me, I will persevere and wake up from each mini coma, to find out where the guy is going, and if he’s actually got a personality hidden in there somewhere.
I miss Harry Potter.
Last week, when I innocently walked into the hospital at 11am for my weekly doctor’s appointment, I didn’t know that I would still be there two days later. I was withheld for further questioning when my doctor found that my naughty blood pressure was not favorable. Hmm… apparently 150/97 is ample cause for alarm. So placed under hospital arrest, I was. Banned from work, banned from TV and banned from being awake, I was to be put to sleep immediately and I didn’t need to go home to pack a few things. The idea was unsettling, as I made my calls to my husband and quick sms’s to friends, family and co workers, warning them of my temporary disappearance from mid-morning.
The injection they gave me to help me relax was painful, but the cloud-floating slumber that ensued was amazing. I forgave the injection for it’s savage ways and drifted into a state of bliss and unconsciousness, where life was beautiful and there was absolutely nothing to worry about.
Looking back now, I’m wondering whether my high blood pressure was caused by things in my life, or simply an odd anomaly of pregnancy. I mean I do often go on a fervent cursing rampage while driving through the jungle-y roads of Bahrain. And I have been known to shout at newspapers and then draw evil moustaches and horns on certain pictures of imbeciles who say stupid things like, “this flies in the face of our culture”. The only thing that’s going to fly in your face is my shoe. Go back to your box and don’t come out till next year, when I will beat you with my shoe, again.
I don’t know where I get this quick-to-anger trait. Maybe it’s my Iraqi blood, although my grandmother didn’t get angry at stupid things. Anyhow, if my BP is not whipped into shape through medication and bed rest, Ali is to be evicted from his current home, faster than he can say: “let’s kick that rib again to see what kind of noise it makes..”
Oh shit. Can we keep him in, just a couple weeks more? I need to kind of do some baby clothes laundry and get some furniture delivered and maybe read a couple hundred pages about this project of motherhood….I’M NOT FLIPPING READY YET!
By Day two in the maternity ward, I was the only bored person, as everyone else there was either giving birth or getting to know their new baby. I may have been the only one with their child actually on the inside. The constant lying down, was part of the reason that Ali decided to move into my lungs and was suffocating me, so I was advised to go for a walk so he could descend back down where he belongs at this point. I feel like a lava lamp sometimes. Hmm…what can one do at 10pm in a hospital? I wish there were shops or a salon, or a 24 hours store, so I could buy magazines or get a manicure. The only place I could actually walk to at this point was the nursery.
There were two babies there; a cute and cuddly pink one positioned by the window, sleeping happily and the other one, to my surprise placed like a rotisserie chicken under foil and blue lights.
“What’s wrong with him? He’s so small…” I gasped to my friend, horrified.
“I can’t see his face. Are they cooking him?” She replied just as clueless.
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to put my baby in foil, it looks mean.”
We later found out that he has jaundice, he’s a normal full-term baby, and no one was trying to cook him.
Oh God I think I’m going to vomit. Inside edition just aired a segment about a woman who got scalped, because her long hair got caught in a go-kart engine. Azoo3 or what???? I’m now doing Lamaze breathing, so I don’t go into labour from sheer grossed outness. Beeeeeeu3.
This entry was written in the hospital ward at 4am when I was supposed to be asleep..Naughty Nocturnal Farah…I hope I'm not arrested tomorrow.
While all scientific evidence may point to the contrary, I am quite convinced that at 34 weeks, monsieur bebe, has gotten bored and figured out a way to sneak out the back door of the amniotic sac and is scouting out my internal organs as we speak. I often feel like my insides are being examined by some kind of antiques dealer who is picking up my organs, turning them over, sometimes flicking them or squeezing them to check for quality and resilience.
“Excuse me, would you put that down?!!!”
“What?!” Nayef says startled, dropping his hairbrush. “It’s mine.”
“Not you,” I say angrily staring at my belly. “It’s him. He’s massaging my liver again.”
“Leave him alone. Let him do what he wants. He’s just a baby.”
Yeah, that’s what you all think. This one’s going to come out with a tool belt around his waist and a miners helmet, with that light thingy, pointed at the doctor and then he’s going to give her a full detailed report about the state of my insides. He hasn’t sat still since week 22. Who does he take after? I know I appreciate quiet time and rarely move unnecessarily.
According to my weekly email updates, he’s a little over 4 pounds or the size and weight of a pineapple…. Mmmm pineapple, what I would do for a big juicy slice… It seems that every time someone mentions the name of a food, I embark on a music filled fantasy of how I am going to consume that food, and then I work myself up into such a frenzy that if I don’t have that particular edible delight immediately I feel the world will end and I will die a sad and painful death. I am not exaggerating.
Two nights ago, my husband mumbled that he felt like eating an apple while we were getting into bed, and that one sentence set me off into a mad search in the fridge looking for an apple. (not for him, but for me.) My mouth was watering, knowing that if I found one, it would probably be shriveled up and really, really old because I don’t remember buying any in the recent past. My quest left me empty handed and teary eyed. I wanted that apple so bad…I fantasized about biting into it, or blending it with ice and mint, or chopping it up with other fruit and pouring orange juice all over it. That apple was my ultimate fantasy that night, and it went unsatisfied. Do not ask me how I made it through the night. Before I left the kitchen defeated, I found applesauce in the freezer, from the early morning sickness days, but by the time that defrosted I had passed out and when I woke up the next morning it did not live up to its fresh predecessor; the crunchy intact apple.
Last night however, at 11:34pm, before the closing of Midway, we ordered 4 shiny red apples, a bunch of bananas, apple juice and orange juice. By 12 midnight, I had made two smoothies using chopped apple, a banana, ice cubes, mint, apple juice and a dash of orange juice. It was scrumptious. I had to wake my husband up to drink it. He fell asleep on the couch waiting for me to come back. With one eye open, he downed the glass, told me it was amazing and then collapsed into bed.
I was so refreshed by my invention, that I was more alert than I’d ever been at any AM timing in my life. So awake was I, that at 3am, I decided the poor excuse for a “nursery” had to be neatened up. There is a box in that room, which has been there ever since we moved into the house, after our wedding. I’m talking summer 2006. In that box are miscellaneous crappy items, that I’ve lived for two years without, and yet still feel the need to dust them and keep them. In the dead of night, you could see the profile of a very big bump moving around in that room, lifting a box and carrying it all the way back to the bedroom for a long night of sifting and reminiscing. I wish there was anything of value in there. I found 12 MAC lipsticks (I don’t know why I buy them, I wore lipstick like 3 times in my life and it never worked out), 7 different eye shadow boxes, 10 lip liners, 6 eyeliners, a beaded ring that I never wore, and dental floss. I lovingly dusted everything and arranged it on my dressing table, as if they were not expired, poisonous, or never to be used anyway. I’ll throw them away some other time.
At 4am, I felt inadequate as a mother, so I started to read voraciously, with an effort to actually finish the book, What to expect the first year. This was one of the many books I had ordered since entering the third trimester and was suddenly struck by the realization that pregnancy usually ends with the arrival of a BABY!!! Being too stricken with panic to actually finish any one given book, I have a series of well-meaning book marks stuck in each one, signaling my efforts to prove that Amazon, wasn’t getting my money for nothing. What I’ve learned so far, is how not to flash people in the mall while breast feeding, and how it may or may not be that colic is caused by eating too much cauliflower.
BUT NONE OF THESE BOOKS ARE REALLY TELLING ME WHAT TO DO! I want my mommy. I’m thinking about the baby’s belly button and how to clean it. How the hell do you change a diaper? What do you dress them in for what activity, there are so many names for their clothes!!! Onesies, wraps, vests, cardigans, t-shirts, pajamas! Aren’t they all the same???
I tried to fill the baby bath tub the other day to practice and after a lot of pulling and tugging the hose thingy just wouldn’t reach the tap. Then someone told me that you only use the hose for draining the tub. If you want to fill it, you get the water to the right temperature and then do it the old fashioned way with a bucket, from the sink.
Oh.
I must calm down. I give myself the dramatic soap opera slap across the face. I stop hyperventilating. I think I’ll go to sleep now. I had barely two hours of sleep. What with the insane nesting of the third trimester and the annoying morning sickness symptoms of the first, I could barely rest last night. And since the inspector seems to be at rest, no longer fiddling around in there, it’s a good opportunity to catch some zzzzz’s.
In fact, I read somewhere that heartburn often has the same symptoms as a heart attack. Lovely. A constant feeling that you’re going to die, that can often be caused by the very same foods that cure it. Not only is that fun, but it’s coupled with the lovely blossoming of my body into what I can best describe as a watermelon with legs…or rather a cluster of watermelons. Me and my vegetable stand are often seen bumping into corners, closet doors and other human beings. I no longer fit in my usual spaces. After using my car the other day my husband kindly adjusted my car seat back for my Dwarfish height. And flattered though I was at his generosity in his adjustments, being no Kate Moss, I found myself wedged between my car seat and the steering wheel, honking the horn involuntarily for all the neighbors to see. Grace is not one of my strong suits these days.
I am starting to feel hippo-esque, although friends tell me…this is nothing, wait till May. May? What’s May? I can only think of now and a minute from now. Besides the doctor rudely delayed my due date from June 4 to 5! Why? Did he get a memo from my baby that he will be in meetings all day on the fourth, and therefore the fifth is a better day for his schedule???
This blogging was interrupted by an unexpected bout of MORNING SICKNESS!!!! It’s not cute anymore.
Anyway, earlier today, while I was beached on the sofa, I had a conversation with my mother, about how I can lose weight, by tricking my body and contributing it towards the baby’s weight gain, and we had an ambitious plan on how I would eat only healthy things, and minimize carbs, and engage in a bit of brisk walking. 5 minutes after that we were both on the phone ordering a pizza, chicken wings and a Greek salad. And when it arrived, I barely waddled to go get it. Brisk walk my ass.
The baby only ever communicates with me when I sit really still, we have tapping morse code conversations, and he kicks back when I poke at him trying to get his attention. When I’m alone, he’ll kick and thump my internal organs like they were his personal punching bags. But once I invite onlookers and fans to come and feel all the action, he sits there quietly making me look like a liar, not moving a muscle. We tricked him once, and he kicked Nayef’s hand really hard. Nayef looked so surprised, as though he just got undeniable proof that there really is a baby in there, and I’m not making it up as an excuse to get fat and be mean.
So here I am, 6.754 months pregnant. If I count it in weeks, which no one understands, it’s a grand total of 27 weeks, which feels like such an achievement. I remember feeling that I was 8 weeks for like a year. Time just would not budge. Now the weeks fly by, but the individual days, I feel go on forever. By 6pm, I’m ready to end the day and start over tomorrow. Which means that at 1:30pm, I’d really like the work day to be OVER! I want to shrink everything down, except lying down time and the nights. Once I’m in my bed, which is a “mitfalsif” Japanese style bed about 2 inches off the ground, gravity and the world’s forces all conspire to keep me there forever. Even rolling around in the middle of the night, gives me flash backs of workers maneuvering extremely heavy and enormous steel structures in the Boston Big Dig.
I have 13 weeks to go to the big day or week, or however long labour is supposed to last. I’m busy hanging up curtains and choosing baby stuff, but what I really want to do is sleep until then. I don’t want to do anything demanding, mentally-challenging, or physically involving movement.
And sometimes very suddenly I stop whatever it is I’m doing and I go to sleep….
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
On a day when the profoundly intelligent mullas across the causeway are busy mangling red roses and hunting down hormonal, repressed girls in crimson, we have the liberties to enjoy the day known as Valentines Day. Now regardless of all the retarded emails of warning that I’m going to get today on “do you know what you are celebrating?” and the history of St. Valentine and what it really meant and how it is the end of Islamic civilization, if I give my husband a rose; in spite of all this stupidity, the overpriced balloons at Al Osra, and the Styrofoam hearts in restaurants, I think what today makes me think of, whether I like it or not, is love.
And I do love lots of people in my life, who I don’t really tell that I love, for fear of getting too soppy and emotional and sounding like the ending of a movie about some terminal illness.
But I have to say that today morning, on my way to work, I felt so much love that I thought I had to share it or I’d explode. I felt I should go in a chronological-ish order.
I love my mother and father. I realized this morning that they are my first loves. The first sounds I heard, and the first eyes that embraced me, loving me, even though I was a slimy little snot, that cried all the time and gave them lovely packages of poo, in return. Without them, I wouldn’t be loved by anyone else.
I love my brother and sisters. I love them so much, it’s embarrassing. So to hide it I was really mean to them, bossing them around, teasing them, making them think they were adopted, and frequently running sexist campaigns against my brother for being the only boy in the house. I felt that if they knew how much I loved them, they’d think I was weird. But I love them so much, I always have. And as their leader, mentor and pioneer, I would fight fiercely to the death to protect them from harm, pain or evil.
I love my Grandfathers and Grandmothers, for loving me and playing such great roles in my life. And as each one of them left the world, leaving me in tears at the prospect of being without them, I learned that they have taught me what they know, and I have to carry on and make them proud. I love them all. I loved when Mama Mariam made me khanfaroosh, and when Mama Rafeea told me stories about Iraq. I loved Baba Khalid’s expression when he gave us presents that made us happy, and the way Baba Ali used to pretend he was eating my ears, my nose and my tiny hands. I miss them all so much, especially these days.
I love my Aunts and Uncles, who took over when we were left without grandparents. I love them because they tie us together. I love my cousins, who make me feel like I will never be alone. I love their unborn children, whether I’m here to hold them or not. I love our gatherings on Saturdays and Eid and everything in between. They are the joys in my life, in between the difficult times and the frustrating tasks life throws at you. I hope to have lots of stupidly fun times with them, singing, boating, lounging, eating and being a family.
I love my friends. Those both near and far. Those that call a lot, and those that don’t. I love them all. I love our history together and all the memories growing up and living life’s funniest times (the teen years). I love knowing that they’re healthy, happy, and successful. I would never give them up. I have been blessed with my friends, all the boys and girls that have been a second family to me, have also made me who I am today. I am very thankful.
I love my Husband. I love that he just showed up out of nowhere one day, and proved to me that this kind of love really does exist. I love that he is with me everyday in the morning and at night, sharing movies, food and giving me his hands, when I want to hold them. For being kind, even when I’m sick, grumpy, bloated and looking like a banshee, by hugging me and telling me that I’m cute, (when I’m clearly NOT). I love that he loves the people I love. I love him for being tall, for being sweet, for being mine, for every characteristic both shallow and profound that makes him, him. I know that we will grow old together, because no one else will do.
I love my dog. Because, although she’s just a pet, I swear she loves me too. I love her when she’s sleeping like a doughnut and I love her when she’s whizzing around the house hyper from her bath. I love that she understands both Arabic and English, especially when we talk about her. I love whisker like she was my own little fluffy child….
I love the monkey in my tummy. I’m growing a new love, who kicks me swiftly from time to time to show me who’s boss. I even love the fact that he caused me horrendous morning sickness enough to make me actually lose weight in the first 3 months. My own little dietician…awww. I love that he is part Nayef and part me and part his own unique new surprise. I love that he made rude gestures with his hands during the last ultrasound and then went into fighting stance. It’s going to be fun taming him. I love him for choosing my belly as his starting point, and I hope he will grow up to love me, realizing that he had tugged on my heart strings even when he was just a dot. I love my baby boy. My own baby Ali.
Xxx love you all.
Happy Valentines Day.
Oh my God At last!!!! I waited for the day when I was exactly 12 weeks pregnant, as if like a big clock tower, ceremonious bells would ring and the disgusting feeling would officially disappear. Every other book, website, formerly pregnant woman, and self-proclaimed expert told me it shouldn’t be too bad after 12 weeks. So I rejoiced on November 21st because I thought I would never see the day, when I could once again hold a conversation with someone, that included the words: onions, sausages, or cucumbers without grimacing, screaming out “gross” and then heading straight for the nearest throw up station that I had set up around my home. I was done with Morning Sickness, which by the way is such an elegant name for what it really is. It should be called “your digestive abilities are on vacation, eat crackers and enjoy a constant state of acidity, heartburn and painful stomach discomfort.” I have never seen so much food in reverse. In my entire life, I have never ever been a vomiter. It probably happened to me around 4 or 5 times in my childhood, and I remember the results were always dramatic. I would immediately break out with blood freckles all over my face and my eyes would bulge out froggy-style leaving me to look stupid for a day or two. Crying was also part of the emotional drama of having your guts evict your meals. In the past 2 months, I’ve done this exercise around 30-40 times. This is why you should all go and kiss your mother’s feet. Being a mother, even before the kid is out, is very, very difficult.
I had also recently started sleeping in the TV room on the long sofa, because my bedroom stank. No one else smelled it. I pulled in a variety of people, family and friends to sniff my room usually sticking their noses into the AC vent and asking them if they wanted to die from the stench. Some felt sorry for me, some touched my head to check if I had a temperature, but most people told me that they had no idea what I was talking about. The problem was that the bad smell angered me. It was like a taunting skunk, that only I could see. Why was the bastard exclusive to my nose??? I started to feel like that cat that was constantly being molested by the uninvited advances of Pepe Le Pew. Don’t I have enough on my plate? I don’t need to be sleeping refugee-style in the living room, rudely awakened at 6:00am by an annoyingly cheerful sun, accompanied by a choir of stupid twittering birds.
But that’s all in the past. Today, I had graduated from this military camp of food intolerance and even my mood had lifted, after I had seen my 12-week scan showing the little monkey, with heart beat going strong and everything as it should be. It made me remember what I was doing, and that “tiny” over here, had no idea about all the uproar that was going on outside on a daily basis.
The next day was my brother’s wedding, and I had planned on staying up till 4am. Having gotten my hands on the menu, I was drooling in anticipation of all the yummy things I was going to taste. It had been in September probably, when I had last enjoyed eating anything and I really regretted ever having been mean to any foods, rejecting them for being too high in calories, unhealthy, or fattening. I now promised myself to never discriminate…and that all food was ultimately good and needed to be treated with respect and reverence.
The next day everything went well, I ate, I laughed, I saw people I hadn’t seen in months, and then I ate breakfast before I went home, all partied out and happily full. It was a nice ending to a very testing first trimester. But little did I know…the fat lady (not me) had not sung yet.
I was supposed to keep it quiet. At least until after I went to the doctor and confirmed it was in fact a viable pregnancy. It was Ramadan and I was trying to secretly eat Tums in the office, to squash the untimely heartburn, without drawing much suspicion. At one point I was walking around starving, when I accidentally walked in on two girls illegally sharing some biscuits, and I grabbed one, thanked them and scuttled away. No one knew why I was being weird. I kept it quiet for two or three weeks, and then we finally heard the little heart beat in my tummy. That little heart beat which confirms that I am in fact capable of creating human life…that actually works. I didn't cry, but I was extremely relieved. My mother the terrible secret keeper, having witnessed this, decided that it was now safe to tell half the world, but I couldn't join in the dissemination of the news because I was busy at home enjoying the tell-tale signs of early pregnancy.
In the weeks that followed, I made my own conclusions about pregnancy. I started to believe that God had created morning sickness as a type of hazing for mothers to be. Just like the military, only the toughest will get the honor of Mommy Medal.
"Are you suuuuuure you wanna be a mother??? "
"SIR, YES SIR!!! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEU3!!"
"Okay then, you will be vomiting your guts out to prove it!!! Grab your basket and run, Sergeaaaaaaaaaant!"
By the end of Month 2, the misery was both phenomenal and contagious. At 8 weeks pregnant, I was not yet aglow with the wonders of maternity. I had been reenacting scenes from The Exorcist and in the intermissions, I was usually found hugging my trusty plastic-lined trashcan like it was my life raft out of this river of hell. Thinking that I was the last living victim of morning sickness, I was often found sputtering with tears down my face asking God: "Why Me?" As they handed me another tissue, my husband and my mother looked at each other helplessly and mouthed: "Not just you, every other woman on earth…" but they wouldn't dare say that to me out loud.
My sole purpose in life was now reduced to keeping small amounts of bland, tasteless mush down where it belonged; in the tummy, and sleeping for ungodly amounts of time, to avoid the hellish discomfort of being conscious. Work? I don' t even know what you're talking about. I simply forgot everything beyond my sofa and my TV and of course my good friend the barf bin. Also I was on so many pills, vitamins and hormones, that I'm positive that I had morphed into another being, slowly, day by day, until I had become unrecognizable.
All I would watch was MBC 4, and I had never in my life, been so in tune to the tragedies of daytime soap operas until then. ("Damn it, I knew he wasn't the real father but to sell his daughter out for the secret company files???") Yes the issues were inane, but they kept me distracted from my nausea, until the damn ad for Kraft cheese which appeared every ten minutes, showing a loving mother smearing a blasphemous amount of creamy goo on a preposterously small piece of pita bread, and giving it to her son, whose joy was seriously out of proportion. Both the over use of food and the melodrama made me sick.
It's a miracle I'm still married. My husband was the only witness to this scary phenomenon of losing his wife, who seemed to have been switched with a mean, grumpy Alsatian holding his first child hostage. And yet, through it all, he was kind, helpful, and caring to the green-faced witch lying on the couch muttering curses and swear words at all the suffering she had been subjected to. "Miskeen" Nayef. He deserves a medal.
My other savior was my mother. I never knew how much it meant to have her around, until she held my forehead, wiped my tears, and made me hot tea and toast. Without them, the world was black. I really believed I was going to die, if they left me alone with my very own "rosemary's baby".
"I'm carrying Satan's child and I'm sure that it's trying to kill me."
"Farah! Don't say that! The baby will hear you.." My mother would hush me.
Excited at being a grandmother, my mom was extremely happy that I was throwing up every other meal. She kept telling me that it's a wonderful sign and the pregnancy is strong. Beaming with pride she told me that this is what she went through, four times, and that it only lasts 3 months. Three Months??? I don't have 3 months! Sometimes 4 or 5 she would say. Five??? You are squashing all hope. I can't do this for another day. Can't they give me morphine or something?
I asked; they wouldn't. Apparently it's illegal to do recreational drugs with your baby. However, they did pat me on the back and tell me, that all my suffering is a good sign.
Sign, schmine, this baby better be a genius millionaire, and care for me when I'm old, grumpy and alone. Just like I am now.
One month into my brand new gym membership after retraining myself into maintaining a legally recognized jog for 30 minutes. I found myself wheezing , huffing and puffing like the grandmother of the big bad wolf, while climbing up some stairs.
My friend looked at me, as I looked back at her with a grin plastered on my blue, oxygen-deprived face, "I've never been good at stair climbing."
I go to the bloody gym every day, but I can't do 1 minute of upward ascending, without holding my gut and professing my doubt that I will live another minute.
"You know that's a sign of pregnancy…" she smiled.
"Yeah, but I took a test today and it said Not…" I replied, starting to doubt its quality.
Although the test claimed it was made in Holland, it had the comical name of: "Now you will know" apparently referring to the state of limbo, mothers-to-be go through when wanting to know if their eggs had in fact met the "one" and gotten engaged or rather embryoed.
After discussing the old-fashioned test I took, I was filled with suspicion. Maybe it was wrong. My friend's advice was that we should go to the pharmacy immediately and get the brand new digital tests, and maybe do another one tomorrow or the day after. So when we got the tests, I made her promise not to let me use one, because not knowing is the worst kind of temptation to use all the tests in one night. In the quest for motherhood, my curiosity and I were known to have wasted quite a number of tests unnecessarily and then sat there staring at a bunch of negatives, when one simple test would've sufficed.
My trusty guardian didn't last one minute of futile convincing. I didn't even have to try that hard.
"You know there was a second very, very, very faint blue line with the test I did earlier. Does that mean that it's still very early, or does it have to be really clear?"
The next thing I knew I was handed a test and shoved towards the bathroom and told to put us all out of our misery by just finding out once and for all. What was another negative…at least then we could enjoy the rest of the evening.
I walked out of my room holding the test and looked up at the eager face of my friend waiting for a response.. I shrugged and said: "You know, it's really early to even test, to get an accurate result, I should've waited at least another week…but even though it's early and I thought it was negative before..this digital test says… "pregnant"!
Lots of excited screaming and jumping ensued, and then immediately I got strict instructions not to ever jump like that again and to sit down for the next 9 months.
I was dizzy from disbelief, with a million things going through my mind. Grinning stupidly I looked around my house and thought, everything is going to change…I can't believe it.
I'm four weeks pregnant.
