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.
