This is getting ridiculous…

The bastards who lied to me about the average time span of morning sickness, have yet to be punished. Because after that ended…LAST WEEK… I’ve been battling with acidity that has the strength to compete with heart attacks and acute angina.

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…

October/November 2007

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.