do I look sexy?
There I was, walking back from work, minding my own business, when I see four guys getting into their car on my path and one of them loudly calling out to me “Hi sexy”. The words actually hit me a second later when I was 4 steps ahead of them. Of course I did not look back. But this is the question in my mind since yesterday….in which angle… 🙄 🙄 🙄
I am fast losing memory. Yes, even before Moo is here. I was proud of my memory, of what is kept where, whose birthday is when, even the pin code of relatives, but I am losing it all. I could not place the name of the person whose birthday was 2 days ago. I forgot to switch off the bathroom lights. Thankfully, I am still able to remember paying the utility and credit card bills on time and the location of the receipt of appliances and medical bills. I read online that pregnancy memory loss is very common 😯
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My first visit to the radiologist was very funny due to the fact that I could not sit in one place because of the two tender coconuts I had drank for my bladder to be full during the scan. Apparently, it makes the scanning easy. It was becoming funnier by every passing minute when I noticed I had company while pacing here and there, not one, but three ladies in throes of a full and jiggly-wiggly bladder. I made Zack ask the receptionist thrice when was our turn. It was 30 minutes later and there were 2 ladies already queued up. I was sure I could not wait for that long. So I promptly headed off for the loo, came back and guzzled a 1-litre water bottle. To my dismay, I was called in 5 min after I corked the bottle shut. I was pretty sure I would be sent back and made to wait, but thankfully Moo was visible in the scan. Or was it some superior sort of machine? I do not know.
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I do not know if he was humouring me all the time or was it real, but whenever I used to tell Zack about any kind of symptom, he would promptly add, “Me too”. “Zackie, I feel like puking” “Me too” “Why do you feel like vomiting?” “I do not know, but I feel like that only” “I have severe back pain today” “Me too.” “I am too sleepy, do not feel like waking up” *snore* “Hmm, me too” *snore*
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There was one particular bad taste in my mouth during the whole of my first trimester which made me gag even on spicy chutneys. Nothing I ate removed that taste. One minute after eating puliogre, I would get the irritating taste in mouth. It was like the one you have in fever, only 10 times worse. The internet was filled with non-practical remedies, one of which was to keep munching saltless crackers every 3 hours and first thing in the morning 😐 Finally, I found a solution to that. Salty, no sugar oats cookies and banana stem kootu. The latter was a revelation as to how it masked that horrible taste.
Dear Precious,
April last year, your papa and I chanced upon a webpage which had the advertisement of an ovulation calculator. On a whim I entered the required dates and there it showed, that I had a ‘window’ of 5 days and that particular day was the last of the 5. Planning for a kid was not in the agenda. But that night, something clicked somewhere and we entered into the baby making business.
The start of May showed no sign of you. Then my mind went into an overdrive. If I happen to conceive in May, that would result you in February – our favourite month of the year. Triple celebrations would have followed. After all the scheming, plotting and the threatening have-to-do-it-tonight emotional blackmailings to the husband, you finally had me anticipated and on my toes when I did not get my periods in June. On the day your maternal grandparents were to arrive at home after a long train journey of 2 days, I could contain my excitement no longer. In the morning before picking them up from the railway station, I saw a faint line in the home pregnancy test. It was not very dark and so we made a trip to a gynec’s to get it confirmed. The doc poked around and showed me a little coin shaped sac in my belly – your nest. As I welcomed your grandparents with a mischievous smile announcing you, the twinkle and shock in their eyes remains to be treasured. One week of full pampering by two sets of grandparents and you made your presence all the more felt by the repeated nausea and fatigue. I shivered a little when I found that I had some spotting in the morning the return train journey was scheduled. I could not in any way discuss anything in front of the happy faces departing from home. A quick call to your pediatrician uncle made me fix the next available appointment at the radiologist’s. All through the waiting time at the reception the next day at the scan centre, your papa kept pacifying the agitated and nervous me. The radiologist asked me thrice if this was my first pregnancy, making me confused. Then he showed me the screen and said I see no evidence of a pregnancy. I insisted otherwise, showing the previous scan reports. We had lost you.
The gynec is a no-nonsense lady and said as a matter-of-fact tone that it is quite normal for first timers and we will have plenty of time and chances later. All through the day I kept getting calls from your uncles and aunts having words of comfort for me. Your papa was the rockstar during this time – always keeping my spirits up. The five days following your disappearance had me suffer the worst of my cramps. And then I thought – you had a good life after all 🙂 Till the time you were there, there was never a dull moment for you and me. I had access to the yummiest of foods, no work at all and so much of relaxation! Dear one, you are and always will be a blessing to me – teaching so many things about life, people, hope and patience.
Your papa and I decided that we will stop trying for a few months and focus on healing myself physically and being happy in general. I got a beautiful surprise in the form of a birthday vacation and I welcomed the new year quite adventurously.
Can you imagine the shock of surprise when I saw two pink lines on a home pregnancy test at 4 in the morning a couple of months down the line?
You were planned – prim and proper.
And this little monkey made its presence without any kind of following the ‘to-do’ list – checking the ovulation calendar, eating the right foods, taking prenatal vitamins, best positions for baby making, yadda yadda and all the guidelines which make so many websites mint money like anything. I was so shocked that I shook up the deep-in-slumber husband and showed him the stick. Guess what he said. “Oh wow, congrats Visha” And then goes to sleep. Just. Like. That. In the morning I am made to listen to his ‘dream’ about me doing out this previous scene. But since mamma knows your papa so well, she had already foreseen this and clicked a picture of the stick. It was his turn to be in a state of shock 
And in that state of disbelief he was, until he heard the heartbeat at the radiologist’s. And how was I? The same.
You know me. Things have to go according to my plan. I am skeptical to things taking me off-guard. So when this pregnancy started becoming more and more real with the morning+noon+night sickness, I also counted the day when the monkey will finally come into this world. It turned out to be May. The hottest month of the year. There I was, planning for your arrival in February, and here I am expecting a summer baby.
So how is the monkey doing?
Well, I think I will face a mega-faceoff once he/she comes to know that I am referring to her/him as monkey. So we will be a bit kind and give a short and sweet name, like, umm…Moo? Yeah, Moo it shall be.
So Moo is now 25 weeks old, sitting pretty in the tummy having made all the arrangements conducive to itself without even 1% of regard to mummy. Moo does not like me sitting or sleeping, I should always be vertical or walking. As soon as I sit in the office seat, I get a hello from Moo by the way of a well-aimed kick. Post lunch is the play time, where the tummy becomes a playground – playing occurs up, down, right, left, whichever direction is possible. Already there are food preferences, you know? Strawberry shakes are welcome, but beetroot juice is not.
Ah well, this is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg I think.
Yours, craving-to-sleep-on-the-stomach mummy.
The little world of Visha 