I am writing to you today from none other than one of Singapore’s best hotels, the Ritz! My heavy, whale-like body is comfortably nestled in a very softly padded desk chair, and behind my screen the nearly floor-to-ceiling windows frame a view of the Kallang basin, earlier bathed in a sweet late afternoon glow, but quickly becoming shrouded in ominous cloud cover as the evening swims into place. I can see both Golden Miles, the grey mound of the National Stadium, trees and parks and buildings stretching vertically upwards and horizontally into the horizon.
I am quite overwhelmed with the beauty of things and feel very calm, which is much-needed respite from a couple of weeks of mounting anxiety. Let’s take stock:
- In 2 days, I’ll be 38 weeks pregnant. Which does also mean that I am technically full term, and this staycation is therefore a fairly hefty risk. If I go into labour at the Ritz, will they sponsor a yearly stay for our little family, or slap me with a hefty cleaning bill for the room?
- I am almost more bump than body now, which is both mesmerising and terrifying. It’s hard not to wonder how the not-so-little life brewing in there is going to make her unceremonious exit through (what feels like) a sliver of a doorway. Everyone laughs and says the door will open as much as it needs to; I mean, of course I know that, but that doesn’t make it sound any less painful or mortifying.
- As she turns somersaults in my belly it feels like all my organs are being nudged into disarray. I spend half my day needing to pee and hunting for a loo.
- A girl! A little girl. I lie awake at night oscillating between wonder and fear. I’m not sure I’ve fully grasped the entirety of what it means to be me, much less what it would mean to be mother to a fragile, delicate and tiny other that my body is, miraculously, spinning into existence right now.
- A girl! Not-so-secretly, I hoped for a boy. The world, I think, is a safer, more secure place for a boy. Sure, they can be monkeys with boundless energy and pubescent sweat and a predilection to gaming and a tendency towards brusqueness and emotional unavailability. But it’s easier to protect them from people who mean them harm. They’re safer walking the streets at night. It brings me some measure of dread to think that from the day my little girl is independent, I will forever wonder if she’s okay as my head hits the pillow at night. As my mother has chimed for many years, I do, indeed, now know how she feels and has always felt.
- I’ve always prided myself as someone who performs well under pressure; allow me the small boast that while my course mates used to chip away at their final essays for months, I’d churn everything out in a week and still manage to do pretty well. Minor affirmations like that have likely left me too complacent, because the same can’t be said about our preparation for the baby. In the coming week, we still have deliveries coming (big IKEA shelf for the plethora of baby bits and bops), a faulty toilet shower door to get fixed, and a washing machine to exchange. Well, the washing machine isn’t really our fault, but all in all our procrastination over the past 8 months has really caught up with us and tasks like these are annoyingly nipping away at our ankles. Swollen ankles, in my case.
All the anxieties. Now, to take stock of the blessings, of which there have been many:
- It has been a healthy pregnancy, which we know better than to assume is the status quo. In the myriad of tests and scans and probes and checks we’ve undertaken, there has almost never been cause for worry, and for that I truly thank God. Early on there was a minor issue with restricted blood flow in one of the arteries leading to the womb, but everyone rallied with us in prayer and at the next scan the issue had miraculously righted itself. I’ve been able to stay on my feet since day 1, keeping up with prenatal workouts, and have generally been free of the usual aches and heartburn. The only malaise that has doggedly followed me throughout has been waves of pregnancy sickness, but that I can live with and there’s medication for that.
- That I am able to get pregnant at all is a sweet miracle and a great gift from God. This I know, despite my initial feelings of dread and discomfort that, thankfully, melted away eventually. When I first did the pregnancy test(s) – 2 at a pop, I was in such disbelief – I was so overwhelmed I lay on a beanbag and sobbed for an hour. What would happen to me, my life, the dreams I had? Living abroad, writing professionally, going to cooking school, doing … I don’t know, things. But perhaps this is one of the biggest and best things I can do with my life, and certainly my marriage. All around us, friends struggle with fertility issues, and we can only bear prayerful witness to the horrible pain and disappointment that years of trying for a child can bring. In fact, so many we know have problems conceiving that we ourselves grew complacent in our use of contraception, et voila. It was difficult and uncomfortable to break the news to some of these friends that we were pregnant. They were all full of genuine joy and congratulations for us, but I can only imagine what a punch it must have been to the gut. And so, we were and are blessed, and I never want to take that for granted again.
- We have been the beneficiaries of immense support. When friends with kids found out we were pregnant, the generosity flowed like a torrent. Cataloguing the other day what we have for the baby, and from whom, I was bowled over by how much had been given to us and consequently, how much we’d managed to save. People have been even more unselfish with their words of advice and encouragement, building us a steady bulwark against the waves of uncertainty that crashed against us. My parents, in particular, cooked elaborate, healthy dinners for us, drove them over, and also offered us lifts all over the island. So many people have a baby with so much less. My heart is full.
Perhaps it’s also worth mentioning the funny way I found out I was pregnant. During a class, my 14 year old student raised her hand and motioned me over. ‘Ms H, are you pregnant?’ she sheepishly asked. Now, we hadn’t not been trying to conceive, but we certainly hadn’t been actively trying. In fact, I’d been trying to avoid ‘fertile days’ (but a combination of irregular periods and a bad head for numbers probably meant this was more self-sabotaging than anything else). My first thought was, yikes, I know this isn’t the most flattering (Uniqlo smock of a) dress, but is it really that bad? No I wasn’t, I replied. Her brows furrowed in thought. ‘… Are you sure?’ Wow, I was really going to have to burn this dress (it went straight in the Salvation Army pile that night). She might as well have ended with ‘… so sayeth THE LORD’ because I was, I just had no idea. A few days later as I rummaged through my recent memory for when my last period was, her question wafted through my head, prompting a very skeptical purchase of a pregnancy test kit, and, well – the rest is history.
That’s all for now. The next time I write, it will likely be with a sleeping (I hope) baby in the next room. What a thought!
Medium Delirium 