Hate-hate relationship

I think the one thing that has defined the different stages of my pregnancy and I suspect will do so till I pop is my ever changing relationship with food. First, there was the total and utter disinterest and then revulsion of food. Then, there was the total emptying of the contents in my stomach which made me totally miserable and I still get sensory memories of it whenever I sniff Indian spices or parmesan cheese. Thankfully, that was over by about 13 weeks and I could finally start eating with relish. And eat I did.

I discovered a penchant for anything spicy. The more it felt like the top of my head was going to blow from the heat and the more tears I shed because the food was chiili hot, the better. The offspring seem to defy all the pregnancy books that tell me that I should eat non-spicy food as spicy food inhibits digestion. I ignored all that since I could eat it, I enjoyed it and it stayed down well.

Until the last week. Well, actually over Chinese New Year, I discovered that I didn't like food again. Initially, I put it down to the copious amounts of food that met us everywhere we went. But it didn't go away. I had absolutely lost interest in food. I was always at a lost of what to eat. There were no cravings, except for the Milo with chocolate ice cream one which Packrat wisely vetoed because it was late at night and he really didn't want his pregnant wife bouncing off walls in the middle of the night.

In the last two days it got even more severe. My tummy started acting up. On Thursday, it was upset, as if I had eaten something wrong and it was pissed off at me. On Friday, there was a massive amount of acid in my stomach making me feel extremely uncomfortable whether standing up or sitting down regardless of whether I was eating something. It also led to heartburn which was absolutely unfunny. I couldn't tell Packrat what I wanted to eat and I felt perpetually full even if all I did was stare in the direction of the kitchen. It's ten at night now and I can still feel the effects of lunch.

The books tell me it's because the hormones have slowed down my digestive system so that I can absorb more nutrients from what I eat. Plus the fact that my rapidly growing uterus sits higher up in my stomach cavity and is probably infringing on the space that had been formerly dedicated to the digestion of food. In retaliation, my digestive system is acting up and poor me suffers. The offspring don't really, I think because I still try to eat despite the disinterest in food. Especially because of the disinterest in food, I eat properly. I eat what I have to and nothing more.

And that is sad for me. I used to get great joy from eating. In fact, I looked forward to eating. Much of Packrat's and my relationship revolves around food. We have nostalgic eating places, on date nights, we pick special eating places to go to, we experiment with cooking strange foods, we think grocery shopping is therapeutic- it's all about food and suddenly, food brings me no joy. In fact, I hate it now, when I have to figure out the next meal.

I hope this doesn't last although I have a sneaking suspicion that it will since my belly is going to do nothing else but grow larger and larger. Well, I guess it's my natural defence mechanism against putting on unnecessary weight since there really isn't any space or desire for junk food.

What a sad day it is.

Technorati Tags: Pregnancy, Food aversions

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Saturday morning stress and stretch

Every Saturday, I haul my ever growing ass out of bed to go for pre-natal pilates. It's a strange sensation for me to not have actually broken out in sweat for the last five months and round about the third month, coinciding with the abating nausea, I decided it was time to actually find some exercise that I could do. Hence the pilates. It's a great class. Not only do I get to stretch and work muscles that are now buried by the burgeoning bump, it's also a comforting place to be.

It's strange that I'm usually the only Asian, non-expatriate mommy to be in the class. Almost as if the rest of the local expectant population don't think exercise is necessary especially since many believe that they now have to God-given right to be fat! The good thing being the only Asian lady in the class, apart from the instructor who's married to an American and had to squeeze a 4.4 kg baby out of her tiny frame is that for an hour, I don't feel huge and fat! These other women aren't huge and fat either. They're just built on a larger scale than I am. So beside them, even with the exploding bump, I feel rather nicely petite. Anywhere else, I feel like a giant blimp. Especially at work, especially when I look at myself in the mirror and especially when I wear my regular clothes and expect to see the slim silhouette that I have become accustomed to all these years.

The other thing that I've had to become accustomed to is the fact that I'm growing larger and by extension of that, less able to balance. It comes as a strange sensation to me seeing that I once had no problems balancing on nothing else but the tip of my toes. It isn't usually that big a problem when the earth under my feet is stable. But on the occasion that I take the bus or any sort of public transport, it becomes a challenge. It shouldn't, especially if there are seats on the bus or the train or if someone gives up their seat to the lady who looked like she just swallowed a basketball.

Unfortunately this is Singapore. And this morning, not only did I have to wait almost 20 minutes for the bus, the bus was crowded when it got to me. I usually have no problems with squeezing up the bus. And my stop isn't all that far away. But now, the ten minute start-stop bus ride where the bus swerves and darts in and out of traffic is an extremely harrowing experience. Add to that, the fact that Singaporeans don't have the decency to give up their seats. I stood in front of a lady who kept staring at me viciously because my bag kept accidentally hitting her on the head. In my defence, I couldn't help it since I was hanging on for mine and my offspring's dear lives. Now instead of shooting killer looks at me, the problem could have been easily solved by her giving up her seat but no.... so, from where I stood (in all senses of the word), she deserved the knocks she got on her head!

It's a sad sad testament to Singaporean civic mindedness when no one, including a mother and her primary school going daughter who were staring and talking very rudely about my bump but not moving an inch to be considerate. I would have used it as an opportunity to teach my child how to be considerate to others, but obviously, here, comfort was more important. At this point, I need to say that I wasn't really obsessing about the seat, just what the seat had come to symbolise.

I think I was ready to kiss the ground when I finally managed to get off the bus unscathed and in one piece. I then texted Packrat about my experience and his reply was one word- "Bastards!" and it encapsulated it all.

Technorati Tags: Pregnancy, pre-natal pilates, public transportation

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Modesty outraged

Everyone warned me that it was going to happen but for the last 5 months, it hasn't. Until today. When someone I hardly knew and had always felt creeped out about when I had to speak to her came up to me from the back and rubbed my belly!

I mean, HELLO!!!! One doesn't go up to a stranger and rub their relatively flat belly, so why do that to a pregnant woman that you hardly know??

Not cool.

And it wasn't a touch on the belly, it was a rub. Does she expect to get luck from it like Aladdin and his lamp? Or change the sex of the baby according to her preference?

Then, there was this other lady who came up to me and gave me the once over and went, in the most nasal of voices "Wah, getting obvious ah!"

Seriously, rude.

Now, I'm taking my bump out of here into the civilised bowels of well, anywhere but here.

Addition- 22 Feb 2007: Even though I'm still perturbed about having strangers rub my belly, I found out that it could actually be worse. A woman fell prostrate in front of my pregnant sister in law and worshipped her belly because she was carrying a boy and this woman desperately wanted a boy baby. Ok, that tops everything on the weird chart. Seriously.

Technorati Tags: Pregnancy, Belly bump

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Mensa membership required

I recently bought some clothes online and was most fascinated by a top that could apparently be worn 8 different ways. And like the song says, "brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things..." I was quite thrilled when it finally arrived. I had specially ordered the top for CNY since it was a nice shade of bright pink.

But once I pulled it out of the bag, I was extremely befuddled. Greatly so. This was a top that came with an instruction manual.



Immediately, I'd figured out 2 out of 8 ways. Ways 5 and 8, QED. But that was it. I couldn't figure out how to tie the damn thing for Ways 2,4 and 6. Packrat wasn't of much help either being distracted already by his usual WoW nonsense and after struggling with all the bits that needed to be tied for half an hour, I surrendered with a headache and felt extremely depressed! I mean who wouldn't, when you spent the better part of the month looking forward to the top arriving only to realise that one needed the IQ of a rocket scientist to actually put it on!

Boo.

I brought it to work this morning and some of the women in my department swarmed round trying to figure it out. I felt like a mannequin with a bump but our collective effort got me figuring out Ways 2 and 4 but still not 6. One of my colleagues swore to think about it during a meeting she had to attend and would get back to me later. But seriously, I'd never thought I would be defeated by a maternity top!


Technorati Tags: Pregnancy, maternity fashion

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Channeling anxieties

Apparently Packrat and I have delivery anxieties even though my due date isn't for another few months. It's manifesting itself in our dreams. Two nights ago, I dreamt that I was in labour and the doctor came in, in his scrubs and said he was busy with another delivery so could Packrat please do the honours? And apparently, the offspring was two months premature. But it didn't seem what I was concerned about. I seem to remember being more concerned that the offspring being premature meant my maternity leave for the year was screwed up. Way to go, Mommy, worrying about rubbish like that when obviously the offspring was off in NICU.

Anyway.

And last night, Packrat dreamt that the offspring were born. In the plural and both were boys. I didn't think it was that bad until he added that one boy was caucasian and one boy was dark skinned. That led to a look and a put-on accusatory"what have you been doing behind my back?" I wanted to retort that he went off to game so much and a girl had needs. But since it was 6 in the morning, my brain wasn't being all that mischievous.

Put the two dreams together, we're having premature twins that are not only fraternal, they're of different races and Packrat will deliver them.

I hope none of the above happen. No premature birth, no NICU, no Packrat standing in place of my Obgyn (primarily because I think he'll pass out from fright) and no surprises with skin tone.

Technorati Tags: Pregnancy, dreams, maternity leave

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Freshmen 15

A colleague came up to me and commented that she had thought I had put on weight until someone corrected her and told her I was just pregnant! My immediate, instinctive response was "oh no!" because now it was obvious that I was growing some!

It's come as a huge shock how much I've exploded in the last few weeks. It's very sudden and it's very in your face, all this sudden growth. I weighed myself a few days ago and almost fell off the weighing machine in horror. In the first trimester, I gained 3 kgs from my emanciated, puke my guts out all day state. From week 13 to now (a day shy of week 17), I've gained 3 kg !!!!!!

So, 3 kg in the first 3 months and then 3 kg in the last month. That takes me to a weight I've never been at and it's just downhill from now, till the offspring appear. My friend who's my height, put on 8kg and my sister in law put on 11 kg. I'm guessing neither of that's going to be me so part of me wants to just eat pizza all day.

The other part of me, the part that's dieted most of my life, won't let that happen. I guess that's how I'll find a compromise.

Technorati Tags: Pregnancy, Weight Gain

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Twitch twitch

The new game now is trying to figure out if we can feel the offspring yet. The books all say it's anytime now, although their descriptions of what it feels like sound quite laughable- "it might feel like being turned upside down on an amusement park ride" being the one that stuck.

Anyway, I'm not certain. I thought I felt something yesterday morning, an isolated movement near my right pelvic bone that felt like a very strong, single, pulse beat. But that was it. And I was still half asleep so I might have imagined the entire thing.

Apparently, we first time moms are quite daft about it because we mistake it for gas, being hungry, indigestion and often don't notice it till it becomes more pronounced, when the offspring is tired of being mistaken for a gas bubble and uses his/her elbow to jibe you hard in retaliation.

On other news, I think I might have spotted my first stretch mark! And this is despite all the conscientious slathering of stretch mark cream morning and night and putting up with the clammy feeling under my t-shirt or night shirt after that as it dries off. Everyone's warned me that if I was meant to get it, regardless of what I put on the belly, I was going to get those battle scars anyway. So part of me is resigned to it. But the other part of me is whiny.

That's the same part that is slightly upset that my legs seem to have increased in size, reminding me how much I miss running. This morning, it occurred to me that I haven't quite perspired in an extremely long time. A concept rather alien to me. Yes yes, I know that'll change with the confinement food and the breast feeding but that's different. I miss working out.

Technorati Tags: Pregnancy, movements, stretch marks

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