I'd like to blame pregnancy for a number of changes: gradually becoming Ming vase rotund being one of those things that takes some time getting used to. Since about 30 weeks I feel like a somewhat short-winded elephant carrying one and a half people, their provisions and the tinier one's most valuable possession - a giant water tank - up K2. Being puffed by day and near comatose by evening, a strange combination of insomnia and nightmares make it hard to come to rest at night - strange scenarios keep running through my head, such as binge drinking alcohol - oblivious to the fact that I'm preggers.
"Aren't you pregnant!?" my dream dialogue partner asks while pointing at my unmistakable baby bump showing from beneath a cropped shirt. "Oh s*** I just had 6 beers!" I yell out. So, not a beer gut after all!
Last week in my dream I was neglecting to feed future baby and I didn't even notice until it looked all thin, gray and sickly. I then forgot to take it home with me from the hospital. And once again I woke, drenched. It sure is not the kind of stuff that seems most likely to happen to me or newborn babies in general, yet still my mind seems occupied with these things.
There is day trauma as well. Did I mention my circus variety of pains? Lung pain, back pain, upper and lower, middle and front. Yes, there is a front back pain. Sciatic butt pain in combination with sore knees. Burning and itching patches of skin. Walking lopsided. I'm sure it's all a joyride against giving birth, but pregnancy sure turns out to be a nice prequel to the main event.
Something I'll never forget was baby's first movement during week 20, a very gentle trembling against my lower abdomen that first interaction, and the amazing sensation of being in touch with this tiny something. Before that, pregnancy felt like an abstract concept only recorded through pictures. It was highly romantic, this quiet moment we shared in the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Unfortunately these days even baby's movements have become something I don't particularly look forward to. It's like a merciless Jet Li character has taken over my body and my uterus serves as his punching bag. Rib cage pain from being violently drop kicked, having to pee with minimal or no warning from being punched in the bladder. I never thought I'd experience that kind of thing before my future days of senile incontinence.
Luckily the spatial requirements for making sweeping moves are beginning to run thin with each passing week, so baby's newer thing is the slowmo Matrix bullet move. From the outside my belly looks like a snake's digesting a rabbit. No, this doesn't feel natural at all. It is utterly weeeeiiirrrd.
Despite all that I can't ever be mad at baby, for not being kicked would be worrisome and being afraid for its health and progression so much worse than enduring all the aches and pains of the world. A strange masochism in itself this motherhood thing I'm growing into. But hey, I still need to take it out on someone. I'm not that good at turning the other cheek. World, prepare for postnatal retaliation - unless I'm not too tired after giving birth and all that...
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