I didn’t intend to be such a crappy blogger, leaving enough time between two posts for a whole half year and an entire pregnancy to go by! I swear I’ve come here like a zillion times (I have 7 incomplete posts sitting in my draft folder), trying to put into words the happenings of the past few months but I’ve just been unable to! I had all these plans of documenting my pregnancy, not just on this blog but also in a journal just so I would remember each and every moment of this most precious time. But not only did I not end up blogging, I could not write out even a page of what I felt. It was more than feeling blocked, a strange sense of just not being able to express in words the enormity of the everyday.
I’ve written half-finished posts only to stare at them and wonder why I just cannot finish them … and then just abandoned them altogether. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months and before I knew it I went from the first trimester to the third and well, now I’m just a few short days away from meeting my baby. MY baby (the significance of that word just blows me away every time I utter it!).
And not just this blog; I have been unable to share my pregnancy news with most other than our very immediate families and a few friends who we saw and of course could not hide this from. It’s not like I did not want to share my happiness; it’s just that I felt most at peace just curled up in my precious pregnancy cocoon living the life of a (mostly!) ordinary pregnant woman. I did not have a baby shower (we don’t have many friends here and frankly no one offered to throw one for me) and I did not set up a nursery, I did not buy maternity clothes till I was no longer able to button up my pants and I only started buying baby stuff late into my second trimester. You might think I was being superstitious or scared or both and partly that is true but more than that I have just wanted to experience every moment of this pregnancy by just being in it (if that makes sense!). I haven’t even re-activated my Facebook page which has now been deactivated for 3.5 years!
My pregnancy has had its share of highs and lows but largely I have adjusted to both physical and emotional changes surprisingly effortlessly. Of course there have been moments of utter panic and huge, fat slobbering tears (like the time when I was told I might have a suspected blood clot!). Moments where I felt overwhelmed by the everyday, moments when I just couldn’t sleep no matter what I tried, moments where my ever-lingering fears got the better of me.
But through it all there’s been such a keen sense of the miracle that I seem to be living. A sense of constant wonderment as I start each day with standing in front of the mirror and observing my swelling belly. A sense of absolute and total amazement as I watch my little baby girl perform her acrobatic maneuvers, jiggling my tummy around even as frothy bubbles of pure happiness escape from my inner being, causing me to giggle helplessly! All the physical discomfort, the daily injections, the terrible nausea, the crazy heartburn, the breathlessness, the dietary restrictions, the inability to sleep, the numerous NST’s… all of this neatly steps away to the side as my daughter moves inside me, reminding me how beautiful life is.
Some days I have found myself feeling terrified, wondering what I did to deserve all this. How did I get so lucky? I have to remind myself, then, of all the scars I’ve endured over the years… the piercing heartache, the soul-crushing disappointment, the seemingly endless bouts of sheer physical agony as I went through surgery after surgery, multiple procedures, countless tests, the never ending poking and prodding and, through it all, just one disappointment after another. It’s never too far away, those harrowing memories yet I feel unable to contain all this happiness sometimes. Perhaps that’s why I resisted blogging–my mind is so, so full. Full of what’s happening right now and yet cognizant of the huge space occupied by the not-so-distant past.
As has been the case over the past few months, today also the temptation of just leaving this post right here & shutting the laptop is so strong. But I am determined to hit ‘publish’ today before I change my mind. I might have been a real lousy blogger but I can’t be so lousy as to not write for 6 months and then just blog about my baby’s birth!
Which brings me to now. Today. Three days away from my planned c-section (because of a prior myomectomy) at the completion of my 39th week. I am quite literally swirling in a cesspool of emotions right now. I am beyond thrilled to finally be meeting her and to be able to hold her in my arms. I am scared, so scared and crazy nervous about everything. I am nervous, I am excited, I am full of prayers.
The Baby-Making Chronicles 