Week 15 was our last week in Toronto, and the days following it were our first in India (in two different cities!) so it's little surprise that it's mid-way through week 17 before I found time to write about anything.
Our last week in Toronto was hard - I was running around, saying goodbye to my favourite places and people. It became ten times harder because I was so tired that I kept procrastinating on my plans, doing one or two things a day instead of the four or five I'd optimistically calendared in. No matter how many months pregnant I get, I can't seem to process that I will be slower and less capable of rushing around than I was previously. And so, even on my last morning in Toronto, I found myself rushing to the AGO and the Toronto Reference Library; shopping for farewell presents and for final burritos (Burrito Bandidos is the BOSS).
There was a technical error on a certain airline provider's website, resulting in A & my seats not being together. I could have lived with that, but I could noooot have lived without an aisle seat with my need to visit the loo every hour or so. The woman at the Pearson airport was super helpful when she heard I was pregnant - she shifted things around so that we'd most likely be able to switch seats and sit together, and even waived our slightly excess baggage fare. Sadly, she assumed I would need my husband to be happy, when really, I'd also need the loo.
We explained to the gentleman sitting in the aisle that I'd need to get up a lot, so if he wanted to, he could switch to either window or middle. Out of a sense of chivalrousness, he insisted that he'd rather be disturbed himself, than have me getting up every time he needed the washroom. Fair enough. Sadly, he fell asleep, and stayed asleep for pretty much the entire flight. Twelve hours. I snuck past him a couple of times, because, much to my surprise, I managed to stick to my usual long-haul flight strategy. This is where I stay awake throughout the flight + the next day until I finally crash in the night. It combats jet lag, for sure, but staying awake for 36 hours plus isn't everyone's cup of tea.
I was just patting myself on the back when, without warning, I wiped out in India. I slept all afternoon, I slept all evening, and then, I slept through the night as well! If it had been just the first day, I would have understood it, but that's been the case all week. I wake up at 8am, start feeling sleepy by 2pm, sleep till 7pm, and am happy sleeping at 10pm again. I don't think this is jet lag, it's just lag. Welcome to week 16. Where's that mythical boost of energy I was promised in the second trimester?
We explained to the gentleman sitting in the aisle that I'd need to get up a lot, so if he wanted to, he could switch to either window or middle. Out of a sense of chivalrousness, he insisted that he'd rather be disturbed himself, than have me getting up every time he needed the washroom. Fair enough. Sadly, he fell asleep, and stayed asleep for pretty much the entire flight. Twelve hours. I snuck past him a couple of times, because, much to my surprise, I managed to stick to my usual long-haul flight strategy. This is where I stay awake throughout the flight + the next day until I finally crash in the night. It combats jet lag, for sure, but staying awake for 36 hours plus isn't everyone's cup of tea.
I was just patting myself on the back when, without warning, I wiped out in India. I slept all afternoon, I slept all evening, and then, I slept through the night as well! If it had been just the first day, I would have understood it, but that's been the case all week. I wake up at 8am, start feeling sleepy by 2pm, sleep till 7pm, and am happy sleeping at 10pm again. I don't think this is jet lag, it's just lag. Welcome to week 16. Where's that mythical boost of energy I was promised in the second trimester?
Week 16's been fun, because it was the week when we finally told our parents, and some close relatives. At first, I wanted to take pictures of everyone's reactions and compile them into a collage for the nursery, but I soon realized that Indians' reactions aren't necessarily the most capturable on camera. Facial reactions may be subdued, but the hubbub of excitement that follows has been so genuine that it's had me beaming from ear to ear as if I just found out I was pregnant as well. (Side note: I finally got an answer to the question that's always plagued me. Will relatives always exclaim about how much weight you've lost, even if you know for a fact you've put it on, because there's an apple-sized baby inside of you? ...Yes. They will.)
Of course, being pregnant in India is very different from being pregnant in Toronto, to say the least. Everyone keeps telling me to sit down, and not to bend, and to eat fruits. Oh, and to stay at home, and maybe not wear jeans quite so often (like they even fit any more). On the bright side, everyone here seems to find it perfectly acceptable for me to sleep all day long. The other great piece of news is that kurtas have never looked better on me. I'm finally curvy enough for them to look the way the tailor probably intended. And they conveniently flow enough to hide the bump which is quite evident, at least to me, by now.
I'm always surprised when people talk to me for hours and don't seem to notice that I've a bit of a kangaroo pouch situation on. I've eaten more rice in the last week than I probably eat in a month in Toronto, so that's also contributing. The heat + the rice are making me slightly breathless when I eat too fast. I'm not sure that's a pregnancy symptom though, I think it's just related to being South Indian!
The really exciting thing about week 16 though, is that I think I've felt the baby flutter a couple of times. Apparently he/she decided to move at the same time that we did :)
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