Weeks 15 & 16: The Shift

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?

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 :)

Week 14: Moving (Us, not the baby)

We had our last check-up with our family doctor in Toronto this week. She's seen us through a lot - way more than I thought she'd need to when we first got our health cards two years ago. I'm so happy we were in a country where sirens on ambulances mean something when we had an emergency last year. I'm happy I was proactively offered pap smears & breast cancer screenings. I'm elated to have seen our baby more often, already, than the clinics in India would have let us (and all for free). The OHIP system in Ontario is legendary. I'm going to miss it beyond belief.

That little ode aside, Santra (orange) is doing well. The last time we had a scan, Santra was measuring about a week behind - but he's now back on track and measuring nicely. I, on the other hand, haven't put on any weight in the last four weeks. This really surprised me because I feel a lot bigger. In certain clothes, you can see a blump - still more bloat than bump. Needless to say, I'm getting rid of those clothes :) 

We're packing to move to India at the moment. Despite all of R's protestations to the contrary, our luggage still fits in the bags we carried over when we came here - two suitcases and a carry on item + laptop bag each. I helped by giving away the bulk of my wardrobe. Hey, it's not like any of it will fit me for long anyway.

The doctor said most people don't put on much weight in their first trimester anyway, and that I'd gone from a respectable 48 last year to 51 so far, so she wasn't concerned. I don't think I weighed 48 for very long, but I can confidently say I went from juuust touching 50 to solidly 51 in the last 14 weeks. She also reassured me that I probably wouldn't feel uncomfortable on my front for a while yet because of my general size - which is great news as it's one of the few positions I can sleep in.

In pregnancy symptoms this week: 

* more ridiculous exhaustion - I sleep for 9 hours and wake up feeling like I just fell asleep

* a complete lack of appetite - but we were in a certain city where even the Subway didn't have spinach/olives, so it's not like there was anything to eat

* a couple of mild headaches - possibly because I haven't drunk enough water, which in turn is because I know it's the one thing guaranteed to make me throw up. I don't want to look at a glass of water before noon.
* an inability to get out of bed, which baffles me because I'm usually a morning person
* broken sleep and weird dreams; again, quite unusual
* continuing ditziness, ie: I need to really focus to remember things, and I've lost the ability to multi-task (but I still beat A at our first ever round of Scrabble)

In short, nothing worth complaining about, but quite a bit to be amused at. On the bright side, we've now started telling people the news, woot! I was super thrilled to tell my bestest over Hangouts.

[Tune: Here's what V bought me for Valentine's last year. 

Me: Aww! Ooh, ooh, here's what R's getting me for Valentine's next year!]

R doesn't do that kind of build-up, so he just told his friends outright. Sharing happiness really is the best feeling. 

Weeks 11 & 12: He, she, it

This isn't really a pregnancy update, because we're travelling at the moment - it's just a scheduled post about things we're thinking about.

After years of telling me how he wanted to be surprised post-delivery, R's first question when we found out I was pregnant was, "How soon can they tell if it's a boy or a girl?" So much for waiting to be surprised.

I've always wanted a daughter - blame it on Gilmore Girls, and the fact that I know R will absolutely be on tenterhooks for the rest of his life if we had a daughter. But throughout this pregnancy, I've had a feeling I'm carrying a boy, and ever since, I've really wanted one. I've been doodling little monsters and dinosaurs, and re-reading Tom Sawyer. Of course, now R wants a girl just as much. 

Let's be clear - even if this is a girl, she's going to be given an equal dose of Mark Twain and mythical creatures. I'm all for gender neutrality. I counted out the male & female characters in our nursery prints (I plan ahead, clearly) to make sure they were evenly balanced. Boy or girl, he or she will be wearing/looking at all the colours of the rainbow, not endless variations of pink or blue.

And yet, I've been pouring over the forums that say you can predict a baby's sex based on the angle of the dangle/skull shape and so on. Why is it suddenly important? Well, a couple of reasons. One, we're moving back to India, where it's illegal to find out, and that makes this a classic case of wanting what you can't have the minute you find out you can't have it. Two, gender neutrality can only be taken so far. What am I supposed to do, read 'She rocked *it* back & forth' instead of 'She rocked him back & forth' when I'm reading out Robert Munsch's Love You Forever? Obviously, it's a moot question, because we're leaving Canada at the end of week 15, which is still too soon to tell conclusively, but that doesn't stop me from wondering. 

I'm also considering Bump's first lullabies and books. R accuses me of trying to sneak in 'all that Tamil culture,' in vitro. Won't deny it, heh. We've discussed theism a fair bit - neither of us is particularly religious, but I think it's idyllic to imagine we can bring the baby up in a bubble. For one, we're not really in bubbles ourselves, being from fairly orthodox families. We always have a puja room in our house, and invariably head over there before we do anything important or leave on a journey. We know all the rituals and mythology, and I think it'd be a shame not to at least talk about all of that, particularly for the 'story' value of it all. We are not bringing our child up on Aesop's Fables & Mother Goose alone. And finally, Carnatic music! There's no way I'm not occasionally playing M.S., and I can't help it if she's invariably singing about God. 

I suspect we'll be having lovely hypothetical discussions like this while we're travelling. When we get back, it'll be time for the Nuchal Scan at 13 weeks, to check for Down's and a few other genetic deviations. That'll be our official go-ahead to tell the world - except that we still won't, because we want to do it in person when we go to India next month! Ah, the wait. Too much.

Week 10: Make way for the bump

Kumquat, grape fruit, prune. All options which I've never bought, or even paid much attention to, so I've no idea what the desi equivalent is. Bigger than a grape, smaller than a lime: Bump's officially a fetus now, and just over an inch long. R's calling it Akrut (walnut) this week! To go from urad daal size to that in 10 weeks is mind boggling. And when you add in the fact that there are the beginnings of little teeth and kidneys and all kinds of other things - I'm already in awe of this baby. I weigh just under a kilo more than I did two weeks ago, which is roughly what Akrut is supposed to weigh now. 

This is R's last week at work, and he's been focusing on the homestretch of big presentations. By the time he's home, I've invariably given up the struggle, and loosened the top button of my shorts. My jeans are still okay, but that's because they're all low waist. There's a slight but definite bloat here, and it's not (just) my usual cheese-fed potbelly. I wonder how long it'll be before I really start to show?

I weigh around 50kg pre-pregnancy, which is a healthy BMI for my height... but R reminded me that given the average weight of babies + amniotic fluids etc, I can expect to be carrying at least 15kg around the stomach area by the end of this. That was a nice visual. It was a good reminder that I should really exercise more, though. I've been taking it easy and that's not the best idea if I'll be doing that kind of weight lifting.

We went to see the doctor to go over the results of the dating scan, and we have an official due date: Feb 11, 2015. Now that we're two weeks away from the conventional 'safe date,' I've re-drawn our family tree to include Akrut, and Akrut's two fairly-new cousins (one of whom is due in November!). I'm going to use it to tell my parents/close relatives the news when we get to India.  

Before that, we're travelling for a while... we're both very relaxed about this, because Akrut's already been to Austria, Paris, London, Scotland, New York, and all around Toronto - by the end of the first trimester, he/she will have visited Vancouver and the Rockies too! Oddly enough, I'm less prone to motion sickness when I'm pregnant. A baby after our own hearts. Akrut's definitely getting a copy of Oh Baby, The Places You'll Go.

Moment of shame: I meant 'not now' but R thought I meant 'no thanks,' and ate the last of the chocolate. R once again proved that he's the best husband in the world by unquestioningly buying me replacements straight away, despite being mid-dinner. ("I like it when I can be the awesome one in the relationship.")

Moment of glory: I made myself a spinach & cheese melt on whole grain toast, and not only did I taste every mouthful, but I've also been longing for it since. This baby's finally starting to resemble me a little, instead of being all R with his Zen-like calmness and his sweet tooth! Cheese ftw!

*You'll have to excuse me if these posts seem overly detailed and unnecessary. I'm determined to chronicle every step of this as I think it's the only pregnancy we'll have. We want one more child - but we've always wanted to adopt. And you can bet I'm going to be writing all about that, not least because I don't think there's enough info on the Indian system yet. I thought Bump deserved equal coverage.*

Buckle Up

R,

I've to give our parents/families/friends some serious props. In the last year or so, whenever we've said, "We've some news!" they've been expecting to hear what an average married couple may consider news. And instead, we've told them that.... I've quit my job.  I'm going to try writing a book. We've announced that I'm travelling for two months... solo.

And as of last week, we told them that we're moving back to India; that you're quitting your cushy day job (that makes two of us now!) to start your own business. You could audibly hear the sputters, and I understand why people may be confused, but I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that this is the best thing for you.

I've told you this before, but I'll say it again. You believe in me to the extent where I've no choice but to believe in myself. I hope you realize I'm similarly confident about your abilities. I'm excited to watch this leg play out. It's going to be a fun ride!

And in a couple of months, after we've finished travelling around Canada (because we can't just start a new job without a vacation!), we'll call them, and say, again, "We've some news."

They'll probably think we've decided to move to Nepal or something, at the rate at which we've been going. Little do they know... being predictable is the new being unpredictable :)

- A.

The Trip So Far: India

R,

I've no idea where the last month went. Seeing four-five cities and about a hundred people in twenty days will do that to you. It's been so amazing!

I tried to think of highlights for the blog, but the truth is, nothing will capture the melty-butter I'm-HOME!-ness of India. As much fun as I had gossiping with relatives, arranging family reunions, gabbing with school friends, staying over with ex-colleagues, checking out Orissa (which is beautiful!), eating the most amazing food, and attending a very pretty wedding; I'll take away the feeling of happy timelessness over any specific memory.

I'm incredibly lucky to have people and places in my life that don't, in essence, change. It makes it very easy to know where I belong.

The Euro trip kind of snuck up on me while I was distracted by India. My brother was switching channels on the TV, and the Sound of Music came on, reminding me all of a sudden that I'm leaving tomorrow. Not the Annie brand of someday toooomorrow, but the very real, less-than-24-hours-away kind. I would freak out a little, but it seems like a pity to waste any of my time here thinking about anything else. I'll save the anxious excitement for the flight :)

-A.

Angrez chale gaye...

R,

Pro travel tip - fly on a Tuesday night and you'll have a near-empty flight. I'd three free seats to my right (with an aisle), and one free to my left. Oho. So great. I sat down comfortably and watched ten movies back to back, only occasionally interrupted by a screaming baby. Every flight has at least one, even the ones that leave on a Tuesday night.

Here's the weird thing - I didn't hear a single Indian parent on the flight talk to their kid in any language other than English. How did that happen? I get that the kid lives in Canada/Britain since it was a Toronto-London flight, but can English really be the language you talk to them and your spouse in ALL the time? It's kind of depressing, and all kinds of limiting. English doesn't have plum descriptions like 'tu baingain hai ki anda hai re' or 'podaaaanga' or 'plum,' for that matter. How can you ever fully express yourself?

It just feels like you'd instinctively respond in your mother tongue when surprised/angry... like in that Birbal story where the priest who speaks 14 languages with the fluency of a native screams out in Telugu when woken suddenly in the night with thorns (it may have been a Tenali Raman story, and it may have been some other language, but the point's the same)... but nope, even when a kid threw his spoon of food at his mum, she just said, "We don't do that, sweetie." 

!!!

Whaaaaat?

She didn't say it with the distinctive twang of someone who'd grown up abroad either. Is it just more socially acceptable to talk English in public, especially when you're outside India? Should that even matter one way or the other? 

I worry that could be us - not because we don't speak our mother tongues without caring who's listening, but because we have different native languages. Maybe I'll talk to our kid in Tamil, and you can talk to him in Kannada, and we'll both toss in some Hindi and some Telugu and a bucketload of English. It may confuse the poor thing (especially given my Telugu sucks), but I think it'd be preferable to only speaking English.

A.

Outside the Box

R,

Well, this is it. I leave tonight. We were laughing over our friends’ reactions to the news about my solo Europe trip, and you said, “To be fair, we were equally thrown when we first heard about P & S getting married but living in different cities.”

I sputtered an indignant, “Bu-wuh-nu-no! That’s completely different! This is for four weeks,” but, of course, you're right.

We say we’ve moved past the racial and religious prejudices of our parents’ generation, but we’re just as judgmental about things that don’t fit cookie-cutter molds of expected behavior. 

Over the last couple of years, there’ve been more instances of people pushing the boundaries and daring to do what they felt was right from them. P & S deciding their careers were in a great place and neither should compromise and move until they’d an equivalent offer in the city where the other person was.  J & D deciding to immigrate to Oz after a vacation there because they fell in love with the place – and willing to go there without a job to make it work. O saying she wanted to quit her job of seven years and do nothing for a while. 

 These, and others, are accounts which we hear and are tempted to raise a skeptical eyebrow at. We mouth the p.c. lines about how liberating it sounds, and how we’re so happy they’re happy, all the while thinking, “Wow, better you than me.”

We’re a patronizing lot. What does anyone standing outside know about where people are coming from, or what will happen in their lives? Yes, T & K were in a ‘long distance marriage,’ and she cheated on him; and E had to come back from the US penniless after four years looking for a job to no avail. But not all lives follow the same patterns, and everyone has a right to take the path that they think is right for them at the time. 

With not a little shame, I’ve resolved to try harder not to accept unconventional choices condescendingly, and to respect the fact that the people making these choices deserve the same respect that I’m due when I make my decisions.

-A.

Me Time

R,

Our generation prides itself on being super-duper progressive and open minded. Commenting about caste is enough to set off most Indian Elders’ gaskets, but we’re a lot harder to shock (I always anticipated our kids having to work really hard at it). Apparently, we’ve found the one thing that’ll do the trick.

When we talk about my plans for the summer, there’s dead silence from our friends, followed by hearty well wishes, interspersed with some bafflement. Why would I want to be away from you for so many weeks? They know my plan is to travel through Europe, but really, is everything okay with the two of us? 

Of course, last year when you went on a ‘boys’ trip’ to Africa, we didn’t hear any objections. If I had to paraphrase common wisdom, it’d probably go something like this: Boys will be boys, but as for girls… well, shouldn’t they just be girls? If I’d been single, I imagine this trip would have been perceived as free spirited and adventurous. Given I’m married, however, it becomes *ominous tones* Free-Spirited, not to mention Adventurous. 

There’s no doubt in my mind that I’d rather do this trip with you than alone. However, I saved up money for the last few years so I could eventually take time off and do my own thing. Not everyone has that luxury – you still have your 9 to 5 job and you can’t drop it to come traipsing through Europe with me. Should that mean I don’t go, or wait till you can come along, or settle for an eight day trip instead of the month long itinerary I had in mind? 

Honestly, we’re both givers in this relationship. It takes us a ridiculous amount of time to settle on anything because we’re busy trying to please the other person. I’d figure out a compromise on this trip if I had any hint at all that you wanted me to. You, on the other hand, don’t want me to compromise on anything; which is a feeling I fully reciprocate. I love how this barely needed a discussion, because it’s just not a big deal. I especially love how our parents see it the same way. They’re a lot cooler than we give them credit for, sometimes.

Putting this in perspective, it’s a month away when we’ve a lifetime together. It’s the same reason I don’t take you to my book club meetings and you go and play squash on your own. Yes, we’re one unit, and we choose to be together - but that doesn’t mean we stop being individuals. 

Happily,

A.

World Go 'Round

R,

I’m constantly amazed – and more than a little jealous – at how quickly you & your friends plan trips together. Each of you will be in a different city, or even country, and yet, you decide on a destination and a time frame, and it all comes together! 

I’m not suggesting that it happens magically. I see the effort you put into phone calls every weekend – and that’s when you’re not even planning a trip. When you are, it’s daily phone calls, flurries of emails, endless Whatsapp threads… I get that the trip doesn't materialize out of thin air.

If I were to plan a trip with my friends, it’d be impossible. They’d have to check with husbands, in-laws. They just had babies, or joined new jobs, or are pleasing demanding bosses and are unsure if they can take the time off. Their parents aren’t sure if it’s safe. They’re still paying off loans, and/or studying. They’re saving up vacation days for a wedding.

All of those are legitimate reasons of course, and there are plenty of Indian husbands who’d cite wives or babies or jobs as good reasons not to go on trips either. For some reason, you have the friends who don’t have those reasons in their lives. More likely, you consistently invest enough in the relationship for those reasons to be overcome.

I don’t think it’s realistic to hope for anything to change with my friends. Those living with parents or studying will go on to get married. They’ll have family obligations. It isn’t easy to ask for, or even necessarily want, ‘me time’ in an Indian marriage. The fact that I can want it, or that you willingly give it, doesn't mean that’s the case across the board. Objectively, I get it. Subjectively, it’s a whole other story.

-A.

Where the heart is

R,

After one and a half years of living in Canada, we went back to India. It was an exhilarating, terrifying feeling. Neither of us had wanted to live outside India anyway. Canada was a one-off, a chance to stay in a place that let us explore the world more easily than India would, before eventually heading home.

I want our kids to have a childhood like ours had been – filled with relatives, friends, good food, and plenty of outdoor play time. They’d hear myths and wonder how they’d originated, and learn to be respectful, adaptable people with their own opinions.

Of course, when I looked at India with fresh eyes, I realized our childhood can’t be recreated. There’s far more traffic, safety is an issue, and while it may be a third world country, a middle class lifestyle is no longer cheap by any stretch of imagination.

Don’t get me wrong, I still find Canada a tad too complacent for my liking, and would prefer that my child grow up in a more ambitious, level-headed setting where not everything falls plumly in their laps. As sadistic as that sounds, all I’m saying is that I’d like them to strive to be the best version of themselves, not merely okay. I had parents who are faaaar from pushy and I feel that growing up unpressurized in a society full of pressures was the best of both worlds.

That said, as I fought with auto drivers and bargained over everything, the obvious question arose, “Why does everything need to be such a fight?” I love the way I can rely on constants in Canada – the predictability of public transport, the safety of the roads even at night, the marked prices on everything. Yes, a kid could be lulled into a false sense of security by it, and they may never learn to value any of it, but it would be so easy.

We’re going to keep going back and forth on this until I’m actually pregnant, and even then we may not know if we made the right choice. As I head back to India in April, I’m keen to see if any new insights come up.

-A.

YOLO in NOLA

R,

We really only have two shared interests -  we love each other, and travel. When I stop to think about it, it's kind of scary how little we have in common... but I don't usually get the time to think about it, because we're either travelling, just back from a vacation, or planning our next one :)

Last night, we got back from our engagementiversary/valentine's week celebrations at New Orleans. Who knew a city in North America could be so charming? An All Saints game + Mardi Gras parade on Saturday night showcased Bourbon Street at its eccentric best - you could totally imagine it was still the 1920's and the Jazz Age had never ended. 

I don't want to glorify alcohol, but it fueled some incredibly beautiful scenes that night - most memorably, outrageously overdressed people on every balcony throwing beads and dollar notes into the crowd below. There wasn't a cab in sight, so we walked two miles back to our B&B, and every drunk we eavesdropped on was making surprisingly lucid proclamations. It was like something out of a Fitzgerald novel, and I was very tempted to just walk the streets all night recording what we heard. 

Sober, N'awlins is still surreally inspiring. I didn't see a single piece of art we didn't want to buy. The most average live music was better than most, and the really good jazz performances blew my mind away. Life slows down in Lousiana - each meal took an hour, every mouthful carefully savored. There was nothing about the city that resembled anything else we'd seen or done in the past. This is why I love travel: you can never take anything for granted when the world's always surprising you. 

I tried to take photos because I realized we hardly ever remember to - we took 15 trips last year and have less than 100 photos to show for it. Sadly, I got caught up in just experiencing NOLA, and took very few pics. I don't regret it, I wouldn't have wanted to interrupt the flow by whipping out a camera. But I thought I'd paint you a quick snapshot with words while it's still fresh in my mind. It's hands down my favorite city in the US.

A.