pregnancy

Being pregnant is hard and this pregnancy is turning out to be the hardest of them all.

Everyone, meet baby blob, whose cuteness makes up for the misery. No, not really.

Question: WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO SMELL SO FOUL?? I’ve dealt with morning sickness in every pregnancy but this one is on another level altogether. This is like the boss level of morning sickness. Chicken soup makes me want to vomit, bacon??!!! makes me want to vomit, fried chicken and bak chor mee and barbequed stingray all make me want to vomit.

I spend most of my day not eating until I get ravenously hungry, at which point, I start surfing food blogs to find food that possibly maybe won’t make me feel pukey. One time, I made the husband drive me out for a bowl of curry laksa and immediately after, I hated it. And I’m not a laksa hater. Laksa used to make me happy but now the thought of laksa makes me ill. WHYYY??? The same thing happened with nasi lemak. All my favourite food are getting struck off the list one by one.

I’m down to green apples and raw vegetables (horse alert!) and even then, I’m averaging one throw up session per meal.

I mean, weird pregnancy cravings are practically a by product of being pregnant but I don’t even have any to fall back on. I can’t send the husband out of food expeditions to Boon Lay claiming that “baby needs Power Nasi Lemak” because baby doesn’t seem to want any sort of food. Baby is trying to turn me into a horse. Just gimme some dry wheatgrass and be done with it.

Food makes me miserable. No food makes me miserable. I’m in abject misery.

MIS-ER-Y.

And the worst part? Baby Finn uses a moisturiser from mustela, which used to be my favourite baby moisturiser fragrance of all time. I say used to because the other day, he snuggled in my arms after a shower and I took a whiff of his fresh baby scent and immediately threw up inside my mouth. I was completely mortified. That’s got to be rock bottom right there. Nothing can possibly be worse than the fact that the smell of my baby made me vomit.

Week 7: I’m hungry and miserable and mopey.

I’ve been doing a lot of nesting lately, so much so that I feel like a bird. Which is saying a lot because you all know how much I hate birds. They’re pesky and squawky and poop everywhere but one thing’s for certain – our feathered friends sure know how to prepare for their babies.

Like baskets. I mean, what’s up with the urge to put pretty baby things into little baskets? These birds make it look so cosy and baby-friendly.

For us humans, that’s what drawers and cupboards are supposed to be for but then it just doesn’t have the same appeal as baskets. I put all these tiny onesies and swaddles in drawers where they can’t be seen and it’s like “meh”, so I arrange them in baskets and every time I walk past, I can run my fingers across and go “awww wook at all the teeny tiny wompers“

Having a newborn does terrible things to your brain, ok?

There’s also a practical side to it – easy access. Infants vomit and poop and spit up so many times a day that it’s ridiculous to have to open the drawer, close the drawer, open the drawer and close the drawer again every time they need a change. The smarter thing to do is have them all laid out within easy reach. So…baskets.

While we’re on the topic, it’s very therapeutic to fold and re-fold baby clothes because OMG WHY ARE THEY SO SOFT??

If you look at it rationally, there’s no real need to nest. Having done this twice before, I can state for a fact that babies don’t give two hoots about whether their onesies are folded nicely or not. Maybe it’s psychological. Like when you’re welcoming someone important into your home, you get everything prepped and ready as if to say “hey, you’re special and we can’t wait for you to arrive.”

In any case, we’re ready. Now if only I can find a way to make the baby come out sooner.

Lately, all my dreams have been about giving birth.

Just 2 nights ago, I dreamt that I needed to go in for an emergency c-section and the gynae started brandishing a cleaver like Daniel “The Butcher” Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York. I was still calmly asking him if it was necessary to use a knife that big and he was all “we’re out of scalpels but don’t worry, everything is under control” while twirling his moustache. And the most disconcerting thing about the whole dream? I was less concerned about the cleaver and more about the fact that my gynae doesn’t even have a moustache. I just saw him last week and the guy was clean shaven, then a week later, he’s got facial hair long enough to twirl.

Then last night, I dreamt that I was in labor. Like actual screamy, panic-inducing, BABY’S COMING NOW kind of labor. My dreams don’t usually translate into real pain but last night’s dream had my stomach all up in knots. It turned out to be a particularly bad case of middle-of-the-night-diarrhea but the point is that my brain managed to conjure up a whole dream scenario to give some context to the pain.

I’m no expert on interpreting dreams because they usually never mean what I think it means but I see a theme here and I’m going out on a limb to say that I’m about ready to pop.

So I figured I might as well be productive and come up with a proper birth plan. For the previous 2 kids, my entire plan was to arrive at the hospital and start yelling for an epidural. But after some serious consideration, I’m going to attempt a medication-free labor. I have to at least try this once and see how far I can go without having to stick a needle up my spine.

To make the process easier (or at least provide some distraction from the pain), I’ve come up with a list of things I’ll need in the delivery ward.

1. Music – Chariots of Fire by Vangelis (on repeat), followed by Deshi Basara (the epic Bane chant from the Dark Knight Rises) during the pushing phase.

2. Movies/Dramas – Every episode of Game of Thrones from the past 2 seasons. Now’s not the time to be watching namby pamby characters whining about their romantic interests (I’m looking at you, Ted Mosby). It’s time to go for some Ned Stark level of brutal medieval action.

3. Mobility – The good thing about not having epidural is that I won’t have to be confined to the bed. I’m going to try every yoga position possible to see if it helps with the pain management. If I have to squat to deliver the baby, I’m going to do it.

The husband says that this time, he’s going to film the entire birth process and make it into a snazzy video and I made him a promise that if he so much as brings any image capturing device near my birth-giving parts, I will personally get off the delivery table and beat him unconscious with said device.

If you have any birth plan recommendations, do share!