Pregnancy – PurplePretoria

Carrying Peace was like having a fire in my uterus. He is the first person that let me know how I truly was. If I was happy, I was and if I was sad, I was. I got sick if my thoughts were sad. I loved him whom I love with no fear or remorse. Yet, also, he pointed me to the injustices all round me. His brother’s birth had made me a warrior, his sister’s gave me courage, but he showed me what real love was, and what it wasn’t.

Peace, when I carried you, I told your father that it was like carrying a war in my stomach. You would not let things go. You would not allow me a hood over my head. Before you, everything lay open. I could feel how hot, how unrelenting you fought, so he said he would call you Zen.

Like me, you are sandwiched between, but yours is the only time I planned for. I waited for six months before you came. Eight months before, someone else had come, six weeks, and then left.

I have never felt as beautiful as I did when I carried you. I had no qualms, nothing I would add or reduce. A body shape protruding in a most elegant nature, with edges molded to my own, a light in my eyes, light and easy to carry.

When it was time to give birth, I thought April was such an uncommon month for a baby to be born. Months before, an angel had walked up to me in a hospital lobby and said that I shouldn’t be afraid and that If God took care of the animals that gave birth in the wilderness, He would take care of me too. So, when they scheduled the surgery, I did not appear. Something in me would not let me. I had heard your father speak to my own about the dates for the caesarian and for the second time in my life, I did not need approval.

Your birth started like a thunderstorm in the night. Throughout the day there had been signs. I had seen the little hand-sized cloud after weeks of desert sky. I knew it would rain. Minutes before you pushed down, the rain fell as I walked to the labour room in that open-back hospital gown.

I was squatting in the bathtub asking for hot water, telling the nurse the contents of my heart. There had been a change in shift and the second nurse’s aura had been dismissive. I looked up at her from my contractions and told her that she had abandoned me. I don’t know what she saw in my eyes but her face went pale and as she began to walk away, she said, “Tell me when you feel like you need to go.” I said to her, “I have been feeling like that for a while now.” She started to run and call for back up. I didn’t push. You came out, tilted your head towards me and you smiled. This is how you wanted to come.

The Christmas before, I had lain in bed at home with you at five months after being in hospital all morning. I had picked up COVID. Since I was carrying, all they could give me was ibuprofen. So I took ibuprofen and I hoped that the temperature would drop but it went higher and higher and my chest heaved and it was just me and you. I cried. You still would not let me hide.

You exposed my hurt. You exposed my love. You pick up on sensitivities so delicate. You are like a fire. You are both delicate and strong. You jump on the bed with blackened feet and then, you offer me a crack of a crisp. You pick up music like a maestro, praying and singing like you understand what it’s all about and then you paint the walls with markers. You come to me and you whisper, It’s okayyy, mummy. You beat your brother, who is three times bigger, with blows in his back and then at night when he is not ready to go up alone to his bed, you tell him, “Let’s go, I’ll take care of you.” No!” indignant, he responds, “I’ll take care of you, I’m the one to take care of you.”

Happy Third Birthday Zen.

*what a joy to have you all in my life*

Nobody understands disdain like a woman whose man has found himself a new woman. Nobody understands self scrutiny and criticism quite the way a teenage girl does. Though for the teenage girl, this initial fear that she might not be ‘enough’ usually subsides. But then adulthood presents yet another card, the physical changes of growing older and of being pregnant [for some].

I once asked my mother what it felt like to be old. I definitely hope that I phrased it better than that.

“I feel like I’m still the same inside. It’s the outside that has changed,” she replied.

It is one of the paradoxes of life, I suppose. That your inner spirit would remain the same, influenced only by your experience of life while your outer body ages. Some have attempted to reflect the youthfulness they feel inside with silicon boobs and fillers but it has not been a total success. It is interesting that, the age at which most women will eventually wish they could freeze in time is the same face and body, that they did not at that point in time find beautiful. The severely fragmented body part fetish culture that is the norm today definitely makes it more difficult. It seems to condense women into only a pair of twerking bums or a private part.

It has its advantages. It compliments the age old running theme of the world – the power struggle between men and women, whereby the objectification and lessening of one part of the human population has scored us women very poorly on the value card.

A woman’s value has been tied to her beauty for a very long time. That is why, whenever we look into the mirror, more than looking for whether we are still beautiful, we look for whether we are still valuable.

And because women’s beauty has been tied to age (‘Sweet Sixteen’), we think our value has an expiry date. Many women joke that they have declared themselves the same age for many years. And those are the honest ones! That is why the dreaded, “How old do you think i am?” always actually means, do you think I’m STILL beautiful? Do you think I’m lovable?

Back to pregnancy

Pregnancy for me came with both the anxiety of spontaneous body changes, a sense of duality and a loss of connection to my body. A duality perceived and cultivated by righteous perfectionism that I struggled with during another season.

I got the round popping baby bump I wanted but later on in my trimesters I began to worry that it was a little too big. Having a short torso and a big baby not only meant that I got too tired to walk or stand for long periods of time without reeling back and forth but it also meant that my baby pushed out on my intra- abdominal muscles and affected my back alignment. And in these aspects, part of my fears of losing myself had manifested.

One evening at committee meeting for a wedding ceremony, seven months pregnant- tired, round and roughed up by acne, a friend of my mother’s came up to me and exclaimed, “You look beautiful!” My response was a muddled and confused, “Really?” and “Thank you” and then I rushed to the bathrooms filled with emotion and brimming tears. I could tell that she really meant it.

After birth

I would say, the first look after birth should be extended to at least a week. It is not just the swollen touched out body, it’s just that the demanding wails and absolute rights to the milk tanks is enough to burn you out.

But when you do take that first look, you must treat myself with dignity even though you might not like what you see. Your body will probably always remember that it carried a baby. Your heart does too. Treating yourself with dignity means speaking well to yourself and taking steps to get your physique where you want it to be. I have found, that yoga and dancing do that for me. Though I have not been free to do yoga due to the high risk of increasing my diastasis recti. This I did not anticipate.

In the meantime, I have discovered that it is important to appreciate our bodies WHOLLY but that it is also important to go deeper. We will most probably also find that we are good friends, business women, caretakers, professionals, good cooks, writers, dancers, singers, tailors and we offer much more than just tourist incentives.

Tag: Pregnancy

Peace

Beauty unseen