“Sorry I’m late Miss Naomi,” said one of my younger students on Saturday, “my mum had to do a blow job.” What she meant of course, is that her mother is a hairdresser and had to blow dry someone’s hair, but I liked her way so much better and it was enough to keep me chuckling for the next six hours as I dragged my pregnant arse through a day of singing, drama and dance. “Everybody else, put your hands on your hips,” I said to my eight-year old tappers, “I’m going to hold up my belly,” and I wrapped my arms under my widening load and proceeded to perform a series of time steps, looking less like someone who has danced since they were three and more like an electrocuted beetle with an unfortunate issue with its centre of gravity. If the peanut comes out with slight brain damage from in-utero shaking we’ll know why.
I was on the bus the other day (which is really just an occasion where you’re trapped and subjected to a complete stranger’s labour stories once they spy your ever burgeoning belly) and one such woman was boring me silly with her gestational diabetes and advice on who to listen to. Not you, I wanted to say, but instead I asked how old her son was, as he looked tall enough to be in school but was still squashed into one of those rickety old prams. “Oh he’s just over a year. I know he’s big isn’t he?” she replied nonchalantly, seeing my look of surprise. “I ate a lot of chicken while I was pregnant. It’s the hormones you know.”
“How do you think this relates to the postpartum period?” asked our midwife, holding up a packet of jelly. No one said a word. “Think metaphorically,” she said as if that was meant to help.
“To remind us we need quick snacks?” said one guy eventually, though without any sense of conviction.
“You make jelly with water and that’s what’s in the amniotic fluid,” suggested someone else, which I thought was a particularly gross parallel.
“No, no, no. It’s to show you ladies what your bellies are going to look like after you give birth. You’re not going to get your svelte, tight tummies back overnight you know.”
I mean really. What a depressing analogy. I am well aware my mother’s arse and blubbery middle are going to need some serious attention (despite people’s assurance that if you eat sensibly and breastfeed you’ll be back to your fighting weight in no time) but now every time I imagine myself once the peanut is a human, all I can picture is my belly replaced with piles and piles of quartered orange peels hollowed out and filled with orange jelly, which was a staple (along with frankfurters and fairy bread) at any child’s birthday while I was growing up. I’ve never liked jelly. It goes on trifle, and helps contribute to that being the most pathetic, sorry excuse for a desert ever invented. A blight on the Australian landscape of lemon meringue pie, lamingtons and the good old Aussie pav.
Who takes stale cake, mixes it with leftover custard, tops it with jelly (which never tastes anything like the fruit it is trying to portray anyway) and calls it sweet? It is the poor man’s dessert, using leftovers to their bitter end, but no one actually lets cake get stale in the first place, which means the compiler of said dessert (for they do not deserve the elevated title of chef or patissier) is an even bigger tight arse than yours truly and actually purchased the cake from the sale rack in Coles on a Saturday afternoon in a small country town which still shuts down on Sundays.
I seem to have digressed, and I apologise, but let it be known that I have big issues with jelly in general and trifle in particular. Neither of which have anything to do with giving birth which is what I believe I was originally talking about. Though I can’t be sure, as I am suffering dreadfully from baby brain and have absolutely no short-term memory. If I didn’t meet you more than nine months ago, you’re new to me every time we cross paths. I am a goldfish. You’d think it would be sweet relief to be so constantly vague and unaware, but it’s not. It’s actually dreadfully embarrassing. Like the other day when I had an entire conversation with a woman about her husband, all the while thinking she was talking about her son. Or asking people I meet (for what I think is the first time) exactly the same question less than three minutes apart. Any child I teach that started class after I conceived has been called every term of endearment I can remember until I’ve had a chance to read the notes I now take scrawled in my book. Short, blonde hair, mum is annoying. Although as I discovered last Saturday, even that wasn’t enough to help me out.
Back in January I really thought this baby brain gig was a bit of a nonsense, but I am living testament to the fact that it is very, very, disturbingly, distressingly real. It is an ailment curiously similar to husband brain as it turns out, and thus far Gregory and I have lost and found jewelry, cheques, money, letters, bills and wedding invites in our collective amnesia. Chronic fatigue can’t be helping either - between the Braxton Hicks and the nightmares, sleep is a rarity indeed (last night I was a superhero being pursued by a baddy but I really needed to stop running and eat zucchinis) and I never thought I’d say this, but if the peanut arrives a couple of weeks early, I really don’t think I’ll mind. This gestational period really is a bit like running the marathon I used to be training for and I’m beginning to feel like I’m limping to the finish line…
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