3

First trimester

It’s my seventh week. I’ve seen her heart beating on the screen, a tiny grey smudge, the size of a blueberry, contracting twice as fast as my own, sending blood coursing through her very partially formed body.

The Doctor gave me some gifts. One of them contained a very small bottle. It fascinated me.

You read through countless online forums, telling you what your feeling or should be feeling, giving you great details about the maintenance work inside your uterus. I read about the surge of hormones flowing through my body causing my emotional highs and lows. That my uterus must have doubled in size by now, the reason for the persistent cramps. That the aversions to certain foods and smells that send my stomach into overdrive, and me running to the toilet are perfectly normal and lucky for me they should disappear within 6 long weeks.

And so how do you feel?

Still disbelief, that there’s a life forming deep inside you. A life, which will grow with morals, opinions and knowledge.

Panic, that you will do something wrong. Mostly before the birth, because you can’t begin to comprehend the amount of possibilities that can happen after. Everyone has conflicting advice; what you can and can’t eat, how much exercise you should do. Can I still run? Or am I still allowed to even carry my backpack? The what-is-going-on-inside-my-body worry. For some wonderful moments, I feel elated. That I am so able to bring life into the world, a choice that so many do not have. For the other moments. I feel my whole world crashing down around me and I’m just standing there watching, unable to change anything. Everything you envisioned for yourself, everything you planned. The surge of emotions and thoughts swirling around your head. I feel the loss of control, the worries for money, security. Being alone.

But then I realise that’s impossible now, and actually, that’s the very thought that scares me. But, above all, I feel love, a very deep emotional love for her. A maternal instinct perhaps. I feel you’re already programmed to love your child. I think back to how she loved me. The reason why, she never left, not really.

It’s very easy to think now, how different my life could have been had I not come to Germany, or had I not met him. And you think about these things because you know now, that your options and choices are more refined. You don’t wish it to be different though. You just think about it.

And I look at my body, pick at the imperfections. It’s very hard not too. Perhaps I will look back in 20 years and think how stupid I was to criticise. And I keep trying to imagine my stomach expanding. What will this do to me? How much will my body change? Is it possible to get it back to how it was? What will I think of myself? Will I start to hate mirrors? Catch a glimpse of myself in the shower and feel a twinge of sadness and grief for my former body? Or will I revel in the beauty of child bearing and feel confident in my less-than-perfect body? Sadly these are just some of the questions circling around my head daily.

Now when your looking at my picture, you’re looking at my stomach aren’t you. Your also trying to imagine the changes that will take place. You imagine that the soft smooth skin across my torso will bear the strains of the swelling. That the elasticity will fade along with any outline of tone and muscle. You’re looking to see if my nipples have darkened, as the breasts prepare to produce milk. But your imagining that my breasts, that sit relatively high upon my chest, will migrate further south after a few months of feeding her. And you imagine the lines forming on my brow and under my eyes, after months and years of worry and lack of sleep. Or Perhaps now, you feel the tiniest twinges of guilt, for first skipping my words to look at the photograph. To project your feelings of desire upon my naked skin, before realising that these feelings are projected, not only onto myself, but onto a very tiny, helpless version of her.

You may say, well frankly this is all superficial. And yes, you are right. But, I can’t help but worry. It was these thoughts and feelings; the many doubts and lowered self esteem which led to her leaving this world so early the first time. She’s a part of me in more than one way. She is my mine as I am hers. Perhaps our paths were destined to be the same. Perhaps I must learn from her mistakes if I have any chance of reaching Nirvana. But perhaps I am destined to make those very same mistakes. The cycle will forever go on. Maybe that’s okay though, as it means she could be my mother again.