armpits in the mirror as you change your shirt.
“My baghal (armpit)… my baghal!!”
Boops, your baghal will be six shades darker than
the last time you remembered and will seem as if you
haven’t bathed since the last three months. You will think
you have one in a million incurable disease, which will
result with first your armpits shrivelling into a prune and
dying, and then the rest of you. Rest assured, those are
once again the hormones at work.
You are not dying.
But you will spend the rest of the pregnancy staying
away from sleeveless clothes and will keep your arms
tucked in like a football huddle, lest someone (who
doesn’t even care to be honest) sees your 50 shades
of baghal.Your stomach will start expanding as the baby
grows. And you will love it, except the months when
your tummy starts holding up an invisible sign that says,
“touch me, I am pregnant”. Yes, people who had not
bothered to reply to your Salaam last year will be touching your oh-so-nice round tummy. And quite possibly tell
you through “mummy science” that you must be carrying
a boy because “your stomach is way too low”. Or that
you look so terrible, you must be carrying a girl (mummy
science verifies this through decades of research.) You
will be ecstatic the first time the baby kicks, and it will
continue to be a wonderful delight till the baby goes into
an overactive hyper mode and starts kicking you right
in the ribs… this joyous moment will have you roll into a
painful ball on the bed crying,
“Why, why, whhhyyyy… mummyyyyy.”
Here onwards, if you are anything like me, you will start
avoiding anything sweet so your baby doesn’t go high on
sugar-kung-fu mode again. As your stomach expands
further, you will no longer be able to see your toes standing straight; bending might hurt the back, so you can kiss
(flying kiss) those toes goodbye for the next few months.
This will be your new gait – step, balance, wobble, step,
balance, wobble. Repeat. In fact, it will not be a gait but
rather a waddle and you will fee