Sorry for what? Getting me pregnant?

For months I only ate crackers, dried sesame-flavoured seaweed and soupy noodles with tofu. Nothing else would stay down. If it was bland, it was good. The scent of laundry detergent made me nauseous. Traffic made me nauseous. Music made me nauseous. My body had become an unknown creature. I yearned for soft pillows and lemon scented candles, new-age music and long stretchy black skirts, snow, maple syrup on thick buttermilk pancakes, sticky fudge on vanilla ice-cream, bread soaked in balsamic vinegar. I was in danger of becoming anaemic. Apart from the folic acid and multi-vitamins, I had to take iron, zinc, magnesium. More pills. I could not eat meat; I could not face a lamb cutlet, pink, dead chicken thighs, fish with glassy eyes. I stared at animal parts in supermarkets, trying not to gag. Instead, I caressed apples, peaches, grapes, avocados. I could not watch any violence on TV, no machine-gun wielding heroes creating carnage. No wars, no alien invasions, no winged creatures with supersonic eyes. No haunted houses, or dead girls with long, wet hair. No ghosts or exorcisms, no demonic possession.

The baby grew and grew. The little black sac on the ultrasound became a heartbeat. Then a spine, floating in amniotic fluid. Then fingers, toes, bones, eyes, teeth. I went for long walks, did yoga, tried to listen to Mozart and Shostakovich. Sat cross-legged, meditated. Swam. My black maternity swimsuit stretched until the seams were visible. I rubbed my growing belly and thickening thighs with lavender and olive oil. Omar stroked my back at night. We made love sideways. We slept like spoons. I wanted him sometimes to be rough. But he was afraid of hurting the baby.

It isn’t going to make a difference you know.

It just feels weird. I don’t want to hurt it. The movement…won’t it jiggle it too much?

The baby is in the womb, sayang. She is safer in there than she will ever be.

Safe. Yes, she was safe in there. Safe, from the big bad world.

I had managed to make a baby this time. My body worked. It did what it was supposed to do. A miracle. It was going to be a girl, I just knew.

One day as I was reading, I felt a lurch and I saw an impression of a foot. A little foot with toes. My baby’s toes. My baby in there.

I thought of Mother and her pregnancy and remembered that photo of her pregnant with me. It was taken on a beach on the east coast, in Kelantan. Papa sitting next to her. She was wearing a flowery dress and her hair in a short bob. They both wore sunglasses and his hand was on her belly. They looked radiant.