Not quite glowing

I met the most wonderful girl in the world on Thursday - wonderful because she shares my view that all the 'glowing mummy' stuff us preggers are constantly fed is, well, rubbish. Naturally, I love anyone who thinks the same way I do - but even more so in this case, because I have come to believe I am an unnatural and terrible person, simply because I am not relishing every instant of my pregnancy.

The rational side of me realises that I can't really be blamed. Here's a challenge for you: pass a 20kg lead ball (or, what the hell, one made of feathers even) to your nearest mate and ask them to carry it around with them non stop. Whenever they go to the loo, bend to zip up a boot, try to go to sleep, those extra twenty k's are with them. Ok, I am the first to concede that were it not for my excessive cake habit, I could probably be carrying a good deal less than that - but I have to say, when stylish clothes (I'm talking garments that can be made with less than a thousand yards of fabric) and even hugs are beyond you, one does turn to the pantry. I do, anyway.

Sometimes, though, it doesn't matter how many times I tell myself it is ok that I don't enjoy my transformation to a real live Babuschka doll. This is mostly when I am at one of my pregnancy exercise classes, when my natural acerbism is betrayed by the sour little statements that escape me like the snores that, prior to my pregnancy, were something my body just didn't produce. At these moments, I feel like Daisy de Melker, Lucrezia Borgia and Cruella De Vil all rolled into one, as my fellow mommies start rubbing their stomachs vigorously to protect their still forming fetuses from absorbing my bad attitude like listeria from an unripened cheese.

This is why I love my new friend. She is not a stomach rubber. It's true that we met at a preg exercise class (oh, and while I can, I just need to drop in a word about these. Pre-pregnancy, I used to do handstand pushups and run up hills. Now, I bounce around on a large silver ball which, thanks to a pic that did the Facebook rounds lately, reminds me of the dangers of eating bubble gum, doing a move called 'the pony' - something which involves doing little jumps whilst wildly waving the arms, like a folk dancer trying to cheer on her favourite sports team).

I have found it really difficult to make friends in these classes. Again, I blame this on the fact that I sometimes struggle to be appropriate. For instance, a male instructor took our class the other day. When he innocently asked, "Are our all balls hard?", I couldn't help giggling like a Catholic school girl - which, of course, prompted yet another round of stomach rubbing by the other moms. Just the other day, the magnitude of our seperateness was brought home to me when we had to do an exercise against the wall. Every mom in the class clustered around one wall, smiling and patting each others' bellies - and because there was no room for me, I had to do the exercise on my own, on the other side of the room. It brought back vivid memories of always being the last picked for the team in PT, or how I used to feel when, as a child, the rest of the world celebrated Christmas with pressies and Father Christmas and I, as one of the only Jewish kids in my school, had to content myself with my dreidl instead (I love being Jewish but, really, when you are a kid, would you rather have matzah or Easter eggs?)

Like me, my new friend is more horrified than fascinated by the changes that have come about in her body. She, too, has watched herself become a psychopath who one moment begs forgiveness from her husband for her crabbiness, screams at him the next because he has dared to leave her side to go to work, and finishes the triad of scary moments by leaking from the eyes, again apologising incessantly. For me, the worst change has been to my belly button (yes, I am bringing this up again), which has now progressed to the point where it looks like I have Jabba the Hut's lumpy little head waving around outside my stomach. Unless I stick on a plaster, it feels like an earthworm with a carpet burn. And those plasters bring with them their own horrors, as a discarded plaster - even if it is my own - can make me feel instantly sick. Especially when they have become limp and wet. The only thing that can possibly rival a limp, wet plaster is a strand of hair wound around a cake of soap (especially if you are at someone else's house).

Also like me, my new friend is appalled by the idea of natural child birth. And yes, I know that this is the way nature intended, but then again, anesthetics aren't natural either. Consider this: You have had your thumbnail pulled off. Now someone takes a hammer and starts bashing your naked, vulnerable thumb. Next, they drive a screw into it. The only course of action is amputation - do you brave this op while wide awake, or do you choose for a little oblivion? That's how I feel about the choice between natural and Cesar.

I'll admit it - I am just not woman enough to handle the pain. Nor am I big enough to handle the indignity of soiling my gynae's operating table - because if you're pushing out a baby, other stuff is going to come out too, I reckon. How on earth does one handle such a scenario with aplomb - "oh, gosh, sorry doctor, my bad."

Many women I have met are incredibly judgey about my decision to have an elective Cesar. Which used to bug me, until I realised how judgey I am about water births and the like. The detractors of the Cesarian often argue that to be born into a cold, clinical world is not particularly welcoming for a baby already in shock from leaving the womb. My view is that, if my child is anything like me - a person who cannot touch doorknobs and who uses a shoe to flush public toilets - s/he will choose the stainless steel of the operating table over the manky soup of a birth pool any day. And if s/he doesn't - well, life is hard, and the sooner s/he accepts that, the better.

So - here is to moms who call a stretch mark a stretch mark and not a badge of honour, and who involuntarily close their legs at the thought of a 12-hour labour. I know there are more of us out there, somewhere.

Men have it so easy

My sister and her two babies have been staying at my mom while her husband is travelling. Part of me feels terribly jealous: the part that remembers how it used to feel when my mom used to wake me up with a bowl of Kreemymeel on winter mornings. The other part of me thinks back to the last time I slept at her house and woke up feeling as if all my vertebrae had been fused during my sleep, courtesy of a 20-year futon. This is the side that won, encouraged as it was by reports of my four year old niece waking my father (who usually sleeps until 11am) well before sunrise by turning on all the lights and hitting him on the head with a rolled up magazine.

But I digress. What struck me most about the visit is the fact that said niece innocently asked my sister," Mommy, when are we going to all go on holiday together without daddy so that he can stay at Granny Leslie [his mother]?"

This exchange brings to mind the differences between men and women, of which there are several. Some of them are funny. I am reminded of the time my husband and I moved into our house, amid tremendous excitement. I ran - literally - from room to room, marvelling at the gorgeousness of the first property I owned and reacquainting myself with the features that I had forgotten all about during the months of securing a home loan, packing up my old house, etc. I was brought up shortly in the en suite bathroom. There, skulking in the back of the shower, like a dessicated cockroach corpse no one had thought to dispose of - and engendering similar terror - was a full. length. mirror. I was horrified. First of all, I ain't no 'Our bodies, our selves' kind of girl. I have absolutely no desire to see myself naked. Yes, call me sexually repressed (I'm sure you're right) but honestly - why would I want to be able to keep track - day by day - of the burgeoning colonies of cellulite clustering around my ass? As I stood there, trying to self soothe (I would make sure that my back is always to the mirror! I would use steaming water so that it fogged up in seconds!), my husband walked in, took one look and said "AWESOME. Shower mirror. Imagine the kinky sex we can have now."

Example number two (and I am beginning to fast think that perhaps said husband has only one thing on the brain): The other day, I took myself to a coffee shop called Warm and Glad. I love this name. It reminds me of those nights when you are little and tucked up in crisp sheets and your hair smells of shampoo and you have a cup of Milo next to your bed. Husband has a slightly different take: "Warm and Glad?" he says. "It sounds like a brothel." (Think long and hard, the similarities should soon become apparent.)

So, looking at these instances, one might be tempted to think that men are fun (and funny) and women (or just me, maybe) have body issues and a strange yearning to regress to childhood. But I think my niece's question highlighted something that, for me, is far more serious: the issue of responsibility. My brother-in-law is highly unlikely ever to overnight at his mom; not only because he doesn't share my sister's fear of serial killers, but because the chances of her taking a pleasure trip without her family are rather slim. Yes, there's no doubt that she could, and many women do - but my point is that, if you're a man, there is nearly always a woman to pick up your pieces (both literally and figuratively).

For me, the reason why this is so hard to deal with is because - and forgive me, feminists - I don't think those bra burners did me any favours. My husband works incredibly hard - but so do I, often sitting at my laptop at 9pm when I have spent the entire day in meetings, interviews, writing articles and, since I am pregnant, making eyebrows and elbows, too. The difference is that when he gets home, there will be a meal waiting for him. That's because I am there to make it. He gets away with chores that slide because his focus is on work - so if he doesn't feed the dogs, it doesn't matter because I'm there to make sure they don't starve. If I forget, there's no safety blanket.

Yes, this is a whine about household politics and who gets to do what. And as my husband says to me, my views are often conflicting - on the one hand, I see women as precious nurturers who make the world go around; on the other, I expect him to treat me as an equal, not Betty Draper. How different women see this debate is incredibly interesting to me: I was in a meeting with a high powered executive (female) the other day, and we were discussing the issue of work life balance. I was saying that I find it difficult to be expected to run a house perfectly AND work full time, and she looked at me, gobsmacked. "I wouldn't want my husband to run my house," she said simply. "He would never be able to make the bed as well as I can. And I wouldn't want to buy my children cupcakes for Baker's Day when it will take me twenty minutes to bake them with her." This from a woman who doesn't just run a house, she runs a company, and a very successful one at that.

The matter has been plaguing me since I was commissioned to write an article on this subject. My editor (a woman so powerful and blisteringly intelligent she makes the Devil Wears Prada look like Bo Peep) told me, extremely matter-of-factly, that women can never devote themselves to their career without sacrificing their home life. Nor can they become full time moms without letting some part of their potential rot away, like a skin tag that turns black and eventually falls off. She didn't moan about it, she didn't even lament it. It's just the way things are. "You never hear a man complaining about how he's battling to fit everything in during a day," she pointed out.

I, on the other hand, am horrified. Look, I would hate to work until 3am as my husband sometimes does. But on the other hand, I can't really get past the fact that - just because he has a penis and I don't - his life, and the choices he has to make, will probably always be that much easier for him.

What to expect when you're expecting

There are women who love being pregnant. I don't actually know any of them, but I have seen pictures of them on all the pregnancy books I own. There they stand, smiling down at the beachballs of their stomachs with a fondly happy look.

I have NEVER looked at my growing stomach like that. The look I give it is one of horror, the same I give clowns - one of sheer disbelief that such a terrifying thing could exist; a disbelief that is compounded by the knowledge that there are, in fact, some folk out there who regard such things as fun and friendly.

If I find my stomach disturbing from an aesthetic point of view, that's nothing compared to the new sensations I am experiencing. Yes, all the books mention that there might be a little itchiness as your skin stretches. Of course, this is followed immediately by a sentence like - "but it's all worth it!" (note the exclamation mark). This is a mild description, and one that doesn't quite correlate with the crazy feeling of a million fleas turned loose inside your bra; a feeling that leaves you scrubbing at your boobs as if you're trying to remove a particularly stubborn toilet stain just before your overly critical mom-in-law arrives for a visit. I've always felt awkward scratching in public, but watch me now - even the knowledge that I am pulling that hideous "I need All Bran face" doesn't put me off.

Then there's that feeling when your belly button pops out. Oooh, the horror - there it's been, a tiny piece of skin tucked snugly inside your belly button for over 33 years, suddenly thrust out into the cold to chafe against leggings, stockings and T-shirts. Let's put this in perspective - imagine you are one of those deep sea creatures that has lived in the parts of the ocean that sunlight just cannot penetrate. Suddenly, you are thrust into the open air. On a hot day. In the tropics. How does your transparent, skinless, hairless body feel? Exactly like my belly button feels every time I pull on a pair of jeans.

I also want to say at this point that I used to fancy myself quite the dancer. Oh yes, I know that the image in my mind (ie Dame Margot transformed into a dandelion) was quite different to the reality (ie a hydra, wearing clogs, with its opposing body parts trying to move in different directions). Nonetheless, compared with my current mobility, I was indeed a paragon of grace. Every night sees me sink gratefully into the couch - only to realise that unless my husband lends me a hand, I will be stuck there for hours. Because humans are programmed to strive for survival, battling against the realities of their situation, I try to defy my circumstaces, desperately scrabbling at the air with hands still clawed from my latest bout of scratching. It is hopelessly amusing to watch - I know, because my husband has a good old guffaw every time he sees me fighting the air for purchase. Nothing makes one feel less dignified, i tell you - oh wait, unless it's the battle to turn over in bed, an exercise that takes a good minute or two as I gather myself on all fours, collecting my five-foot long pregnancy pillow with me, finally reaching the other side not so much through dexterity but because I have collapsed from the sheer effort.

Even so, lying down, uncomfortable though it is, is infinitely preferable to standing, now that I have reached a point where the sheer weight of my own self makes me lean backwards, like a sapling planted in the full force of a Cape Town southeaster.

Have I mentioned the pregnancy drip tray? Perhaps I don't need to - that's because it's plainly visible to anyone I meet, so I don't have to point it out. I can't say that I am a tidy eater - on the contrary, you can always tell which place at the table I have occupied, thanks to the accumulation of various splashes and crumbs. Nowadays, with my stomach creating a not inconsiderable obstacle between me and the table, those splashes and crumbs land up on my bosom. As a result, my clothes continuously look like an ancient doily that has been used as a bib at an old age home.

I can imagine what this sounds like to people who have battled to fall pregnant and desperately want to. And please, do not for a moment think that I do not consider myself enormously blessed, or that I am not beside myself with excitement waiting to meet my child. It's just that I believe there HAS got to be a better way (and I'm pretty sure that if it were men who gave birth, finding it would have been a priority).