Exercise excess

I am completely wracked with guilt tonight - the guilt you have when it's been a day of milk tart and carrot cake, and you turn down your one chance at redemption. Yes, I skipped my exercise class.

The thing is, I find it really difficult to dredge up enthusiasm for my special pregnancy classes. I'm always surprised that I actually enjoy exercise. I'm not the kind of person that's built for it:  my head turns into a giant red spongy mass after 20 minutes of exertion and actually swells, often one and a half times its size, making working out something that's best left as a solitary - ahem - exercise. Nor am I very coordinated. To say that I am unathletic is to say that the female javelin throwers at the Olympics were meaty. That's probably why I was always the very last girl chosen for PT teams at school. If it was a choice between me and the girl who had BO, one eye and webbed feet, she would have gone first (I justify this by thinking she would have been really good in the swimming relays).

Nonetheless, I truly do love exercising. I love that whole feeling of pushing yourself and feeling yourself become stronger and fitter, until it feels like you can do absolutely anything, and people look at you admiringly in the Pick n Pay parking lot as you effortlessly sling 10kg bags of dog food over your shoulder.

This is not the feeling I get in my pregnancy exercise classes. One of the reasons for this is because I look so hideously undignified. The puce, sweaty face which is my usual exercise hallmark would be a dream compared to the spectacle I have seen in the class mirrors: If Picasso had had a round period, it would have been inspired by me. There I sit, my giant round belly as large as the giant round exercise ball on which I am precariously perched, like an obese fairy balancing on a misformed toadstool. Then comes my round bosom, and on top of that, my head - also round. I am like a series of circles, a perfect snowman shape. Of course, in comparison to my other round bits, my head looks tiny. And a bit crazy, since the efforts of trying to keep up with the instructors have me bobbing and nodding madly, like one of those dogs on a windscreen.

Speaking of instructors - wow. I often wonder who on earth would give up their precious time, after a strenuous work day, to encourage pregnant women to heave their hefty bodies from side to side. I can't come up with a definite answer but I will say this for them: they are each, in their own way, particularly quirky. Take my favourite one, for example: I like her because she is especially enthusiastic, energetic and loves what she does. Unfortunately, I think she takes this passion too far. The woman has starved and exercised to the point where her limbs look like pieces of linguini, which she tosses about with such emphaticness during the workout it looks as if they are hideous spiders which she is trying to shake off her body. Then there is the one who, in her excited encouragement, takes on the exact look of a rabid Pekingnese. I always feel nervous when she approaches me in case one of her eyes pops off into my lap. Oh, and not forgetting the one who clearly forgets herself and, mesmerised by the awful club music (Katy Perry with her screechy voice which evokes inside me the same feeling as a scratchy hangnail; Rihanna whispering saucily about how she loves the smell of sex - gag - and old Justin Timberlake hits), gets the 'club face'. Yup, you know the one: eyes sexily at half mast, mouth pouting - the look which signals that a move to pull up your shirt and reveal what you, six whiskies down, believe to be your toned six pack, is but seconds away.

Odd though these ladies may look, there's no denying that they are all a damn sight more attractive than us, their slowly stomping students. I don't think any pregnant woman looks especially good from the back: the word 'blockish' comes to mind. Now, picture a room full of these blockish people, all seated on their exercise balls, marching in time to the music as their ponytails sway with that focus that seems to come over people the minute they put on a pair of Nikes. As we roll ourselves forward and back, I am reminded of a Lego army advancing forth, not on steeds, but on bubblegum balls.

I truly admire the mobility of the other ladies, however. I myself have reached an awkward stage where, if I try to do anything like a push up or the plank, my stomach drags on the floor. The feeling is quite revolting, kind of like dead man's finger amplified exponentially. I must look like a snake that's swallowed two ostrich eggs. The worst is when the instructors make us sit on the floor to stretch. Do you know how cruel it is to make a pregnant woman get up from a cross-legged position? The other day I was left flailing around for minutes, trying desperately to find my knees so that I could hoist myself on to them. Since there was no one to help me but other pregnant women, I got plenty of sympathetic smiles, but no assistance.

Hmm - come to think of it, maybe it's not such a bad thing I missed tonight's class. May as well take comfort in another piece of cake.

Me and my motor

You get people who love and adore cars. My sister, for instance, can rattle off the spec of every SUV made by every car manufacturer - something I have always felt is a peculiar trait for someone who collects every edition of Garden & Home. I, meanwhile, am simply proud to know that the word 'spec' exists.

Also, past experience has taught me to think of cars as functional pieces of tin designed to get us from A to B. It's an entirely Zen approach that leaves no room for emotional attachment, and ensures that I am free to spend my money on things besides car repayments (utterly random things - like the stage I went through of hunting in junk shops to buy old editions of Nancy Drew mysteries; or the 300 plus recipe books I own in spite of the fact that I never cook; or the gazillions of salad servers I own despite going out of my way to avoid lettuce at all costs).

I learned to adopt this attitude when my mother gave me my very first car, a Jazz Blue Chico which I duly called Geoff (as in Jazzy Geoff). She was quick to catch on to the fact that driving was never going to be one of my strong points. Her lack of faith became evident when she took me on a practice ride and, by the time we had progressed to about five kilometers away from our house, decided she would rather hop out of the car and walk home than spend another instant with me in the driver's seat. I was almost relieved: there are only so many times you can see someone frantically depressing an imaginary brake before you begin to lose confidence in your abilities. My father, thankfully, had a far more relaxed approach. "You really should have tried to stop at the red light," he would say mildly as a phalanx of furious drivers struck up a hooting chorus and tried to dodge my right turn.

I blame my lack of skills on the fact that I got my license with a teacher who taught me the art of parallel parking by strategically placing a piece of Prestik on the back windshield. All you had to do was line up the Prestik with the test poles and hey presto, you were in. Sadly, though, someone forgot to pass on the memo about the Prestik to the major car manufacturers. Anyone who has tried to parallel in 4th Ave Parkhurst on a Saturday morning will realise what a grave oversight this is.

As it turned out, by the time Geoffrey and I parted ways, he had a waist - both sides were concave from regularly smudging them against walls, trees, poles, other cars (which also gave him rather an interesting paint job). In fact, it would be fair to say he resembled a parabola, since all sides were vaguely conked in. There's no denying that Geoffrey earned his stripes though - he is, to this day, the only car I know that could take off in third gear.

Also, he had to put up with a lot. I am an extremely messy person - not dirty, just messy, although my passengers over the years would contest this. My sister is one such passenger - and after the tramezzini incident, I can't really blame her. You see, one night, I was driving home after a late theatre show and STARVING. So I pulled up at a Woolies one stop and bought a tramezzini, planning a late dinner. By the time I got home, my dinner could not be found. I thought this was very mysterious - since I was driving home from a ballet and not a debauched night of shooteres, it was highly unlikely that my memory of purchasing the item was suspect. So I had a search around but was honestly unable to retrieve the tramezzini, covered as it was by a landslide of papers and magazines. It was my sister who found it, around three months later. Looking for some keys that had slipped behind her seat, she pulled out the food and asked, horrified, what it was. I still maintain that the scariest part about this story is the fact that the tramezzini looked pretty much the same as it did when I bought it. Surely, left that long, it should have become a laboratory of sorts? Makes you wonder what they really do put in those things.

So the tramezzini may have gone to waste, but there have been times when my hoarde has definitely come in handy. Once, while on the road, I received a spontaneous invite to go to a swimming party. Other girls would have had to turn around, go home and fetch a bikini - but not I. After a rummage through the rubbish, I found just what I needed. I've had similar luck with shoes, when I've realised that the pair I have on just aren't the best match for what I'm wearing. Lucky for me, there has often been an alternative at hand.

And as for 'infllight' entertainment - you'd be surprised how much quicker those traffic jams go when you have a novel with you (no, of course I am not proud of that particular habit - but it's better than, say, picking your nose in traffic, which seems to be the pastime of choice for other drivers).

Anyway, after Geoffrey came George, my little silver Micra. The transition between the two was difficult - I remember sitting in the parked car outside my house for a full half hour the night before the swap was made, doing the ugly cry (the one where your mouth opens wide in a way that would give even Edvard Munch nightmares; the mucus strings connecting your top and bottom incisors so thick and strong it's a wonder your jaws don't snap back together). Poor George - as it turns out, he too was put through the ringer. When we parted ways, he had no more power steering, no more air con, and one of his back doors wouldn't open.

I can't be blamed, then, for welcoming my Mom Mobile with open arms as a little bit of luxury after the Boot Camp exercise that driving George had become (you'd be surprised how aerobic driving a car without power steering can be). There is a reason people love those German feats of engineering. The only thing is, I find my new car to have very little personality. If she were to have one, it would be that of a stern German governess, who would wear her hair parted down the middle and braided into plaits which are then looped over each ear. She would dress in dirndl skirts and demand you click your heels together whenever you see her - which is something I am very nearly tempted to do every morning as I gaze upon her frostly countenance.

She has all the mannerisms of a strict governess too. I know this because of her eagerness to employ Park Distance Control. Really, I have to query the wisdom of this feature. The very people who need Park Distance Control, whose every venture behidn the wheel is likely to set off an insane and frenetic beeping, are the ones who are most likely to be distracted by it. Needless to say, Park Distance Control has become the soundtrack of my life. Sometimes I get it from both the front left side and the back right, making me feel like a naughty schoolchild being scolded by my mother AND my father at once. The very worst incident was, ironically, on my first day of driving the car when, in spite of the car's insistent warnings, I drove it into the wall. There was a sickening moment when the car was squealing like a troop of monkeys caught in the branches of a burning baobab, as the sound of the Park Distance Control melded with the screech of metal against brick. Then, as I surveyed the side mirror dangling from the door like a tooth clinging desperatelt to the gum of a prize fighter recently punched in the mouth, all went silent. I have not felt such disapproval from a car since the time I followed a Garmin's advice and drove up one of those perilously steep Cape Town roads, so narrow that even two anorexics walking sideways and sucking in their stomachs could not pass at the same time. (Interestingly, the Garmin refused to take responsibility. I could tell by the crisp, accusing way it said 'recalibrating' - and then kept quiet, indicating that I was too much of a lost cause for even the most advanced satellite technology to assist).

My car is also a dyed in the wool snob. I know this because every time a vendor comes too close, it starts bleating - that damned Park Distance Assist again. It can be very stressful when someone is trying to wash your car, sell you a newspaper, convince you that they have a club foot and throw avos in your window all at the same time, whilst your car is bellowing in protest to their proximity.

Nonetheless, I sense that the German governess, for all her airs and graces, is going the same way as poor Geoffrey and George. The Tuna Juice Incident was the first inkling that this might be the case. Once again, my mammoth bump had got in the way between the driveway and the boundary wall. My first attempt at solving the problem was to place my lunch packet (containing a tupperware of tuna pasta made the night before) on the seat to free my hands. Then, I placed one foot on the ledge of the front seat, one hand on the inside and another on the outside, hoisting myself in. I dare say it was actually a rather strong and graceful move; the kind that might be practised by a stripper on who pole (albeit in a club catering specifically to men with strong oedipal hang-ups). Panting from my exertions, I placed myself on my seat - and noticed I was sitting in something wet. And fishy. Yes, my tupperware had leaked tuna juice all over my new car. I was now faced with two choices: I could either head inside, fetch a cloth and wipe up the spill - or I could suck it up and smell of mackerel all day, and leave my car to reek like a fishing trawler. I am ashamed to say that, given the effort required to repeat my snazzy move, I decided it wouldn't be so bad to smell of fish after all.

Thus, my car has already acquired a broken mirror and some odorous sticky patches which have since become embedded with Jack Russell fur.

See why I am just not a candidate for a smart ride?

The things I miss the most

With just six more weeks of pregnancy left, I am definintely looking forward to no longer being a two-in-one person. There are some things that I have truly, truly missed during the past eight months. The way you miss things when you just want them to go back to the way the were. Of course, I'm worred that they never will - especially since the things I miss are:

1. My body

There are several large breeds of dogs that weigh less than I do. One of these is an exotic type of mastiff, known for its heavy musculature and massive head. In a nutshell, this is no poodle - yet put it opposite me on a seesaw and it will hover in mid air for several minutes.

This kind of bulk comes with its own misfortunes. Last night, I was trapped in my own car, in my own driveway, for several minutes. There is a special kind of claustrophobic hell that comes from knowing that the door to your warm, happy home is but two seconds away - but that you cannot access it. The thing is, my driveway is very narrow. I am not. When I opened the driver's side door, I realised that it simply would not be possible to slilnkily squeeze my way between my car and the neighbour's wall. Of course, I tried to suck my stomach in - or, maybe I didn't - since I no longer have stomach muscles, it's hard to tell. I even contemplated doing a parachute jump of sorts, standing on the seat ledge and preparing to propel myself forward. 'Propel' is simply a word that cannot be used in relation to pregnancy, and the result was that I just felt more panicked and trapped as I stood just 15cm above the ground, wondering how I would reach it. So, I thought I would try exit out the passenger side. Crossing over the gearstick to the next seat was an operation lasting almost a minute, during which I did things with my legs that would make a double-jointed porn star envious. Sadly, my efforts were in vain - the gap between my car and the house wall was even smaller on this side. At that moment, I felt true empathy for those peopel who were recently trapped by the Cape snows.

Of course, there are some parts of my body that I miss more than others. My small boobs, for a start. For a girl who hardly ever used to wear a bra, the sensation of having gigantic breasts resting on your stomach is a strange one. I'm particularly aware of it at night. So, I have developed a routine: after putting on my pyjama top, I have taken to fashioning my top into a small fabric shelf to swaddle my boobs in an effort to minimise the skin on skin contact.

And my bum. Now, I have never had a nice bum - or bums, should I say, since I appear to have been blessed with two of them. The first is your standard, common-or-garden variety bum. But underneath it is a little bum of its own, made entirely of fat and cellulite. It's not a great look, especially from profile, where the afore-mentioned cellulite stands out in liquid waves so that it looks for all the world like I have a lava lamp attached to my backside. Sound disconcerting? It was. Nonetheless, it was still a defineable bum, which is more than I can say for what is happening behind me now. I appear to have morphed into a giant human Tetris block - a large, lumpy square.

2. Freedom of movement
My husband's favourite game at the moment is 'beetle', a form of cow tipping. He waits for me to be sitting upright (usually on the bed, where I have to take rests between applying my stretch mark cream and putting on my pyjamas. This is, in itself, a major production, which involves me having to lean against the wall for support). He then gently prods me and watches as I fall over, and for several seconds more as I try to right myself.

Bathing is another activity that has become compromised. I have taken to having loooooong baths, not because I love them but because I can't get out without a show of Herculean strength as I have myself out of the water, usually with 'wooooooooooof' sound more commonly associated with arcade game characters that have just been punched in the stomach.

Sadly for me, just as my agility leaves, my clumsiness ratches a notch. I think this is because my hands are very swollen. To be honest, it's kind of hard to tell. Hand modelling was never in my future; my fingers appear to have stopped growing when I was 10, and when I say they are not slender, my point is best illustrated by an awkward moment when my husband was proposing and realised that he was hurting me a little as he tried to screw the reluctant ring onto my pudgy finger. Nonetheless, I think that swelling is the only reason there can be for me dropping nearly everything I pick up. Of course, things that have been dropped must be retrieved. In the past, this would have involved a simple little forward fold. Now, I have to brace myself, planting my feet in a perfectly turned out second position and bending down in a way that forces my bum far out, so that I bear an uncanny resemblance to someone who really wanted to be a ballerina, realised that she did not have the poise for pirouettes, and more sensibly took up sumo instead - but can't bring herself to let go of the illusion of grace.

3. Driving
Of course I can still drive. The thing is, though, that without my core muscles, I find it really difficult to turn and check blind spots. As a result, I have gently tapped two pedestrians in the past month. Please note that I say gently tapped and not run over. For the most part, they were very understanding - except for the first one who, to be honest, I felt could have been a little more sympathetic as he was a car guard and a gentle bumper bashing is surely as much an occupational hazard for him as paper cuts are for me.

4. My skin
I think it is very important for women who have never been pregnant before to know that it is not just your stomach that grows. Everything on your skin does, too. For example, I have a mole on my back that used to be a freckle - now it feels like I have a raisin or a dead fly stuffed down my shirt. Nice. Also, I am covered in skin tags, making me look like human velcro. Oh, and a rash of pimples has cropped up on my face. Most of these are along my hairline and, disgustingly, I have developed an obsession with monitoring their progress, so that I am constantly rubbing my head like an obssessive-compulsive ape after a shot of Red Bull. Also, my nose has gone from being unremarkable to a major landmark on my face. As part of this, the skin around it has developed a striking resemblance to tenderised steak - red and raw. Yup, I'm one pretty gal.

5. Food
Don't get me wrong - I eat. And eat. And eat. One doesn't put on 28kg from laughing at the fridge as you stride merrily past it on the way to your Pilates class, after all. Plus, I have managed to widen my horizons and find a deep love for foodstuffs I would never previously have contemplated; for example, it's not uncommon to find me sitting at my desk chugging from a two-litre bottle of milk the way an athlete who has just finished the Comrades would drain an Energade. But there are things from the pre-pregnancy days that I really do miss: that second cup of coffee, the one that gives you a tiny kick in the stomach. The salty, silky taste of blue cheese gnocchi. The 'pow' in your mouth that only salmon, soy sauce and wasabi can deliver.

This is why I have several 'new life' resolutions for when I am no longer pregnant: Whenever I see someone whose shoelaces are untied, I will bend to do them up, then bow deep and low when they say thank you, then triple check the blind spots in my car as I scoot off to have a meal of deep fried camembert.

Fashion Man

I am the very first person to admit that I am sartorially challenged. My weird ways with clothes stretch back to my childhood, when my sister persuaded me to wear a skirt with an elasticised waist around my neck so that I could look exactly like a seal in a circus - and come on, who doesn't doesn't think that's a suave and enviable image?

It's not as if things improved as I grew older. The first time I was asked to a high school dance, I asked my mom to sew me what I now call 'the Victorian milkmaid slut' outfit - Victorian, because I insisted on teaming my dress - a black tube adorned with a giant white bow across the decolletage (and before you get too judgey, remember this was the 90s) - with elbow length gloves. Slutty, because the tube was stretched to its full capacity against my podgy 14-year-old frame and ended well above my knees (which were, I must mention, kitted out in sheer tights in 'Blackmail' - another contradictory touch, as this was the colour, somwhere between a daring black and a frumpy grey, favoured by middle aged women the world over as they yearned to go back to their more femme fatale years but didn't quite have the courage to dress the part). I daresay the outfit wouldn't have been too bad, were it not for those gloves - or perhaps the fact that the entire ensemble was made from taffeta, a fabric I will forever associate with Scarlett O' Hara but which at the time I loved because of the swishing, sea-like sounds it made every time I moved. Of course, now I realise the outfit's audible component was its very worst fault. The finishing touch was my hair - it being the 90s, I of course had to have an updo, complete with romantic escpaing tendrils. Sadly, my overzealous hairdresser left the curlers in my hair too long and the effect was rather less, "Oh look, you've just caught me with my locks tumbling loose after a day of picking wild meadow flowers" and rather more as if I had attached some Goldilocks pot scourers to each temple.

And then came university. The 90s was a forgiving time for fashion - you could stick on a crusty flannel shirt and be lauded as a grunge icon - ditto if you decided not to wash off your mascara for three nights running. I'm not saying that it was a particularly pretty time. Remember Buffaloes, for instance? Clearly, this was an era where 'elegance' was a dirty word. But, while my varsity friends embraced the excuse this gave them to wear whatever, whenever, I for some reason went all corporate. There I was, at South Africa's most hippie university (actually, the only place I know that has bungees and other people walking around in tie dye and dolphin shirts with dream catchers around their necks), stalking about in clunky platform shoes and Allie McBeal skirts with fitted turtlenecks. I like to think the look was not so much ugly as just age- inapropriate. What 20-year-old wants to look as if the next words out her mouth are going to be "I think that, before we unpack that, we should just take it offline?"

Hopefully, things have improved now. Although sometimes I get clear signals that they haven't. Like when I go to my exercise classes and everyone is wearing their streamlined Nikes with little secret socks and racerback vests and I am channelling Janet Jackson circa Rhythm Nation - yes, those are shuffle socks, and yes, they do terminate only slightly below the knee, leaving just a gap between what can only be described as giant gardening slacks.

Maybe this is why I don't get fashion men. I'm talking about guys who wear skinny jeans (especially in colours like scarlet and mustard) and scarves. Or who go without socks. The latter is a look I find particularly offputting. Is there anything more sad and vulnerable than a man's bony, white, hairy little ankle peeking out beneath the cuff of a rolled jeans leg? It just seems all neglected, like it wants desperately to be wrapped in a nice woollen sock and told that everything will be alright, summer will come again and bring with it a tan. Another reason I can't take this look is because it means that either the man's large, long-toed foot is sitting and marinating sweatily inside its clammy brogue. Or that it is snuggled inside a Secret Sock. Now, I thoroughly agree that Secret Socks are the only answer to summer days and synthetic shoes. We all have them. Yet there is something about them that reminds me of a bathroom where someone has tried to cover up a shameful event with a spray of air freshener (is anyone really fooled by this? Do manufacturers truly believe that is what pine forests smell like?)

Maybe it's the thought of men and Secret Socks together that doesn't sit well with me. This is where the word 'metrosexual' is going to raise it's head. While I am the first to recoil in horror at the sight of those people whose greasy heads means that their pillows have 'man smell', at the same time, I can't help but think nostalgically of the days when guys didn't have Hair Styles. They just had hair, and it sat on top of their heads. It didn't stray, artfully messy and playfully tousled, from one side of the parting to another. It just was.

Also, when the hair was in their pants, that's where it stayed. I'm all for back waxing - but surely going beyond this point is taking grooming a little too far? Grooming is something I hate. It's just another area for me to feel inadequate - as in my thighs are too big, my ass too lumpen, and my bikini line so far from Brazil it's like the unHollywood. But worrying about things like that is just part of being a woman - men are lucky precisely because they don't have to, and the advent of summer does not have to mean trying to sneak a surreptitious scratch at a flaming ingrown hair. So why would they do that to themselves? And more to the point, why would women want them to? At the risk of summonsing the 90s yet again, Dr Evil may believe a shaved scrotum to be quite breathtaking - but is that always a good thing? I just don't know how I would react if I were greeted by such a thing, but I am pretty sure there would be a lot of laughter.

Then again, I know that I am a complete anachronism. One that would cause any fashion-lover - male or female - to reach for a plastic bag so that they could let the hyperventilating begin.

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).