One of the first things I told M when we started talking about babies was that I was going to be horrendous and he’d have to put up with it because though billions of women have given birth earlier, I haven’t given birth a billion times. So as far as I was concerned, I was like that very first amoeba in Tree of Life.
I was also going to be paranoid about everything and I wasn’t going to be consoled by the fact that several ladies have delivered in the fields and gone back to work the very next nanosecond. Just so M doesn’t think I’m some stoic soldier types from a Tennyson poem who marches into the jaws of hell feeling sunny as a sunflower. I was going to be difficult. Don’t you agree it’s a joy to be married to me? At least, I come with statutory warnings.
Of course, underlying all of this was this great feeling of martyrdom that had descended upon me. Here I was, going to give up a solid nine months of my life (and more). Here I was, going to turn my gorgeous self into a hippopotamus. Here I was, doing all the hard work for a joy that would be shared between the two of us. Here I was, wondering what my career graph was going to be like in the next two years. Surely, I deserved a statue on the Marina Beach.
But here I am, 2/3rds of the race run (okay, waddled) and I think M deserves a statue on the Marina Beach. Too. (I still deserve the first because I’m still a martyr.)
Here’s why:
1. For taking over the cooking completely during my nausea days and cooking with the door closed (despite the summer heat) to keep the smells away from my belligerent nose.
2. For taking over the cleaning (including the times when I couldn’t make it in time to the sink) completely during my nausea days. All I had to do was smell lemons and lie on the sofa.
3. For staying up and listening to my insane conversations patiently despite being exhausted by all of the above.
4. For coming back home early from work to keep me company in spite of the hundred projects you were working on.
5. For the surprise drives in the middle of the day to Spicer bakery. Yay.
6. For smuggling food in your pockets into ‘No Outside Food’ theatres so I could keep eating throughout the movie.
7. For not acting like I was some gossamer thread just because I was pregnant and trusting me to eat and do whatever I felt like.
8. For giving up three fourths of the bed to me and my multiple pillows without fussing.
9. For coming with me to the doctor’s every time and dealing with my paranoia by making me laugh.
10. For all the low-calorie desserts you’ve whipped up every time I faked a pregnant woman food craving.
And above all, for not doing any of the above as a great favour to me but doing them because you are a decent human being. I hope to do the same if you at all get pregnant someday *har har*.
So, M, thank you very much. I think you should make me that banoffee pie you’ve been promising as a reward for being so artlessly disarming.
Everything's Official About This 
