Prickly Heat

For the past 8.5 months, pregnancy has been really good to me. Other than having to wake up early to go to the bathroom and the occasional leg cramp (which are a frightening window into labor) I have fared well compared to the stories I read, hear, and imagined.

Then, this weekend.

Thursday morning I could tell from the sweat beading lightly across me as the sun peeked into our bedroom that the air conditioning was out (again). Every ten weeks or so, the filters get clogged (only in our room) and then we have a few days of stale air. Up until now, the temperatures in our desert state stayed below 40 degree Celsius (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit) so this was not too huge an inconvenience.

But now that it is summer and I'm carrying around my own heater wherever I go with 34 week old baby boy, the air not being on was not a good option.

I was in a hurry to work and thought that I could get the maintenance guys to come on Saturday - Friday being the Muslim holiday - so only one more night.

Needless to say on Thursday night when I still hadn't fallen asleep by 6 a.m., right next to my blissfully snoring husband (who would want me to say gently, barely snoring) I was kicking myself for not having made the time.

Saturday came and went with the guards on the compound who deliver all the information to the work crews and like to keep tabs on our lives shaking their heads at us. After nearly three weeks of visits by the water crew to fix our water heater, we now had even more problems? They had that South Asian disbelief my parents raised us with when we said we had a headache or had been in a car accident.

Why? You could almost hear the question forming on his lips.

I stayed home from work on Sunday after a second sleepless night; waiting for the maintenance crew. Luckily I used the time to do what many would refer to as 'nesting'. Having another crew of carpenters in to assemble the Pack 'n' Play, move furniture, get the nanny's room ready, move the crib upstairs.

Still no sign of the crew.

I wrote 2,000 words for a manuscript long over due.

No air conditioning guys.

I dropped my car in the industrial area (a separate city from where the rest of us live) and came home.

Nobody but the busy carpenters, hanging shelves in the nanny's room. Why couldn't they fix the air?

I took a nap downstairs where the air was working, on one of the sofas. And then the doorbell rang.

At 6:00 p.m. they came.

And said they would come back today to double check it was working (it isn't) and they didn't.

Additionally because of the heat, I have a strange itchiness on my feet from flats I bought that apparently made my feet sweat. The open toe shoes or the mostly leather ones I've been wearing my adult life were too high for this late in the pregnancy. Though people say there is no way to avoid the leg cramps, I was all for trying.

Instead I now have a strange heat rash that the nurse at my husband's work says is 'prickly heat'. Bless him, he's swabbed my swollen toes with rubbing alcohol (which a friend was promptly worried about getting into my blood stream and into the placenta).

We bought some powder today and calamine lotion.

Hoping it will work (the powder has taken away some of the burning already but I feel it starting again as I type0.

The air hopefully is much cooler now than it was the last few nights.

And so it continues, marching towards the end of this journey -- which is only the beginning of our little one coming into the world.

No one said it would be easy. And I know most people would not consider this hard.

I felt proud of myself today when someone came into the office for a meeting and said:

"I thought you'd be much bigger. You're okay."

I repeated my Facebook status to her that I had up a few days ago.

"We don't care what you think about us."

And that's true. I haven't actually embraced being pregnant until this last month. And the truth is there: we don't care. We are too busy with powder on our feet, sleepless nights, and leg cramps.

And this is before the baby shows up!

Focusing on the Good

Things have been quite on the blog front the last month because they have been runaway train busy in the real world.

Being seven months pregnant has given me an appreciation for what women have been doing quietly to ensure the survival of the species since the start of the human species; working during this time has been both a blessing and also a challenge.

I'm astonished to discover the limits of my own strength -- which until now I've managed to push through -- being sleepy and unable to get things done; grumpy and not wanting to come out of a black mood; most of all impatient with things that are the way they are because its in people's nature and they can't change.

The rigid nature of some people or inefficient systems is not a happy thing to be confronted with when the entire flexibility of your body is being confirmed daily as your stomach, breasts, and face continue expanding. Not to mention fingers, feet, and legs.

In the Arab world where family is at the center of cultural and religious obligations, being pregnant is a pleasure. My co-workers don't let me lift heavy objects or expect me to pretend like everything in my life isn't changing all at once in preparation for the biggest change of all -- the arrival of the baby.

This supportive culture has draw backs as well, however, including that everyone says you are 'glowing' and you get pumped up by their exclamations of "You look great!" "It totally suits you!"

The reality is always there to face you. It's true what they say: the camera does not lie.

I've tried to say at work at that there are no more photos allowed of me from now on - months 7 through to the end. In a culture where many women are not photographed because of their families' displeasure, this could pass. But the opposite is true: everyone wants pictures of 'the bump' in profile.

Well the bump is turning into much more of a sizeable mountain than the euphemistically named "bump."

Going forward I'm going to give up all pants or the requisite bending of your legs to get into a pair of anything. Dresses are going to be the norm going forward.

So many new mothers told me not to buy too many maternity clothes but apparently they didn't get as big as I did or they weren't working as long as I am. Because my clothes, while always loose to be appropriate in the Middle East, now leave nothing to the imagination about the 'bump'. Wearing tight shirts just makes my already stretching skin feel more watermelon like.

The best part of this has been being pregnant with other people who are also in the various stages of this humanity serving lunacy. Take for example today: a friend and I who both tested a little over on our glucose tests are now here with our laptops at the hospital during the four hour extended test for which we fasted all night, and now can't eat anything until it's over (mixed with blood drawing every hour for four hours).

So it's true: misery loves company.