Phases

From the outside, there doesn’t seem to be any changes, especially during the first trimester of pregnancy. It’s what’s boiling and bubbling inside that causes all the stir.

Blame it all on those chemical substances that produce remarkable changes at very minute concentrations. They’re called hormones, and the more you fight them, the harder they fight back. And there’s no way of winning. (Don’t even think about it.)

The so-called “morning sickness” is something that Mommy D and I never got used to and probably never will. It hit hard from around the 8th or 9th week of pregnancy and lasted until the 13th or 14th. What’s peculiar is that Mommy D’s bout with the raging hormones came not in the morning but at around 7 or 8 pm, or just after dinner.

She would just be immobilized in bed, occasionally running to the sink to vomit but with nothing coming out except saliva. She would describe to me the pain in vivid detail but it was always difficult to picture out, as if it were abstract algebra or topology. I would sometimes ask her if there’s anything I can do to help or to alleviate the pain but she would always say there’s none. What I know, however, is that all women go through this phase at this stage of pregnancy, and there’s really nothing I can do about it (except genetic engineering, hehe).

It was also at this time that her sense of smell bordered on superhuman. She could smell me like a fox from a mile away (hehe…of course, I’m exaggerating). What’s worse is that she hated my smell, even if I had just left the shower a few minutes earlier. She even hated my breath even if I had just brushed my teeth or gargled. It was at this time when I developed a liking for Lotte’s “Cool Shock”, which is some kind of film that you melt in your tongue to instantly give you that “I just brushed my teeth” feeling.

Thank goodness, those superhuman qualities are gone now. And though they may seem abnormal at that time, they were actually very normal. I always tell myself that they are part of the trade-offs that one has to face if one wants to have baby Boky (apart from stopping myself from buying more camera equipment, hehe). We had no choice but to take these matters in stride and with an oversupply of humor.

The morning sickness, the lethargy, the emotional swings: they are just phases that expectant mothers go through during the first trimester. Now that she’s on her 17th week, those phases are over….until, of course, the next pregnancy.

(Hehe…I hope she’s not listening…)