Fujiiyama Mama

  Continued from Part 1 As much as time dragged, two weeks passed and I found myself back at the hospital in the rocket ship chair. This time, the doctor didn’t open the curtain and I was too nervous to ask. She poked around my bits again and went “ah ha! Baby is there!” which was the best three words I’d ever heard in my life. I turned my attention to the tv beside me to check out my new favourite show and sure enough there was something! It didn’t look like anything human, rather it looked remarkably like a shrimp but there it was. MY shrimp. I asked if I could hear the heartbeat and a little sound wave came on the screen accompanied by a rapid paced badum badum badum and if I said I didn’t cry a little I’d be lying through my teeth. A printout of my shrimp was given to me and the doctor confirmed everything looked good and was proceeding as normal. She instructed me to go to the ward office as soon as I could to register the pregnancy, get my swag bag and told me she’d see me ag...

  I’ve never been a big fan of travel by sea but the first trimester of my pregnancy felt like I was constantly on a rocking ship, with all the sea sickness that came along with it. In Japan, morning sickness is called ‘tsuwari’ and I found myself moaning that word aloud more often than I would have liked.  As much as sickness plagued me as it does many pregnant women it also came with a certain excitement. I kind of related it to getting a new tattoo - a tattoo would hurt and itch but every time it did there would be a sense of pride and joy over being reminded of my new art, and in a way this was the same. Each time I felt sick, I would also feel a wave of excitement because at that point it was the only sign of the new life happening inside my body. The first trimester was both a time of excitement and peace. From feeling as exhausted and sick as I did, I spent a lot of time confined to my bed and was thankful to be able to take as much time off of work as I needed. I ...